So What's the Scoop?

So I know that it's a bit of a pain to navigate all of the pages on this blog and figure out what the heck is going on. I'll do individual posts on some of these topics in future posts, but lots of people just want a general idea of what's happening. So here's the scoop in an easy-to-read bullet point format:

• We started the whole adoption process in mid-April. There were a few things we didn't have to redo (like training classes) because it was our second time around, but basically, we had to start from scratch, especially since we used a different agency.
• We received an e-mail in late July and then talked to our agency about the pre-file of a little girl who was outside of our original desired age range. On August 1, we accepted this pre-file, and when her official file comes in (which it will, as she's with one of our agency's partnership orphanages), it'll be designated to our family.
• Our future daughter's special need is a repaired heart condition called a ventricular septal defect (VSD). More about that in a future post, but basically she'll need nothing other than cardiology follow-ups.
• Our girl is five days younger than Jonas. She'll turn four at the end of the year. We had originally hoped we'd have her home by then, but it's looking like we won't get there until January. This isn't in our control. Right now she lives with a foster family (including a foster brother who's her age!) on the orphanage grounds in a city called Fuzhou in the Jiangxi province. Maps to come!  
• Around January, once all of the paperwork is done (more on that in another post), we'll go to China for a two-week trip. We'll probably fly into Beijing and spend a couple of days there, take a bullet train to her province to pick her up and do paperwork, and then take another train to Guangzhou, where everyone adopting in China has to go for embassy paperwork. We hope to bring Jonas along with us (if financially feasible) to aid with bonding and help with attachment (for both him and her). 
• We can't share our daughter's Chinese name (and we haven't decided on her English name) or her picture online at all yet. That can happen after we get something called Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from China, which should come through about a month after her official file comes in. Her official file should/could come in any day. We do have pictures and a video from May. I can show you on my phone if you see me in person. Our girl seems sweet, quiet, and cute. She has a terrible haircut though (think bowl-shaped with short bangs!).
• We are doing a puzzle fundraiser to try to raise $10,000, which is the amount that Zack's former employer provided to us in adoption assistance when we were in process to bring home Jonas. More on our reasoning and thoughts about fundraising in an upcoming post! The link is on the right side of the blog; it's only $10 to help us "Bring Home Our Missing Piece."

Hopefully that helps give an idea of where we're at and what's going on. The FAQ tab has a lot of this information (and more). I'll be posting more on specific topics in the upcoming weeks. Thanks for reading! Oh, and here's a screenshot of our very first step (the online application) in this process back on April 12!