Take that I-800A!

I-800A application for determination of suitability to adopt a child from a convention country is complete and ready to send.  YES!  One more box checked on the never-ending paper trail to baby sister.

It wasn't as bad as I thought.  9 pages for the application and a 1 page supplement.  It basically just asked for factual information. Name, address, dob, place of birth, marriage and citizenship info.  The supplement was simply to provide the name and info for our agency so they can communicate with them if need be.  There was just one question that stumped me.  It asked about the pre-adoption requirements for the state as relevant to state statutes and regulations. Huh?  Legal jargon.  Or more legalish than I knew how to answer.  So I tapped into the resource that I knew would come into play at some point. The yahoo discussion group.  I sent out a note and by the time we finished dinner, the answer was in my inbox.  Another woman going through the process sent me a pdf sample of an I-800A with helpful hints and the difficult parts completed with appropriate info and documentation. Not only did it give me the legal jargon to write in for the pre-adoption requirements, it also gave me a little tip. Do not leave anything blank!  If it doesn't apply, mark "N/A."  Well, let me tell ya, there were a whole lot of boxes that didn't apply that I never would have touched had it not been for her tip. So I spent 10 minutes pasting in"N/A" to all the empty boxes.  I printed it out, signed it, wrote the $720 check to Homeland Security and attached all the other documents they require.  I had Parker double-check to make sure it was filled out correctly.  We are 99.5% sure that we're good to go but are waiting on a reply from our agency regarding one little question. On the application there is this question:

Do you plan to concurrently adopt more than one child from the same Convention country?  If "Yes," how many?

We are approved to adopt one little girl OR a sibling pair of girls.  Yes I said sibling PAIR of girls.  As in 2.  At once!  WHAT?!  Yep.  So we marked yes and filled in the number 2.  We assume this is the way we should fill it out so that should we, by some slim chance, get 2 girls, we'll be on the right path to get visas, etc.  But we thought we should make sure with our agency because it isn't a sure thing.  We can't mail it out until Tuesday anyway so it won't delay us in any way to dot this i.

I'm sure this info may come as a surprise as I've only ever talked about baby sister.  Not baby sisterS!  As amazing as it would be to bring two little girls into our lives, there really is very little chance of it happening.  At least coming out of the waiting child program in China.  There are a handful of countries where this would be pretty easy, but not China.  Especially not for what is deemed the "ideal sib pair."  That is siblings that are the same sex and 1 and 3 year(s) old respectively.  It doesn't happen that often and it's pretty much a one in a million chance it would happen for us.  So that's why I haven't mentioned it.  Now if I get a call in the next couple of months that we have been referred two little sisters, I know I will totally have a shit fit.  I can't even think about it because it would be so freaking exciting.  So I'm zippin it.  I'm not going to talk about it anymore.  Unless it happens then I will be blasting it out of a bull horn!  Until then I will keep my eye on the prize of baby sisteR.