I Couldn't Help Myself...

...I just called USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) to find out about the status of our application. People keep asking where we are in the process: We have all of our paperwork in Colombia as of October 3rd. It is being translated and should be finished soon...but an official in Colombia cannot look at our file and approve us until the US Government approves us to adopt internationally. So we're waiting. We're going to be doing a lot of waiting during this process. I was hoping USCIS would be quicker, but they are telling us 90 days at this point to process our application...90 days from the receipt date: September 17th...90 days is December 16th. That is so far away...and is it 90 work days or 90 days. I counted 90 days. It better be 90 days. After 90 days, I'll call USCIS again, at which point they probably won't be done, but at least then they will assign us a case worker to review our homestudy. Hopefully they will not need any more information...then they will mail us our approval letter, titled the 797C, which I will fax to our country director. She will send it to Colombia, just in time for the holidays....so our file will most likely not even begin the review process in Colombia until after Christmas (and by that I mean mid-January), where it is estimated to take another 90 days to review and hopefully approve. Aaahhh. I am so glad I didn't know all this BEFORE we started. It's a LOT harder than I thought and a LOT harder than being pregnant...but no one knows except other adoptive parents. They all have a lot of sympathy for us at the moment b/c they understand the struggles of doing this paperwork stuff and then just waiting for governments. Imagine waiting for the government to tell you when you could deliver your baby and not knowing how much longer it would be until you give birth. That's about what it feels like. I know we haven't even really begun the official "waiting" period. God knows how much He'll be teaching me about patience. Aaahhh. Not doing so hot now.

Adoption Updates

Several praises:
1. Our dossier was sent to Colombia on October 3rd for translations. It is not complete yet as we are still waiting for US Government approval. Once it is complete, the Colombian government will review it and either approve us or ask us for more information. (You can start praying now that our file will be acceptable!!!)
2. We have been assigned a fingerprint appointment at USCIS (Citizen and Immigration Services) for October 14th...a necessary step for government approval.

Several prayer requests:
1. Please pray that we will receive our US approval in a timely manner.
2. We are in the process of applying for grants.
3. Pray for the families in Colombia now, as the court system is on strike and all adoptions have halted at the moment...keep some families in limbo in Colombia with their children. I'm sure they are stressed out wondering when they will be able to finalize their adoptions and return home and wondering how long their finances will hold out as they are in Colombia indefinitely.

Fun Picture of Aliana

First Birthday Pictures

So here are some pictures of Ali enjoying her presents and cupcake at her birthday party!

On the adoption front...guess what I'm mailing today? Our completed dossier documents (with the exception of our US government approval). Our program coordinator is going to send our documents to Colombia to be translated (after she looks them over...please let them all be correct!!!), and then we'll just fax our approval from the US when it comes. So, we are really close to being done with the majority of the work we have to do...next steps: waiting, reading, praying, enjoying Ali and our family and friends, waiting, applying for grants, saving money...lots to do while we settle in for the long wait for our second child!

Birthdays & Coffee Trucks

There is an ice cream truck that drives by our house every late afternoon. Our next door neighbor buys one for her and her dog, and on nice days they sit in the yard to enjoy the treat together. Very sweet. I just think in my head I would never spend money buying ice cream for a dog, and then I wish the ice cream truck were a coffee truck. I would wait everyday and spend a whole lot of money on a nice hazelnut latte. How awesome would that be?

Well...I can't get that wish, but I do get to enjoy my beautiful daughter all day long on her first birthday. Can you believe it? I am so grateful to God for her and for the joy she brings us. I am remembering back to trying to get pregnant a lot these days and comparing it in my mind to our adoption. Both have required so much trust, more than I can come up with on my own. I am praying so much that God will help me remember that He is in control of everything. As I pray, I am remembering my disappointment at not being able to get pregnant on our own and then going through fertility treatments and wondering if we'd ever get to hold a baby and call her our own. God didn't have to, but in His mercy He allowed us to get pregnant. I vividly remember the joy of finally holding Ali in our arms one year ago; I know I will experience joy again when we hold our next child in our arms. I am praising God for so much today...for His son, Jesus, for helping us have faith, for being sovereign, even over our small lives, for His faithfulness to us, for our daughter, Aliana, and for the child we do not know yet! I can't wait to meet him. (or her.) :)

Well-dressed, Appropriate, and Pleasant?

So our dossier instructions say that in the photos we submit, we do not need to be in formal attire, but we should be "well dressed, appropriate and pleasant-looking." What do you all think...is this an okay photo to send. I keep trying to get a good one when we're (semi) dressed up for church, but I'm making the mistake of having our teens take the picture...so we've got a bunch of fuzzy, head cut-off, eyes-closed, Ali crying pictures. This is the best picture we have so far of us looking "pleasant," but do you think we're "well dressed" enough?

Done (With One Stage)

We are officially done with our homestudy and our psych evaluation and all of our other paperwork...we've sent everything to various states to be apostilled/authenticated (a necessary step to make our papers "legal" overseas). We've had some bumps on the road, but we're done with one huge step. Our social worker mentioned that we have 3 hoops to jump through: the homestudy, the US government, and then Colombia. After that, we'll be waiting, and waiting, and waiting. (Can you tell which part I'm dreading?) We applied with USCIS (the government) on Friday, so who knows when we'll hear from them, but our Colombia program director said that once everything else in our dossier is done, she'll send it to Colombia to begin translations and we'll just send the 171H (approval from US) when it gets done. It makes me feel better that at least our paperwork can get to Colombia even if the US takes a while...which hopefully it won't.