I800A Submitted

We received our approved homestudy on Monday, June 1. Next step is the I800A immigration approval. This process is taking about 30-40 days. I have seen some in the last couple of days only take 28 days! We are hoping our approval is fast! USCIS will receive our application on Thursday. In a couple of weeks, we will receive an appointment card to go to Charlotte to get our fingerprints done. I have heard they don't frown at you if you come in early at that location! So, we will be going early, if possible. No one really knows if it speeds up the process or not. Some say their officer would approve them immediately and others say their officer waited to approve until after the fingerprint card appointment date. But, it's worth trying!

Our timeline right now is looking like we will be DTC (dossier to China) in July! Our agency has a couple of kiddos in mind for our family! :) They can't match us yet since we aren't close enough to DTC, but it could possibly come when we are DTC, so about a month! Once we are DTC it will take about a week and we will be LID, which means we are logged into the China system and can then lock a file for a specific LID kiddo, which means a younger, more minor needs kiddo.

Since we are expecting a very fast match after we are DTC/LID, we will have another very large payment due at that time. Would you consider helping us reach our goal to bring our baby girl home by giving a tax deductible donation? We have been so incredibly blessed by those of you that have already given so generously. Over the next 4-6 months, we will pay $22,000, which includes the orphanage donation, in-country expenses for our daughter, and travel expenses.  These last 3 payments are the largest that we will make and they all come very close together. However, I know the Lord has called us to do this, so I have no doubt in my mind that he will provide. However, my crazy math/accounting brain is driving me nuts! Please pray for us!

Also, I am making applique sibling shirts and applique bags and selling them on Facebook. Let me know if you are interested.

Be on the lookout in the next couple of months. After we are matched with our sweet girl, we are going to raffle an iPad Mini! You won't want to miss out on this! There is also a possibility of a t-shirt fundraiser! So, please keep watching for more information coming soon!

Thank you again for all of your continued prayers and support! We are so incredibly blessed to have all of you in our lives and ready to help in whatever way we need it.

Wokking and Rolling

Our homestudy has been sent to AAC for approval. I received an email back today stating that we may need Conner's teacher to submit a reference letter. SERIOUSLY?! That is perfectly fine with me, but it sure would have been nice to know that like 4 weeks ago! So, we are waiting to hear back if that is needed before approval or not. Hoping they let me know something tomorrow. I sent the remaining documents for our dossier as well as the I800A forms and payment. The I800A form is an application to make sure we are suitable to adopt a child from China. This process will take as few as 6 weeks and as long as 12 weeks. The few that were just finished took only 6 weeks, so I am really hoping we are on the faster end. Once that is completed, we are DTC (Dossier To China)!!! After DTC, we should be LID (Logged In Dossier), which means we will be ready to be matched with our precious little girl! 

Starr and Bobby Bowman held an Egg Roll Fundraiser for us at our church this past Saturday. This family's generosity continues to blow me away. They have included us in all of their family activities and we have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all of them better. Starr has been an amazing support to me throughout this whole process. I couldn't ask for a better sister to walk along this path with my family. She is amazing and is always willing to lend a helping hand. So many of you were able to come out and enjoy the famous "Bowman Egg Rolls!" Let's put it this way, if you didn't make it out to get any, you have no idea what you missed out on! They were FANTASTIC! Starr did an amazing job coordinating all of this and we had an amazing turnout. Thank you to those that helped serve, roll, clean up, manage money, cook, and donate supplies, tea, and cupcakes. You all are such a blessing to us and we are so very grateful that we get to share this journey with each of you. We are still waiting for the total count to come in, but we sold over 725 egg rolls and raised $2,052 so far. Praise God for his continued guidance and for providing everything we need to bring our little girl home! He gets all of the glory! 

Please continue praying for us as well as our precious girl and her birth family. Thank you again for your continued support as we bring baby girl home from China!

So What's Next...

We have met two times with our social worker. China requires us to meet four times, and every person in the family must be present. When we met our social worker the first time, she commented that for a domestic adoption she only has to meet with the family two times. She said that typically she gets all of the questions out of the way the first meeting and then they review the homestudy report at the second meeting. Well, we have to meet four times! We will probably meet at a park and let the kids play for a little while so we can chat about whatever happens to be going on at that time. That's a meeting, right?! The last time will be to go over the homestudy report. After the homestudy report is written, it will be sent back to Hopscotch and they will finalize it and send it to AAC, our placing agency. We hope to have our homestudy complete by the middle of May and at the latest the end of May.

What's next...our dossier (dȯs-ˌyā) will be put together. This is the paperwork that is sent to China to introduce ourselves and ask permission to adopt from China. We have been sending AAC documents throughout this process that must be included in our dossier. We are currently waiting for our passports to come in and new birth certificates for Patrick and me and our marriage certificate to come in. We took pictures of the house this weekend and chose pictures of our family that we will include in our dossier. These pictures were so important as it is really the only visual thing that we can show to the Chinese government about our family and who we are. It's a quick glimpse into our life. All of those have been printed and are ready to go to AAC. There are a few other documents that we are finishing up and will include those as well. So, the paperchase is almost finished! Woo hoo!! Then, we get to move on to bigger and better things and the waiting will begin as we wait to be matched with our beautiful daughter! Keep praying for our family and our daughter!

Conner's Interview for the Homestudy

On Saturday, April 25, we met Emily at Chik-Fil-A in Morganton for her to interview Conner. This was a perfect place to meet and we could let Braxton play while Conner answered his questions. I prepared Conner for some of the questions that might be asked. I told him she may ask him what he thought of his parents, what he enjoyed about school, what did he enjoy doing in his free time, what did he think about us adopting a girl from China, etc. I wanted him to be prepared and not afraid. Emily is amazing and is super easy to talk to, so I knew he would do great! She and Conner sat at a table across from Patrick and me and I could hear him talking. He did great and was very open about the things she asked him. When he finished he told me that was really easy! She asked him if he had any questions about the adoption or the process. He told her no that he kind of understand what would happen. Patrick and I have been very open with him about everything and how the process works. He has seen pictures of some of the children that have been adopted into other families and some that are still waiting to be adopted. We have explained the special needs that some of these children have and the needs that we are open to. I want him to feel a part of this process and know where his sister is coming from and what she will be losing when she comes to our family. She of course will gain so much, but she will also lose everything she has ever known, whether that be good or bad. It's familiar to her and it's all she has ever known. We pray for her heart daily that God would prepare her heart for us and for Him to also give her peace that only He can provide. We also pray that she feel that same peace immediately when she meets us for the first time. Continue praying for us as we continue on this journey that God has lead us down!

Homestudy Interviews

We are moving right along in this process! We had our first homestudy interview with our social worker on Thursday, April 23. Our social worker is from Asheville and her name is Emily. She is super sweet and so easy to talk to. When we filled out our application with Hopscotch who is our homestudy agency, the application was full of interview type questions. I had tried to do as much research as I could regarding the questions that might be asked and what all the social work would be look for in our house and outside around the house. We cleaned like crazy and made sure all of the cleaning products were put on the top shelf in the laundry room or the cabinet had a child lock on it. She was scheduled to arrive at 5:15, so as soon as I finished working at 4:30, I immediately started making cookies so the house would smell yummy and maybe she would give us a good review! About 5:20 she arrives. She apologizes for being a few minutes late and then we introduce the boys to her and introduce ourselves. Braxton unfortunately has had a cold for a couple of weeks and is still fighting it, so he wasn't feeling the best. He fell asleep on the couch a few minutes after she arrived and slept the entire time! It actually turned out to be a great thing so we could sit and talk for several hours and answer all of the questions that she had. Since our application had so many interview questions on it and we did such a good job of detailing so many of them, there weren't a lot of questions left to be answered. She asked us the strengths and weaknesses of our marriage and what we like to do as a family. It's kind of funny, we were telling her that we literally do everything as a family! We grocery shop together, run errands together, soccer practice together, and whatever else we need or want to do. We are a very close family and we love spending time with one another. She asked us about our discipline techniques and we had to commit to never spanking our adopted daughter. Spanking is definitely not our first form of discipline, but if it is needed, it will be used. With a child that has been in an orphanage or a foster home, you never know exactly what types of trauma they may have endured during their life and you don't want to do something that could possibly bring up past experiences that were very traumatic for the child. So, when we said we wouldn't spank her, she then asked us how we would explain that to the boys! Of course we hope they would understand, but honestly, our boys don't get spankings very often, so I don't foresee it being an issue. When it comes up, we will address it. I know Conner has such a big heart, and I know he will understand immediately. Braxton, well, he just beats to his own drum! He is just like his Uncle Chris, but doesn't have the heart that Chris has! Super sweet boy, but he's all boy! Conner has the heart that Uncle Chris has! So, once the interviewing was finished with Patrick and me, we showed her our house and property and she was finished for the night. Whew! Glad that is all behind us now! All that stress for nothing! :) But, we have a super clean and straight house now! One step closer to our baby girl!

Paper Chase

We have been busy collecting all kinds of different documents for our homestudy. This is the "not-so-fun" part! Once we get all of the documents to our homestudy agency, and prove that we aren't criminals, we can begin the homestudy interviews. We are currently waiting for our agency to receive the child abuse clearances from all of the states we have lived in since we were 18. We are hoping this doesn't take too long and we can get on with the interviews. AAC, our placing agency, is located in Colorado. Since they aren't local, we were unable to use them for our homestudy. Therefore, we chose Hopscotch Adoptions, which is located in High Point, NC. I heard great things about them from other NC families, so we decided to pursue them for our homestudy. 

We also sent our disclosures and medical needs form to AAC on Wednesday. They will begin putting our dossier together that will be sent to China to log us into their system to be matched with a child. There isn't a lot they can do until they receive our homestudy. There are some documents that we have to provide them with that we are currently working on getting as well. Some of the same documents must be provided for our homestudy, so we just have to get 2 copies of those items. There is so much to prove in this process! 

Please keep praying for us! We are so excited to see what all God has in store for our family!

God's Calling

When I was a Senior in high school, I remember being at Salem Baptist Church in Raymond, MS watching a video of children overseas who didn't have food, water, or shelter. My heart broke for those children and I wanted to help in some way. Since then, I have felt the calling to adopt a child from China. This calling has continued to be dear to my heart and each time I hear of a family adopting, it immediately brings tears to my eyes.

I never told Patrick about the calling God placed on my heart when I was in high school. However, soon after coming to North Carolina, he was doing a study about how God adopts us into his family. He began reading a book about adoption and felt the Lord tugging at his heart to follow through with it. We knew then wasn't the right time, but we felt that if this was something God had planned for us, he would show us when the timing was right.

Over the last year, I began doing more research regarding international adoption in China. God continued pulling at my heart. Every few days Patrick would ask if I had found any other information. I kept telling him that I didn't know what else to read. I felt like the next step was to submit our application and start the process.

On March 4, 2015, our application was submitted to AAC, Adoption and Family Network. On March 9, 2015, we received an email stating that our application was approved!