May 1999:
We will call this the month of paperwork, take a look at the list of documents that we had to put together!  We never realized how much was involved with an adoption but it kept us very busy.  We got the majority of paperwork finished by the end of the month, except for our homestudy and getting paperwork back from INS (more on that later).

June 1999:
Vicki and I attended a pre-adopt class that our agency was running. It was very informative and we were able to meet other couples that were adopting from China and other countries.

July 1999:
We had our homestudy with our case worker, Judith Pullman, who was extremely nice and gave us a glowing review to go to China.  It was more of an interview in preparing us for becoming parents than anything else.  Next step is to wait from INS and we will have completed the paperwork to go to China.

September 1999:
After some delays from INS, we finally get approval from them to adopt a child from China.  All of the paperwork is then sent to San Francisco for translation before going over to China.

October 1999:
Paperwork was translated and arrived in China around October 24th.  Now we just wait for the referral.

November 1999 - May 2000:
We wait and wait and wait for the referral, which we were hoping around the end of May initially.  We also started attending the monthly meetings at our agency to learn how the programs were doing and meeting other couples that were going (or have gone) through the process we were going through.  Turns out we missed receiving our referral in May by 2 days, so we wait until end of June.

June 2000 - August 8, 2000:
June comes and goes, and so does July.  We become concerned about the delays and learn that they are due to the large number of adoptions with the very hot weather in China are making the process take longer.  FINALLY, on August 8, we received the referral!

August 17, 2000:
We received a 9 month health update from our agency and he continues to grow and seems very healthy.  We also learned that the orphanage has turned over Nicholas to be taken care of by a foster family until we arrive in a few months.  This is really good news and we are sure he will get much better care than at the orphanage.

September 6, 2000:
We received travel approval from China much earlier than expected!  We will travel late next week.  See details in the Trip to China.  We also received an updated picture, which you will find in the First Pictures.