YIPPEEEE!!!!!!! I opened my email today after work and received an email from our Social Worker....these are her exact words.....WOW! Your homestudy was approved by ICPC and forwarded to Atlanta on Jan 23, 2008. That is AMAZING....since they got the study on the 17th, that means they approved it in two working days (since the 21st was a holiday). That has never happened in the 8 years I have been doing this....
I can hardly sit here and type this post, I am so excited! I have jumped around a little bit, okay a lot.... called Ricky and thanked God for His gracious mercy. He knows I am not patient and He is being so sweet to move all of this right along! Thank you Lord!!! Okay I know that yall are saying what does this mean exactly. Well, ICPC is the State of Alabama office that has approved us to be adoptive parents under State law...USCIS is in Atlanta and this is "Homeland Security" We have to do fingerprints again with them and they will issue us approval for Sophie's visa to come into the United States and become a United States citizen. This is our last stage of the process and then it all goes together with ALL the other paperwork that we have done to China and this is called our Dossier. Once this gets to China is is reviewed by the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) to verify that all our paperwork is correct. The information from my adoption agency says "CCAA uses strict and specific guidelines to scrutinize your dossier documents". Yikes! I hope that every "T" is crossed and every "i" is dotted!! Then the CCAA will gives us travel approval (TA) and say come and get your precious little daughter!!!!! Well they won't really say it like that but I know that is what they mean to say!!!!!
Thank you for sharing this journey with us. Your prayers and support means so much to us. We can't wait for everyone to meet our little sweetheart!!!
