Ridiculous Red Tape

Just when I thought everything was going smoothly we get caught in a snafu of govt. red tape. We got a letter saying that something was wrong with our homestudy and we couldn't be approved until changes were made. Our Social Worker tried to find out what the problem was, but immigration wouldn't release the info. to her until we sent in a privacy consent form. We scanned and emailed our consent form in, but they didn't like that one. So Carol had to come out to our house so that I could sign a new consent form to scan and email to them. It turns out that there was a sentence that they didn't like and needed to change about when our post placement visits would be occurring. This just strikes me as a bit petty to make us go to all that trouble over a couple sentences. Seems like their time could be better spent in other ways. Oh well! I'm glad it was an easy fix and hopefully in a few days we'll officially be approved. That will be a relief.

Sweet Lydia

Sweet, sweet Lydia is always thinking of Henry. Tonight in Mission Friends we made a picture of bluebonnet flowers (the Texas variety) with blue tissue paper. The children were supposed to draw of picture of themselves on the paper as well. Lydia drew extra butterflies and a picture of an Asian boy (Henry) and then wrote across the top "to Henry." I was complimenting her and telling her how proud and happy my heart felt about all this and she said, "I want to hang this in his room so that when he gets here he will see it and feel welcome." What a gal! Someday when Henry and Lydia are older and arguing I need to remember this. :)

Fingerprinting Fiasco

The way things went, I'm pleasantly surprised that we actually got our fingerprinting completed today. We were afraid that Brent would be on strike duty in Kansas, so I was very happy that he was here to get his fingerprinting done. I had been telling him the address of the federal building over and over and his response was always, "Don't worry! It's a new, beautiful building right by my office." We head in for our 8:00 a.m. appt. and are right on time getting to the new, beautiful federal building. Problem came when we discovered that our room didn't exist and the guard finally figured out that we needed to go to the OTHER old federal building. Well we hightail it several blocks over through the snow (Can you believe SNOW on April6!) and arrive late and there is a room full of people. The wait is long, which would be fine on other days, but today I have to be at Lydia's school to work by 9:30 a.m. Impossible on this day. I call Mom to tell her my predicament (she's home with Lydia who's sick & not going to school) and get the school phone # so I can tell them I'll be a little late. I had to sneak and do this in the lobby because cell phones are NOT permitted. Well, a few minutes later my cell phone rings. I dart out of the room and try to dodge all the dirty looks I'm getting and what do I hear when I answer? Lydia yelling, "Mama! It's snowing!!" It was very cute and sweet, but I was too frazzled to enjoy this cute, illegal phone call. By now I'm sweating and my blood pressure is high over everything that is wrong on this Monday morning. I finally get my turn and am telling this to the fingerprint lady and she say, "You could have just come later today or any Wednesday. You have 87 days before your case is considered abandoned." Sure wish I'd known that!

USCIS I600a application

Carol brought our final draft of the homestudy by and we're ready now to send in our USCIS I600a application. This is an application that we send in to immigration -- a department of Homeland Security. Doing this is significant to me because Carol has told us from the beginning that, once approved, this is only good for 18 mos. She has said we won't send this until much closer to the end of the process. Here we are ready to send it!! When we get back from the Disney cruise we should have received word on when we go in to get fingerprinted. Getting our federal fingerprinting done is an important part of being approved.

Exciting Revelation!

Jill called and totally brightened my day! She told me that she had been talking to Carol and was told that right now the wait for referrals was pretty short. Carol said that the time from signing up and getting on the list to referral was 8 months. 8 months!!!! We got on the list Oct. 1, so 8 months from that is June. I can't believe how soon that suddenly is. If we get a referral in June we should be traveling 3-4 months after that wich would put us in September or October instead of December. I'm incredibly excited and also as this reality is barreling towards us I'm finding several things to be nervous about. In those nervous/excited moments I remind myself that God has brought us here and will be with us. Me and my family have a lot of love to give and God is on our side, so everything will be fine. Oh, I just can't wait!!!!!!!

Hurray!

This past Wednesday our Social Worker, Carol, and I braved the snow to meet at the Bread company. She had just a few questions and then gave me some information that I've been dying to know. She said that Henry might be born sometime around this time or is about to be born!! Of course I won't know for a while when he's born, but it's exciting to know that it's sometime around now. Every time I think of it I say a prayer for him, his mom, his foster mom and for us. This is also exciting news because around 5-6 months after Henry's birth we should get a referral and picture. AND THEN 3-6 months after that we can go get Henry. I'm thinking that my goal of getting Henry by Christmas might not be so far fetched!!