Bittersweet

I heard Billy's voice. What a precious sound! David with Bring Me Hope sent us an audio file of the phone call from the Night Walk. I was so thankful for this. We listened the other night. I hear Katie (in China) say "Oh wait, Billy is taking a picture". Then a few minutes later she yells out "Hey Billy, come say Hi to America!" Then she calls him again and said "Billy come say Hi to America, Maybe to Bill." Well that got me right there. Then I hear Katie tell him to say Hi and he says "Hi". Then she says "Tell them your name" and I hear "Tell them your name". Then laughing. Then she says "No, say My name is Billy" then I hear "My name is Billy". Then she tries to get him to say "Hasta La Vista Baby" and he laughs, and says in Chinese "I can't say that" and he runs away.

I also saw 2 photos on Katie's Facebook and Billy was in them. He had the biggest smile in both photos. It was good to see him happy.

The phone call was great! I loved hearing his voice. But it made me so sad. I still feel like he's part of our family. He will always be in one way or another. I just wish he could have come home to us. I'm still praying and searching for a family for him. Please help me. It's hard knowing he's there waiting.

And then I think of ALL the kids in China waiting. I wish we could bring more home. I wish we had the money & space needed to bring home a few of the older kids. My heart just aches for them right now. I want to do something. I want to help them. I just don't know exactly how right now.

So I pray. I hope. I dream. We'll see where God places me.

Until next time.....

So close....

Praising God today that our documents from Tallahassee arrived back to us! They were quick. It was delivered on Friday. So they must have checked the notaries and sent it right back out.

Well then I kept looking. Our homestudy did not get certified. The notary stamp does not become valid until TOMORROW! We've had the HS since the beginning of April. It was signed and notarized March 25th. As you can imagine I'm a little tense right now. We're so close. Yet still not there yet.

I have a call and email into our agency. They will have to fix this mistake. I hope they fix it today. I've emailed asking if they can send it off to Tallahassee, so we won't have to wait 2 days for the mail to get it here. They could get it in the mail today, and it would be delivered to Tallahassee by Thursday and we could have it back by Saturday. BUT, I doubt it will be that quick.

So we wait. Wait for a phone call or email. Wait to get it fixed. Waiting seems to be the name of the game in adoption. I should be used to this. I just get anxious when we have to wait on others.

God is in control. Still praising Him! I know that this is happening for a reason. A reason one day I'll understand.

I could use prayers that I calm down and just relax. :-)

Thanks!

Rambling....

Well, I found out that the dossier documents that need certification were delivered to Tallahassee on Friday. Since yesterday was a holiday, I'm going to assume that they will hopefully get them certified today and out in the mail. They only have 3 forms to certify, only 2 notary signatures. Should not be hard to do. Should not take them long. I'm getting really anxious now that we're so close to having the paperwork complete. I want it all done, and in China.

I'm also anxious with what God has planned for us. I'm ready to know who our son is. I'm ready to start planning for his arrival.

But at the same time, I'm still grieving. Grieving over Billy. I have my days where I think I'm doing okay. Then I see a photo of him. And I still want him here. Today I was on Facebook and whenever I see photos that tag Bring Me Hope, I look. And today I saw 2 photos with him in the background. He looks really good. He looks happy. And that makes me happy. But I'm also sad because I know how badly he wants/needs a family. This morning I'm sitting here trying to think if there is ANYONE that I know who would want to adopt him. I would love to know the family he goes to. I would love to have contact with him once he's here. I think once I know he's okay, and he has a family who will love him, then the grieving will start to ease up.

So if you are reading this, and would LOVE to adopt a 13 year old boy, PLEASE let me know. :-) Or if you know of someone who would like to adopt a 13 year old boy, contact me. We need to find him a good family.

It's almost summer here. 8 days of school left. The girls are doing the countdown. They are excited. We have a bunch planned. I know the summer will go by fast. I hope to enjoy every day with my girls.

Soon I hope to update on the dossier status.

Until next time......

On it's way to Tallahassee

Finally, our notarized copy of our I-797C, Homestudy and updated application letter to China are on their way to Tallahassee for certification. Once they certify the notaries signatures, then we'll be able to send it all off to Chinese Consulate in Houston so they can Authenticate the paperwork. THEN, it's off to our agency where they will review our whole dossier. AND THEN......TO CHINA!

As you can see by our timeline, we have not been at this for too long. It feels like forever because we started talking about adopting again once Bill got home from China in August. But we did not officially start collecting the paperwork until January. 5 months ago. A typical dossier takes 6 months to complete.

I'm so thankful that USCIS worked fast this time. I was afraid of the wait. But they worked fast and now we just need to get the final paperwork certified & authenticated and then the paperwork will be on it's way.

I'm very anxious about our referral. I know now how fast it can happen. I've been praying for our new son. I'm excited at the thought. I'm ready to plan for his arrival. But we have to wait. We need to know how old he is and how big he is etc. Will he be young enough for a crib, or old enough for a toddler bed? Will he need bottles & bibs, or sippy cups & big boy stuff. I can not wait to know who he is.

I'm also still very sad over Billy. I wish there was a way to bring him home. I'm praying for his future family. I'm praying that Billy will be loved. I'm praying a family will love him as much as we love him. I pray that one day I will be able to meet this sweet boy. Please keep Billy in your prayers!

So hopefully in a week or so, I'll be updating this blog letting you know the paperwork is on it's way to Houston. Woo Hoo! We're almost done!

Until next time......

USCIS Approval!

I'm so happy. We got the very last form we've been waiting for. The I-797C. This says we are approved by Homeland Security to adopt from China. Now, we need to get a copy of this form notarized and then mail this, along with our homestudy off to Tallahassee so they can Certify the notary signatures. Then, we'll send it off to the Chinese Consulate in Houston so they can Authenticate the Certification. Then, all of the paperwork is OFF TO CHINA! I hope and pray that 3 weeks from now I can officially say we are DTC (Dossier to China).

More updates to come soon........

We're approved

Today I got the word from our adoption agency. We're approved to adopt a special needs child. Woo Hoo! We had to fill out a form, letting our agency know the gender, age and special needs of a child we would like to adopt. I was amazed at the long list of SN there are. It actually made me sad. Bill and I put down that we would like to adopt a BOY between the ages of 0-3 (but would prefer under 2) with the SN of cleft lip/palate, repaired cleft lip/unrepaired cleft palate; or mild hearing loss.

On Saturday, we got a call we were not expecting. Our agency said they had a little boy. Would we like to see his file. Well, since we did not get the SN info packet yet, we did not quite understand how this process worked. We did look at his file. He is a cutie pie. But we did not realize we needed to lock his file. Unfortunately, after we were excited, thinking he was our son, another family locked his file and they have decided to adopt him.

We were very sad about this. Everything happened so fast. We were not prepared. We did not understand how fast things can work. Now that we know he is getting a family, we are happy and a little relieved. We were not ready to accept a referral yet. We are still trying to adjust to losing Billy.

So now we wait. Wait for the call. Wait to see who our SON is. I'm excited. I've wanted a son for a very long time. Bill is getting excited too. He told me today that he is ready to start buying boy things. I told him we need to wait. :-)

We would appreciate your prayers during this time. We do not know what God's timing is in all of this. We are still waiting for our immigration approval. PLEASE pray that will come soon. It's been 11 days. It could take up to 2 months.

I'll be sure to make a big announcement once that arrives. This is the last piece of paperwork we're waiting for.

Until next time....

Not our plan, but His

I wanted to give you an update on our adoption plans.

It has been a very hard month. A month of praying, crying, talking and more crying. And the outcome of all of this is we are not able to pursue the adoption as planned. I don't want to get into details. I just want everyone to know that this decision was not an easy one. And we did not decide this over night.

Thank you for your support, friendship, prayers etc. We truly appreciate it. I hope to one day look back on all of this and see why Billy was brought into our lives. Maybe, just maybe, to get us started on our 3rd adoption.

And yes, we are going to continue on with an adoption. We discussed everything with our Family Coordinator at America World. They are very supportive and helpful. We told her we would like to still do an adoption and that Bill & I have been talking about adopting a child as young as possible, but definitely under the age of 5. We want to keep the birth order in the house. This time, I'm praying God will match us with a little boy. :-)

Thank you again for your prayers, support, friendship, encouragement etc. I truly need it right now. We do still plan to help Billy out in some way. Right now the best thing we can do is pray that he does find a forever family who will love him as much as we do. His file is scheduled to go to CCAI. If you know of anyone who would like to adopt a 13 year old boy, please let me know.

We feel confident that God took us down this road for a reason. We thought we had it all figured out. We thought He wanted us to adopt Billy. We are now seeing that is not what He had planned. We feel God in what has taken place over the last month. We know that one day we'll be able to see His hands everywhere.

I know that this news will come as a shock to many. Please do not judge us. We just hope you know that a lot of prayer and counseling went into this decision. We do love Billy. And we want what is best for him.

Thank you again.
Love,
Debbie

Fingerprints.....Check

Today was the day. Fingerprints at USCIS. This is the one thing in the whole adoption process that I dread. Probably because the first time we did this for Abby, it was a horrible experience. Then for Jadyn's adoption, we waited over an hour to get fingerprinted.

Well today, much different. We had a scheduled appointment time. 9 AM. We arrived at 8:50. Got checked in. I was number 172 and Bill was 173 (no, I do not believe they started at 1 today LOL). Well when we sat down, they were on 170. We were in and out of the office in 20 minutes. Painless!

So since we did it so quickly, we decided to get Chick-Fil-A for breakfast (our favorite thing to do after an adoption appointment LOL). Tiff stayed home and watched the girls. It was a nice morning out, just the 2 of us.

Now we wait for our approval. Let the countdown begin........