Yesterday, our adoption agency sent our homestudy report to the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly the INS) – Sacramento office. After the USCIS receives our homestudy report, they will mail us an appointment letter to have Susan and me fingerprinted at their office (for FBI criminal checks). We should receive our fingerprinting appointment letter within a week or two after they receive our homestudy. After the fingerprinting, we will wait (possibly a month or two) to receive a notice of approval from the USCIS to bring a child from another country to the United States for the purpose of adoption. Once approved, the USCIS will mail to us an I-171H letter (“Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition”). A copy of the I-171H is required to be submitted with the Chinese adoption application (dossier) that goes to the Chinese government (to document to the Chinese government that the U.S. government has given us its approval to adopt internationally). So at this point, we need to wait to get the U.S. government’s approval to adopt from China before we can send our Chinese adoption dossier to China.