Introduction

This is a web diary of our trip to China to adopt our daughter Iris.

We started the process to adopt a daughter from China in January, 2005. Over the next 5+ months we collected the necessary papers, certificates, and approvals required by the Chinese and U.S. governments (known as "paperchasing" in the adoption community). This is an arduous process but is required to ensure the suitability and motivations of the prospective parents. We submitted all of the documentation to our agency (Chinese Children Adoption International) in June of 2005 and received word that our application had been accepted (or "logged in") on July 15.

At that point the waiting began for our "referral". This is when we learn who our daughter is and where in China she lives. The CCAA (Chinese Center of Adoption Afairs) is the Chinese psuedo-governmental organization that handles all international adoptions. They approve all applications and "match" the prospective parents with a child in one of the many orphanages (or "social welfare institutes") in China. When we started the process the wait to referral from log-in was running about 6-8 months. We finally received our referral on August 28, 206, after a 13 month wait.

We kept busy during the wait by almost doubling the usable space in our house with an addition and remodel. (Pictures of our remodel project can be seen here:
http://flickr.com/photos/15142220@N00/sets/1242804/)