Waiting on a Court Date

Welcome to the blog where the updates are few and far between. Not really how I envisioned blogging about our second sweet little guy to go down. I could list out all of my excuses of how the business of life so easily creeps in and why the blogging took a back seat. But that is not for right now.

I am so glad to be updating you with all of the exciting things that have been going on over the past few months since my last post.

In March, we received the packet of paperwork we needed from Taiwan so we could gather other documents and send them to TECO (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office) in Atlanta. The TECO office is where you send all of you important adoption documents, they approve them,  put their stamp of approval on each document, and send them back so they can be sent directly to Taiwan.

But, before all of those documents could be sent to TECO, most of them needed to be notarized, then taken down to the county clerk office where they could authenticate the notary (make sure the notary is legit), and finally to the Secretary of State's office at the state capital where the documents were apostilled (approved by the state). At the end of it all, each original document had two documents stapled on top. One from the County Clerk and one from the Secretary of State.

The important documents were basically what other countries would call the dossier. We sent the following to the TECO office on April 8th: Adoption contract, power of attorney, affidavit, different agreements, our home study, marriage certificate, medical forms, background checks, employment letter, financial form, and a copy of our I-171A which is our international adoption approval.

We received all of the documents back from TECO around April 15th, signed a few things, and sent them to Taiwan the next day.

All of these fine details are mostly for me to remember and to help others interested in Taiwan adoptions know what and how we did all of the paperwork. I feel like I just wrote a long detailed to do list. But!

All you need to know now is that...

We are currently waiting for the above documents to be translated. When they are translated,

We will be waiting for a COURT DATE!

It feels so close!!

The waiting stage is always the longest and hardest part of the whole journey. But I am so thankful when I receive unexpected little updates in my inbox. In the adoption world, at least for me, adoption updates about your child are almost like going in for an ultrasound. Hopefully that helps with the excitement about opening an email and finding "The Update." That concept is new for me and is completely different from our first adoption where we didn't know anything about our little guy until after we traveled. Both ways are fun and always an adventure. We love hearing about how he is doing and so thankful he is doing well, as far as we can tell, from the pictures and documents.

Y'all. I wish I could show you all of his sweet pictures we have received over these months. He is absolutely adorable! He has the sweetest smile. Luke loves to hear all about his little brother and how he is doing when we get the updates here and there. Luke will be such a sweet older brother.

Enjoy some pictures from the day we mailed our paperwork to TECO!

Standing in front of the capital. Took my little guy all around town, to the County Clerk office, and then to the Secretary of State's office at the capital. He was such a trooper and little helper!! He loved touring the capital and seeing all of the cool rooms. 

Luke had to have his picture with his good friend Abe. 

There is also a statue of Abraham Lincoln at our favorite park we visit in our town 

and he loves to pay him a visit.  

Luke: "Mom, please take a picture of me playing the guitar at the Capital!" I love this kid!

Ended the day back in our town at the Fed Ex office. 

Such a good feeling to mail that package off!