In China, in order to control the population growth, there is a law that limits each family to one child. There is a deeply entrenched cultural preference for male children, especially among the farming communities, as they will support the parents in their old age and carry on the lineage. If the first born is a girl, she will most often be abandoned or even killed. The lucky ones get adopted....

We choose you, Alia

..to fill our days with a more meaningful purpose

..because the love of a family is meant to be shared

..to add new joy to our lives

Please join us in ...

The Journey of Adoption

Jan 1998 - Dec 16th 2004

Talked about adopting a child

Dec 17th 2004

Vacationed in Aruba and met a wonderful family with two beautiful adopted daughters from China. After talking to them and seeing the loving relationship they all had for each other we decided that weekend that we would procrastinate no longer and start the adoption process the moment we returned home.

Dec 20th 2004

We placed a call to "Seedlings" a highly respected adoption agency in

Parsippany, NJ.

Dec 22nd 2004

Completed Seedlings initial application form.

Dec 25th 2004

Flew to Naples, FL and announced to Jill's Family our plans to adopt a little girl from China.

Jan 10th 2005

Jill fills out lots of forms

Jan 12th 2005

US Citizenship and Immigration Services fingerprint application sent.

Jan 18th 2005

Trip to Parsippany for first set of Fingerprints for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)

Jan 19th 2005

Required family information meeting at Seedlings

Jan 20th 2005

Jill fills out more forms......

Jan 26th 2005

Robert has required physical and passes.

Jan 29th 2005

First required pre-adoption home study with our Social Worker, Amy. Jill was interviewed.

Feb 3rd 2005

Trip to Montclair Police Station to be fingerprinted for local Police clearance to show that we are not sex offenders......We Passed!

Feb 4th 2005

Jill has required Physical and passes.

Feb 5th 2005

Attended Chinese New Year celebrations at Seedlings for all the adopted families

Feb 7th 2005

Jill still filling out forms.......

Feb 8th 2005

Second required home study with Amy. Robert interviewed.

Feb 16th 2005

Our third and final pre-adoption home study with Amy.

Feb 18th 2005

Flew to Jupiter, FL to announce to the Kalfin family that we are adopting.

Feb 24th 2005

Seedlings received all paper so far plus the Home Study report to send to the Dept of Homeland Security.

March 4th 2005

Flew to Palm Desert, CA and announced to Robert's Mother that we are adopting.

March 7th 2005

INS receives all papers to date.

March 15th 2005

Received fingerprint appointments from the INS.

March 25th 2005

Trip to downtown Newark to wait in line for 3 hours to get fingerprinted by the INS for clearance by the Department of Homeland Security. We await the results.

April 28th 2005

INS fingerprints cleared. We are not a threat to this nation.

May 2nd 2005

Seedlings send all our papers sent for translation into Chinese.

June 1st 2005

Seedlings sends our completed and translated dossier to China for processing.

From this point in the journey the wait is estimated to be 6 - 7 months before receiving an assignment of a child.

When we receive that assignment it will come with a photograph of Alia a brief medical report and background.

We would expect to travel to China within 3 - 5 weeks from receiving the assignment.

The required length of stay in China is about two weeks. You first travel to the province where Alia has been in an orphanage and we will stay there for the first week. We will then travel to Guangzhou which is where the American Embassy that issues exit visas is.

All persons that adopt from China must spend their second week in China in Guangzhou to complete their adoption process.

Alia will become a US Citizen the moment she steps foot on American soil.

Alia's age may be anywhere from 7 months to 24 months.

*We will continue to update this Blog on a regular basis

Robert and Jill Kalfin