Chronology of Events Home 08 Aug. 2002 - Open House at Catholic Charities - We learned about this Open House from our church bulletin, and decided to check it out. The Open House was very informative and provided us with a lot to think about. A family that had adopted two daughters spoke about their experiece. Their two beautiful daughters were there, laughing and playing and chasing each other around. The family also passed pictures around of their trip. 30 Jan. 2003 - First Educational - Informative introductory meeting where we got to meet the other couples that will be going through this process with us. We also learned the basics of being an "ethnic" family, and were given a reading list of books related to China adoptions. 27 Feb. 2003 - Second Educational - We finally get into the details of the process. We were given a binder with all sorts of information about the China Adoption process, particularly dossier preparation. It seems a bit overwhelming at first, but Catholic Charities has done a great job documenting the various steps. Now it's just a matter of executing them. It really boils down to the following: Filing form I600A with the BCIS (formerly INS). Taking the required Home Study Collecting a bunch of documentation, and having them Notarized, Certified by the State and Authenticated by the Chinese Embassy. Sending all the documentation (the Dossier) to the CCAA in China Waiting approximately 12-14 months for your referral (Approval and invitation to travel to China, Baby Picture and Medical History of child) Travelling to China to pick up your baby and completing the adoption process 03 Mar. 2003 - Send I600A Form to INS - The I600A form, titled "Advance Processing of Orphan Petition" is used to classify an orphan as an immediate relative. This form allows the most time-consuming part of the process to be completed in advance, even before the parent has located a child to adopt. Because this form takes the longest time to process, it's the first thing we need to do. The cost of filing this form is pretty steep - $460 plus a fingerprinting fee of $50 each which we'll need to do at the INS office at a later date. 10 Mar. 2003 - Mail Passport for Renewal - Passports need to be renewed if they expire between now and the time you travel to China. A photocopy of your passport needs to be included as part of the Dossier. It costs $55 to renew a passport and $65 to expedite it. That's a pretty hefty charge for expediting, but worth it if, like most adoptive parents, you want to put your Dossier together as quickly as possible. 10 Mar. 2003 - Home Study 1/4 (Couple) - During this Home Study session, we are asked a serious of questions in order to help paint a picture of who we are and what our motivation is for adopting. I think the main idea is to gauge what kind of parents we'll be, and whether or not we'll be able to provide a stable and loving home. Pretty straight forward stuff. 10 Mar. 2003 - Home Study 2/4 (Jim) - Whereas the last Home Study focused on us as a couple, this one, as you may have guessed, focuses on us as individuals, and on our family and upbringing. 12 Mar. 2003 - Home Study 3/4 (Lorraine) - See Above 13 Mar. 2003 - Physical (Lorraine) - Routine doctor's physical per adoption requirements, including blood tests for HIV and Hepatitis. Our doctor was really excited to hear about our impending adoption. She has an adopted son. 17 Mar. 2003 - Physical (Jim) - See Above 19 Mar. 2003 - Home Study 4/4 (Home) - The last of the Home Studies. This one was at our home. It involved a quick tour of the house, followed by a series of state mandated questions. Pretty routine stuff. 26 Mar. 2003 - Fingerprinted by INS in Hartford - Fingerprinting and a clean FBI background check are a requirement for getting approval of the I600A. Since the nearest INS fingerprinting service center is all the way up n Hartford, and our appointment was for 9:00 AM, we decided to spend the night in Hartford rather than scramble around that morning. The folks at the INS office were pretty nice, and it wasn't crowded at all. The fingerprinting is now done on scanners rather than having to get your fingers dirty with black ink. While there, we met two other couples that are going through the China Adoption process as well. One of these couples is actually going back for a second child. 31 Mar. 2003 - Mail Documents for State Certification - We had a bunch of our documents Notorized at our friendly People's Bank, after which we had to send them off to the State to have them certify that the Notary is authentic. The following nine documents were sent to the Secretary of State of Connecticut for this purpose: Adoption Cover Letter Birth Certificate (Jim) Local Police Background Check (Jim) Local Police Background Check (Lorraine) Letter of Employment (Jim) Letter of Employment (Lorraine) Personal Finance Report Physical Exam (Jim) Physical Exam (Lorraine) Additionally, we had to send our Marriage License and one Birth Certificate to New York State's Department of State since these documents originated and were notorized there. 03 Apr. 2003 - Received Certified Documents from CT - Pretty quick turn around time from Connecticut. The only problem is that since a couple of the documents weren't notarized at the time of signing, we were supposed to make photocopies, affix a statement attesting to the fact that they are exact copies, sign and notarize. Well, we did everything but sign them, thinking the notaries signature was good enough. These were rejected by the State, so now we'll have to redo them and send them back again. A few days lost, plus postage, but otherwise no big deal. 04 Apr. 2003 - Received Certified Documents from NY - Got the documents back without a hitch. 05 Apr. 2003 - Received Completed Home Study - We received our completed home study today from our agency. We packaged the Home Study (which was already notarized) along with our re-notarized medical forms and police background checks and sent them off to the Secretary of State of Connecticut for certification. Hopefully, we got everything right this time and won't have any rejects. 09 Apr. 2003 - Mail Documents to Chinese Consulate-General in NY - We packaged together all of the documents we had so far that have been certified by the State, and sent them off to the Chinese Consulate-General in New York. This is our first of probably three batches that will go to the Consulate. We're keeping our fingers crossed that they'll be authenticated and sent back in a timely manner, and not be rejected for any reason. We heard that the Conslate is pretty strict and will return documents if they're not to their liking. Let's hope we got everything right. Along with the Mail Application Form (Y-1) and the Application Form for Authentication and Notarization (G-1), this batch consisted of the following documents: Adoption Cover Letter Birth Certificate (Jim) Birth Certificate (Lorraine) Marriage License Letter of Employment (Jim) Letter of Employment (Lorraine) Personal Finance Report 14 Apr. 2003 - Received Certified Documents from CT - Got back the certified Home Study along with the other documents we had to re-send. We'll hold on to this for now until we receive our first batch back from the Chinese Consulate. Then, depending on how long they take, we'll decide whether to mail these in or walk them in to the Consulate for Authentication. We're still waiting for our approval from the INS, but we just found out today that our fingerprints were accepted and FBI check came back clean. The INS office has also received the Home Study from our Agency, so now it's just a matter of them going through it and approving it. Probably another couple of weeks for that. 21 Apr. 2003 - Received Authenticated Documents from Chinese Consulate-General in NY - Got the documents back without a hitch. Four day turn around time, not including shipping time. Pretty good. 22 Apr. 2003 - Mail Documents to Chinese Consulate-General in NY - We sent off our second set of documents to the Chinese Consulate-General in New York for Authentication. Along with the Mail Application Form (Y-1) and the Application Form for Authentication and Notarization (G-1), this batch consisted of the following documents: Adoption Home Study Physical Exam (Jim) Physical Exam (Lorraine) Police Report (Jim) Police Report (Lorraine) 30 Apr. 2003 - Received I-171H from INS - We received our I-171H from the INS. This is our "Notice of Favorable Determination Concering Application For Advance Processing of Orphan Petition". This is a big milestone since the I-171H is the last of the PaperChase documents to be processed. The next and final steps will be to have it Notarized, Certified by the State and Authenticated by the Chinese Consulate, and then we'll be done. 01 May. 2003 - Mail I-171H to CT for State Certification - We made a photocopy of our I-171H document and had it Notarized and FedEx'd to the State today for certification. 01 May. 2003 - Received Authenticated Documents from Chinese Consulate-General in NY - Got back our second set of documents from the Consulate. All looks good. 05 May. 2003 - Received Certified I-171H from CT - Got back our certified I-171H from the state. 09 May. 2003 - Trip to NY to Authenticate I-171H at Chinese Consulate - We took a trip into New York today to have our final document, the I-171H, authenticated at the Chinese Consulate. We were very impressed with the Consulate. Very modern looking, very efficient, and friendly staff. We dropped the document off at 9:00 A.M. when they opened. Since pickup wasn't until 1:30 P.M., we decided to kill some time by taking a 3-hour Circle Line Cruise around Manhattan. We highly recommend it. It was fun, informative and convenient since the piers are right across the street from the Consulate. 13 May. 2003 - Submitted Dossier to Adoption Agency - Today, we submitted our completed dossier to our adoption agency and were told that it will probably be sent to China on Friday along with the dossier of two other couples. Nothing left to do but wait... 16 May. 2003 - China Freezes Foreign Adoptions - Just got the bad news today. Don't yet know what kind of impact this will have on our wait time. 19 May. 2003 - Dossier Submitted to China - Although China has enacted a voluntary freeze on adoptions to prevent people from travelling there in an effort to help contain the SARS issue, they are, none the less, still accepting applications and processing paperwork. With that said, our completed dossier, along with the dossier of two other couples, were mailed to China today by our agency. The PaperChase phase has officially ended for us. And so begins the wait... 29 May. 2003 - Dossier Logged in by CCAA in China - This is our official log-in date (LID). We seem to have just made the May group, which is significant since referrals are sent out on a monthly basis. Just a few days later would have meant waiting an extra month for our referral. 24 Jun. 2003 - China Resumes Foreign Adoptions - Good news today. Looks like things are back to normal. Hopefully, wait times have not been affected too drastically. 07 Sep. 2003 - Friends Receive Referral - Our friends Tom and Carol have just received their referral. Her current name is Jiang Bao. According to Tom, Jiang is her surname and it is essentially the name of the city/county where she is from. And Bao (the equivalent of our first name) means something like Precious Baby. Congratulations to Tom and Carol! Click here if you would like to see a picture of their baby. 08 Sep. 2003 - Another Referral - Another set of friends, Julie and Anthony, have received their referral. Her current name is Chen Jing Xiang (Jing means admire and Xiang means peace), and her birthday is Nov. 16, 2002. Best wishes to Julie and Anthony! Click here if you would like to see a picture of their baby. 27 Nov. 2003 - Thanksgiving - It's been a while since I've updated this page. Busy nesting and getting the house ready for the baby. Baby's room is painted and just needs furniture now. I'll post some pictures once it's furnished. This Thanksgiving day has given me plenty to think about. Most significantly, of course, is the fact that this will, in all likleyhood, be our last Thanksgiving without our own child. Things seem to be moving along quite nicely in China and wait times have been reduced quite a bit from when we first started this journey. The CCAA folks in China have been working diligently and doubling up months. Referral for all dossiers submitted since Mar. 2002 have been received. If they double up one more time, then that means we are next, and that we can potentially receive our referral before Christmas. I coudn't think of a better Christmas present. 20 Jan. 2004 - The Stork Has Landed!!! Well, after a long wait, we finally got our referral. We don't have much information yet, as the paperwork is still being translated. We do know that her Chinese name is Ning Li Feng (soon to be Kaitlyn Maria LiFeng Masone) and that her date of birth is 1/22/03. Sadly, she'll be celebrating her 1st birthday without us this Thursday, but I'm sure we'll more than make up for it in the years to come. We estimate that we'll be traveling to China some time in early to mid March to go pick her up. 02 Feb. 2004 - Translation Complete - Got our translated paperwork back from the agency today. After examining the Chinese characters of Kaitlyn's name we learned that Ning means peaceful, Li means beautiful and Feng means phoenix. Apparently, Feng is a common girl's name. We also learned that Kaitlyn is a happy, healthy baby, always smiling, likes music, and is not afraid to go with strangers. We rushed the paperwork over to our pediatrician and got the all clear from her as well. 03 Feb. 2004 - Acceptance Submitted and Care Package Sent- We signed and notorized our acceptance letter today and handed it off to our agency for delivery to China. Now the wait begins again for our travel approval to come back from China. This is expected to take about 3 weeks, after which we make our appointment with the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, and then make our travel plans based around that appointment. We're estimating travel in mid-March at this point. We also sent out a care package to our future daughter. The care package consisted of: Ladybug blanket Sleeper with laybugs Mini Mouse outfit Photo album with a picture of ourselves Two disposable cameras One Toy Phone Box of chocolates for the caretakers 23 Feb. 2004 - Travel Approval Received - We received our travel approval from China today. That was the most painful wait to date. Next step is to wait for our U.S. Consulate appointment in Guangzhou. Our agency submitted the request today via email, and hopes to hear back no later than Thursday. Once the appointment has been secured, we're able to get our Visas and make our travel arrangements. 25 Feb. 2004 - Consulate Appointment and Travel Dates Set - Our appointment at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou has been set for March 23rd. We plan on travelling to China on March 10th, and returning on the 25th. The Consulate appointment is the last thing we'll do while in China, and pretty much finalizes the adoption and allows us to get our daughter's Visa for travel back to the States. Although she's technically a U.S. citizen at that point, a visa is still required for her since the INS/Immigration have not yet aligned their processes to deal with the latest citizenship laws for internationally adopted children. 27 Feb. 2004 - Visa Applications Submitted - Today, Lorraine and I took a trip down to New York City to deliver our Visa applications to the Chinese Consulate. Visa applications are now required to be delivered in person. Mailed applications are no longer accepted. The applications take four business days to process, so we were told to come back next Wednesday, March 3rd, to pick them up. 3 Mar. 2004 - Pick up Visas - Took a trip back down to New York today and picked up our passports and Visas. 10 Mar. 2004 - China Bound - We're off to China!!! Our itinerary and travel journal will be posted and updated throughout our trip, so be sure to check in regularly. See you soon! This ends the pre-adoption phase of Kaitlyn's adoption story. Be sure to check the travel journal regularly for periodic updates. Back If you would like to share your comments or questions with us, please e-mail us.