WE HAVE OUR FIRST RULING ~ PART 1 OF FINAL DECREE!!!

WOOHOOOO!!!!! CAN YOU HEAR ME SHOUTING FROM TAIWAN???

This afternoon a mailman arrived with two envelopes that I had to sign for....

I knew it could ONLY be something about the adoption!

I opened them up and it was 4 pages long...all in Chinese!!! It did have our names and Asia-Faith's birth date on them, so I knew it had to be something regarding the adoption.

I quickly called Deana (mlchome.org), and she told me to scan and email them to her....and then I waited....

Finally a little later in the afternoon I got a call back from Deana to say......it is the first part of our Final Decree!!!!

I cannot believe it....we are almost at the finish line.....

Basically what this means is....

FIRST RULING (Part 1 of first decree)

Once the District Court hearing has been completed and the judge has had time to make a decision to finalize the adoption, he/she issues the first part of the Final Decree.

This is a short statement signed by the judge that is forwarded to the parties involved (social services organization on behalf of the adoptive family and the birth family) notifying everyone of his/her decision to finalize the adoption.

This first part of the Final Decree must go to each party and there is a waiting period of 10 days before any more can happen to ensure everyone has been notified of the judge's decision.

The First Ruling generally comes about a month after the Hearing. (although in our case it has been 8 months...buy hey, who's counting!) LOL

So the document was dated 24th July...so hopefully they count the 10 days from that date and not the date that we signed for the document....(wishful thinking?)...

After the 10 day waiting period is up, the second part of the Final Decree is forwarded to all parties. When the second part of the decree is received....the court process is DONE!!!

Then the last process will be to have her name removed from the Household registry

The household registration is a file located at local government offices in Taiwan that contains certificates and information about each person in Taiwan.

The child's household registration is attached to his/her guardian's file until the adoption has been finalized by the Taiwan courts.

Once the child has been legally adopted in Taiwan, you file with the government office to remove the file from the guardian and create a new file showing that the adoptive parent(s) are the new legal guardians.

Anyway, we are just sooooo excited right now....I had to call Jason right away, as he is already living in Hsinchu to give him the great news - and he was so excited and couldn't wait to go and tell all his work colleagues!

The boys kept shouting "She is ours!", too precious...and then Asia-Faith was running around saying "I am Asia-Faith MeiYa Tonkin" ~ Got to love them!!!

Now just to get through these next few days!!!!!


Sorry, for some reason I can't upload pics today...will try again tomorrow:(

Still waiting for final decree...and moving west!

Well, the documents that we needed to sign arrived on Monday morning (21 July), and Jason and I signed them and sent them back off in the mail, and Deana (http://mlchome.org) called on Tuesday to say she received them and had taken them to the courts!

So now we wait, again,.......hopefully we will get our final decree SOON!!!!!

On another note...we are moving again!

This time we are heading to the west of the island to a place called Hsinchu - also known as the "windy city"! So from the wettest part of the island to the windiest!

Jason will be leaving on Sunday, and then he will look for an apartment for us, and then myself and the kids will probably move across around August - fun times ahead!

Enjoy the pics...