Waiting

Updated amended home study plus extra paperwork and more money off to USCIS as of Friday. My agency has explained it may take a month to find out if our Officer No Heart will approve us this time. If he does,  CCAI guesstimates we will travel mid to late November. I am at the point of I got to see it to believe it.  We have to remember the holiday in early October and the trade fair that month as well so things are going to get behind because of that. I am also worried because MANY LOA's have been coming in and I'm afraid they are going to have a hard time getting consulate appointments for so many people.  Nothing would be better than not being able to travel on time because our US Consulate couldn't get us an appointment. I'm starting to notice a trend where all the delays are coming from the US side. It is obvious China wants these kids in families but the US is causing all the problems. Can you tell I am a little bit bitter these days:/
 So cross all fingers and toes that we can get immigration approval at a speedy rate so we can move on to the next step. Keep praying!

Very Disappointing Week

This week has I have to admit been the worse in a while. I equal it to the days of despair over losing Alek.   We were so close to being at the end of our journey and then the brakes got slammed and we hit the proverbial brick wall. Our immigration officer decided to request more evidence for our I-800. This is a big step in our adoption and to get this from this guy has stopped everything. Our little man's initial diagnosis made his medical condition look serious but since then they have called him just delayed. My little peanut was a premie so of course he is going to be delayed.  We are now having to update our home study to include the word "serious". One word that is keeping us from going to get Dane in the next 8 weeks. I don't use the word heartless lightly when I refer to our immigration officer. He is subjecting our son to several more months without his family.  We can only pray that we see him before the end of the year. I spent the first part of the week crying and now I am just nervous and very angry with the situation.  I feel like an evil force does not want us to give another child a family. I feel like if it is going to happen, it will happen to us. My agency said they haven't had this happen before. There is that evil force I was talking about.  I guess so much for my little boy coming home before Thanksgiving or maybe even Christmas.  Are we ever going to get a break???  If I didn't love that little face so much, I would have quit Monday when I found out what we were not approved.  We got the above picture the day we got the RFE.  My heart cannot take much more.

Blessed

What is that?  That is China saying that we can get our little peanut in 2-3 months. We got this document in record timing of 48 days. I cannot believe that this is almost over and our little Dane will be in our arms by October at the earliest or November at the latest. I have God to thank for this miracle of all miracles. Now we are facing mountains of paperwork and prep work for that big trip to the country where our family first began. I am nervous, excited and scared to death but most of all I am blessed. Dane just like my other kiddos is a blessing to our family and I cannot wait to show him what it means to be in a family and give him all the love he deserves.

 So I guess you can tell by the picture that we have an excited little girl. She is flipping out about seeing China and being the first in the family to meet her baby brother.  I think it is great that Lindze can experience the trip, the Gotcha day and everything that goes along with adopting a child from China. She has asked many questions about how we got her so this will help her understand it a bit.  I also think she will be instrumental in helping Dane while he grieves from leaving his foster family. He has been with them since he was one month old so he is going to do some heavy grieving and I pray everyday that we can help with work through it. Imagine loving a family for over a year and then one day getting taken from them and put in strangers arms.  I could not imagine but I know with enough love we can get him through it.
  So for now just keep praying that everything goes smoothly and we can bring our little peanut home so very soon and also pray that he stays safe until he is in our arms forever.