April Happenings! :)

April has certainly been our most eventful month so far! First, and most exciting, we got pre-approval from China to adopt our precious Gia!! :) So as long as we finish the adoption process, she's ours! If everything continues to stay on track, we'll be bringing her home this fall! If you're not already, join our group on Facebook for lots of pictures of our girl, but I'll do a picture post soon on here too! We have a lot of unanswered questions about what her care will entail, but she has already brought us so much joy!

Also this month, we held our big yard sale, which was a huge success! It was a LOT of work, but seeing how much support we have from the local community was so heart-warming and encouraging, that the work was so worthwhile, far beyond the boost to our adoption fund! We even had several customers (who we had never met before) insist on giving us donations beyond what they were spending on stuff! :)

Finally, we sent off our I800a application to USCIS, and this approval is the last document we need for our dossier! Today I sent off 12 documents to our agency so that they can begin to review them, so hopefully by the time we get our I800a approval they can toss it in the pile and mail everything off to China right away! :) So we are finally at the end of all the fees and postage associated with sending 13 documents all over the country to get them certified and authenticated to China's standards!

Here is our savings and fundraising progress so far, it's a little nerve-wracking now that we have a deadline of this fall, but we still have high hopes of getting a grant or two! We heard back from one grant organization, who informed us that they currently have no funds for awarding grants, but they will post our profile on their website for us, more details to come on that!

Adoption expenses left to pay, carried over from last month: $23,885
Paid in April: $450 (dossier preparation fees)
Left to pay: $23,435
April fundraising:
Yard sale: $1,058.50
Just Love Coffee: $49
Necklace donations: $500
Donation from the Moore family: $100 (thank you!!!)
Stella & Dot earnings: $182.60
Savings account for Gia: $11,426.42
We have $10,118.48 to go! SO close to breaking that $10,000 mark! :)

For fundraisers this month, we still have our coffee fundraiser going (and we'll continue to keep that one open until we're fully funded), the website is www.justlovecoffee.com/hoffmann
Our May fundraiser will be a Partylite Candle online show, thanks to Holly Rafferty!! :) She will be donating her commission, 25% of sales, to our adoption fund! Just visit her website, www.partylite.biz/holraff, and then search for me, Leslie Hoffmann, for your hostess! I LOVE smelly stuff in my home, so I will be posting lots of suggestions in the Facebook group! ;) I've ordered from Holly before, and Partylite products are amazing! In addition to candles and beautiful home décor items, they have melts that I use in my Scentsy warmer, and I have officially been converted!
Thank you so much for all your support! This journey has become even more meaningful now that we've been matched to Gia, and we are so very grateful for our generous friends and family! <3

Meet Hoffmann Baby #4!

We got our pre-approval today!! This means that she's OURS!! Meet our beautiful daughter, Gia!

March Savings and Fundraising!

We didn't have any fundraisers in March, but Nick and I are scrimping and saving so we're still making progress! And I have TEN grant applications ready to go as soon as we get our copy of our home study, which was finalized on the 31st!! :) The only fee we paid this month was $125 that goes to the Chinese government along with the Letter of Intent for our girl! We should be getting Pre-Approval (PA) from China SOON, which means she's ours pending completion of the adoption process! We'll have another fundraiser launching as soon as we get PA, selling coffee! If you're local to Savannah, we're also still collecting items for our yard sale, which will be on May 3rd!

Adoption expenses left to pay, carried over from last month: $24,010
Paid in March: $125 (Waiting Child Program service fee)
Left to pay: $23,885

March fundraising:
Donation from Atkinson family: $100 (thank you SO, SO much!)
Necklace donations: $40
Stella & Dot earnings: $153.43
Savings account for Mei Mei: $11,222.67

So we only have $12,368.90 to go!!! And we have about 6 months to get there! :)

Another Acronym...LOI! :)

Today we finally heard from the specialist who we asked to review our girl's file, and she was VERY positive about her condition! :) She said she looks happy, healthy, and any complications that may come up are very treatable!  So we took that as the green light to send our paperwork to China to make her ours!  We wrote a letter (called the Letter of Intent or LOI) that stated that we understand her special need, described the resources and support we have to help us take care of her, told them about her siblings, school, and church, all to convince China that we will love her and take care of her!  We also had to fill out a family information form (since China doesn't yet know anything about us), and pay a $125 fee to the Chinese government, which is fine because I've been antsy to check off a fee or two anyway. ;) We should hear back in a week or so, and at that point we'll have pre-approval which means she's OURS. <3 So be prepared, the next post will be FULL of pictures, exclamation points, and emoticons. :) :) :D

The Month of Waiting...and Waiting...and Waiting...

March has been torturous! No fundraisers this month, but I stayed plenty busy with grant applications. It ate up most of my spring break, but it was worth it to have them finished! However, we need our FINAL home study report, approved by our agency, before we can mail in most of these applications. Our last home study visit was on February 19th, so I had hoped the report would be done by the end of February, and now I'm worried it won't be done by the end of March. So part of me was feeling like we didn't make much progress this month...until...
We found a darling little girl! She's seriously the cutest kid I've ever seen (sorry kids!) ;) Her grin stole both our hearts, but Nick was a little more cautious about her special need, since it's more complicated than anything we had considered taking on before. Another agency has had her file for a few months, but they were unable to find a family for her, so they transferred her file to our agency when we told them we were interested in adopting her. :) We have now sent her file to a physician in Colorado who specializes in her special need, and we're waiting to get her opinion before we file the paperwork to make her "officially" ours. I was ready to snatch her up a week ago, but Nick needs more information to move forward, and I'm so very grateful to have his level-headedness to balance out my emotional messiness. :) In fact, he may kill me for writing this blog post, but I want to be upfront about the whole process that we've been going through. A few of our closest friends know that we reviewed the file of a little girl at the end of January, but it was missing a lot of information, and when we got an update on her, we realized her special need was way more than our family could take on, and they had probably failed to update her file for so long for that reason. The little girl whose file we have now is a very different situation (and a very different special need). She's in a group foster home in Beijing that has provided us with all medical information they have, a couple updates on how she's doing day-to-day, and an album with 1,200 pictures (yes, there are supposed to be two zeros there!). So we have all the information we could ask for, we're just waiting on a professional who knows what she's looking at to give us an idea of what kind of treatment she'll need as far as daily care as well as long-term treatment. Please send up some prayers for us for the clarity to help us make the best decision for this little girl and our family too. 

February Savings and Fundraising Update....Wow!

We accomplished so much this month! As far as making our way down the paperwork trail, we have 13 documents total that we have to gather for our dossier: two birth certificates, our marriage certificate, two employment verification letters, two police record checks, two physicals, adoption petition letter, financial statement, home study, and our I800a approval form (which is our approval by US Citizenship and Immigration). We've gathered everything EXCEPT Nick's birth certificate (thank you, Oregon, for being slow as mud!), the home study (and the report is being written now!), and the I800a, which we can't even apply for until the home study report is finished. So little by little, we've been getting things notarized and certified. My birth certificate is in DC right now, it will be the first document that we get authenticated by the Chinese Embassy there...woohoo! :) Nick's birth certificate will go to San Francisco for authentication, and everything else will go to Houston. We're HOPING that we can have all this nonsense done by the end of next month, or at least everything except for the I800a form, which is usually the document that people are left waiting on when they gathering dossier documents (it can take up to 90 days to get approval, we're hoping it will be closer to 30!)...fingers crossed that we get a happy, speedy officer assigned to us! :)
The home study was just about as painless as it could be! Our social worker came to our home, interviewed Nick and I together for about an hour, then we gave her a little tour, she asked the kids a few questions, and that was it! And our house was clean for at least a day or two afterwards, so that was nice. :) There was one little agonizing moment, and I debated even putting it on the blog, but hey, it's reality, and one day we'll read this again and laugh. The social worker was asking the kids a few questions about how they felt about the adoption, and Eli was hiding behind my legs as he talked to her...and then he whispered something to me so quietly that I couldn't hear him...so I asked him to repeat it, and he said loud enough for me (and everyone else) to hear,

"Why does she have a big butt?"

...Now...Eli has seen his share of big butts in his life, and we have never said that there is anything wrong with a little junk in the trunk...so what possessed him to ask that, I have no idea! And Nick heard him the first time he whispered it, and couldn't believe I asked him to repeat it! I was MORTIFIED!

So. Our home study is done. Buried that hatchet and we don't have to revisit it. At least not until the follow up visits, but I'll worry about that later. :)

On to a less awkward subject...fundraising! You will be floored by how much progress we made! We have already mailed our agency our check for the I800a application, and set aside the money for it, so I'm counting it as expenses paid in February!

Adoption expenses left to pay, carried over from last month: $24,900

Paid in February: $890 (I800a application and fingerprinting fees)
Left to pay: $24,010

February fundraising:
Quilt donations: $155
Necklace donations: $360
Tshirt donations: $580 (Yeah!!!)
Stella & Dot earnings: $97.06
...and drumroll please...
Savings account for Mei Mei: $8,573.83 (thank you, taxes!!)

So we have $14,244.11 to go!! Holy COW!

This means that we can steamroll through this process as fast as this paperwork will allow, which we are SO grateful for! We are so fortunate that we don't have to stop and save each time we have to write a big check! Our little girl will be home before we know it! We will continue to fundraise until we are fully funded, and I have a list of ten grant applications that we will be submitting in March. So guess what...if an Army guy and a preschool teacher can start from scratch and finance an international adoption...ANYONE can! Of course, we have the advantage of the best friends and family IN THE WORLD! :)

First Home Study Interviews Done!

Today we got our first two interviews done for our home study! Nick met with her at noon for his individual interview, I met with her this evening for my individual interview, and she anticipates that we'll be done with everything next week! Nick said his interview was no big deal, and when the social worker talked about Nick, she said he used the phrase "it's just another kid" a lot (only Nick would be this stress-free about an international adoption!), which she thought was funny. :) I was nervous, but she just asked about my personal history, marriage, children, and why I want to adopt, so none of the questions were very difficult. :) Now all we're waiting on for our home study documents is one lab for Nick's physical. We were at a little standstill, with Chinese New Year halting everything on China's end, and our social worker being out of town delaying the start of our home study, but we're finally making progress again! Once our home study is done, we can apply for an international adoption with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services AND we can start on grant applications! Sorry if all the exclamation points are jarring haha, we're excited. :)
We just started our tshirt fundraiser, and we have to sell 50 before February 28th to be able to get our funds, so please share our link! Others who have Bonfire tshirts have said they love them and they're super soft. And I love the idea of all you wonderful folks wearing the shirts and sharing our story to maybe inspire other families to adopt in the future! :) https://www.bonfirefunds.com/hoffmann-china-adoption