Our Journey to Claire: Bears for Claire

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Bears for Claire

Jessica and I are going to be having two adoption fund-raisers this fall to help us cover the costs of our travel to Taiwan to bring Claire home. Airfare could be as high as $10,000 due to the fact that we'll only have 7-14 days notice before we have to travel. We've been able to cover our expenses up until now but that daunting total has left us needing to get creative and so, we are excited to present... Bears for Claire

Here's how it works: Make a donation to our adoption fund and you will receive a "Bear for Claire". For $5.00 you get one bear, for $10.00 you get three bears, and for $25.00 you get eight bears! Each bear enters you to win one of over 20 prizes. We have had some AWESOME prizes donated including:

* A BRAND NEW NINTENDO WII!

* Free Chick Fil-A for a Year!
* Tennessee Football Tickets (box seats)
* A prize package from the Food Network and HGTV
* A prize package from Love 89.1 Radio
* Regal Cinemas Movie Tickets
* Many more! Over 20 prizes!

The drawing will be held on Sunday, August 30th at 7:00 PM. We'll actually be webcasting the drawing so people can watch live.

For all the information you need to participate in our fundraiser, and to purchase you chances to win the Wii and other prizes, please visit:

www.bearsforclaire.blogspot.com

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Taiwan Timeline

2/6/10-Finally united with our precious girl in Taiwan!
01/10/10 - Sent amended home study to USCIS office. PRAYING we get our amended I-171H back quickly. We cannot travel without it. We are supposed to leave on February 3rd.
01/08/10 - Received word from Taiwan that our paperwork has a problem. Now we must scramble like mad and PRAY that it all gets taken care of!
12/31/09 - Received the call we've been waiting for! We can travel the first week of February!
10/26/09- First court date- MUCH LATER than we anticipated!
7/20/09 - Our dossier arrives in Taiwan via FedEx. We should have our first court date in about a month.
7/15/09 - Sent our I-600a renewal documents to the USCIS office in Memphis. Our documents expire on Sept. 26th so it's time to renew. We will have to be fingerprinted again as well.
6/30/09 - Drove to Nashville to have our adoption contract, power of attorney, and home study update state certified and overnighted back to our agency. These documents now go to TECO for authentication.
6/22/09 - Our agency received our agreement and sent it to Cathwel.
6/20/09 - Sent adoption agreement via priority mail to our agency in Kansas.
6/18/09- Received referral of our beautiful baby girl! Hsiang-Ting Hung born on 7-18-07. Her nickname at the orphanage is Mei-Mei!
4/11/09 - Reached the 12 month point in our wait. Began the process of updating our home study.
4/11/08- Our official "log in" date. Dossier logged in at Cathwell Orphanage.
4/10/08- Dossier arrived in Taiwan!
4/8/08- Dossier to Taiwan!!!
4/4/08- Mailed copies of I-71H, our birthmother letter, photo album, and program fee to our agency. Everything is now done and we begin the LONG wait for a referral.
3/29/08- We finally received our I-71H! Who ever knew we could scream so loud over a piece of paper!
2/8/08- Mailed off final authentication forms for TECO. They will have homestudy authenticated in Atlanta,
2/2/08- Passports arrived.
1/24/08- Took our passport photos and applied for expedited passports at the post office. Harmony sent our homestudy to USCIS via UPS.
1/22/08- Went to fingerprinting appointment in Nashville and got homestudy state certified. We also got great news from our agency stating that the program can open and we'll be #1!
1/17/08- Picked up final copy of homestudy and had it notarized and county certified.
1/15/08- Received fingerprinting appointment for 1/22/08 at 11 a.m. in Nashville.
1/8/08- USCIS sent a letter confirming they received the I-600A on 12/6. It said we would still have to wait to receive our fingerprinting appointment....They are running SLOW!!!
12/18/07- In home visit with our social worker.
12/18/07- Jessica had her medical evaluation
12/16/07- Individual interviews with our social worker for our homestudy.
12/11/07- Our social worker called to schedule our first interviews.
12/10/07- Greg had his medical evaluation.
12/6/07- I-600A was received in Memphis. Now we wait for the government to assign us a fingerprinting appointment in Nashville.
12/4/07- Greg mailed the copies that Harmony still needed. He went to the bank for a cashier's check and mailed off the I-600A.
12/3/07- Greg contacted Harmony to verify they had received our paperwork. They still needed copies of everything we had collected. Greg meticulously filled out the I-600A. Jessica's parents gave her the letter of guardianship.
11/30/07- Greg mailed our paperwork to Harmony. Shiloh e-mailed saying they had received our application. Jessica received her letter of employment.
11/29/07- Greg and Jessica finished their autobiographies. Jessica called to request her letter of employment, and asked her parents to write a letter of guardianship. We completed all of Harmony's homestudy paperwork.
11/28/07- Greg sent our application to Shiloh, as well as our fee. He picked up Connor's immunization records, printed our credit reports and tax return, got his letter of employment, talked to the insurance company and copied our cards, as well as talked to his dad about a will.
11/27/07- Greg called Harmony Adoptions to set up a homestudy. We began to fill out our paperwork and scheduled our medical exams. We also both went to the Police Dept. to get our background checks and began our autobiographies.
11/26/07- After countless e-mails and phone calls, we felt led to Taiwan. Jessica ordered copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificate.
11/24/07- Closed the door on China due to the excessively long wait and began to pray about other countries.
4/07 – Decided to adopt internationally from China.