We began our journey to adopt a little girl from China back in August when we filled out our adoption application. Our home study was completed in December and we were approved by our adoption agency, Holt International, to adopt. We decided to adopt from the China Child of Promise. This means she will have a minor and/or correctable birth defect. In January we filled out our "Medical Conditions Checklist" indicating what we would be willing to consider.
We expected the matching process to take 6 + months, compared to the 4 years waiting list for a healthy child. Needless to say we were very surprised when we received a phone call on February 10, 2010 saying they had a match for us. An 11 month old little girl from the Guizhou Province in China. We had just 24 hours to decide if this was the little girl we wanted. Her birth defect is a missing left hand, besides that she is healthy.
Her name is Zhu Zi Yue. We will probably keep it as a middle name. Her first name is yet to be determined.
Within the next few weeks we will be receiving updated information on her medical condition. Upon receiving and reviewing the information we submit our final decision to adopt her.
First of all we need to complete our Dossier to send to China. This involves various items like, financial statement, birth certificates, marriage certificate, employment letter, police clearance, etc. We should be have all the paper work in the next 7 -10 day. The only obstacle that stands in our way is getting a certified copy of my birth certificate. Jon stopped by the LA County Recorder Office on his way home from work last week and picked up a copy of his. I went the next day to get mine and was told that since I was adopted I could not get a certified copy from there. I would have to go through the State Department of Vital Records. I called them and was told that it would take 18 weeks to get a copy. Are you kidding me? 18 weeks? I don't have 18 weeks. I asked if I could expedite the process and was told no they can't do that. They receive 6,000 requests for birth certificates a day. I started crying on the phone and he went to get a supervisor. He couldn't find an available supervisor, so he told me what I could do. I could overnight my notarized birth certificate request form and address it: Attention Carmen, along with a letter stating why I needed it expedited, and maybe, but he couldn't guarantee it, she would be able to help me get my birth certificate quicker. So this is where we stand. The letter should have gotten to Sacramento yesterday. I will call tomorrow and see if I can find out any information. This means another 45 minutes on hold. Not so easy with a 4 year old at home.
