Authentication

Today we got all our documents back from the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. They were all authenticated appropriately. Yeah!!!!!! This is a huge step of the paperchase completed. Now we are just waiting for our 171H (immigration papers) to arrive and we are done with the paperwork. Of course we have to get the 171H notarized, certified and authenticated, but that shouldn't be too difficult. We are really seeing the light at the end of this paperwork tunnel. Unfortunately the referrals for the month of April took a drastic turn for the worse. (quick recap...CCAA sends out referrals once per month based upon what day each adoptive families paperwork was logged into their system....so when we send our paperwork to China we will get a Log-In Date of say June 2, 2007 (for example). The CCAA works on referrals on a first-come, first-serve basis). So for the month of April they gave referrals to all the families who had Log-In Dates of October 25-26, 2005. Only two days!!! Usually they cover atleast two weeks of Log-In Dates. This is not good news and tells us that the process is only going to slow down further. Our agency, Great Wall China Adoption, is trying to be realistic and tell us that they think the process will speed up, but we are not getting our hopes up. I do hope that it speeds up, but we are planning on it taking 2 years from the time our paperwork is logged-in to the CCAA just so that we are not let down.