Spring Time Fun Photos

Here are some recent photos of the girls enjoying the Spring.

Abigail & Emma!

Emma -out for an evening walk with Mommy!


Abigail -going for a walk in her favorite "pink shoes" which she insists she wear every day.

Emma! What a poser? We made a visit to the Iris Gardens a few weeks ago.

Abigail -This is a shy look. She's only shy out in public. We get her home and she's very out-going! I wonder where she got this?

Did we say only 1?

Did we say we were only adopting ONE child? Well that most likely is the truth. However once we receive our immigration approval we will actually be approved for a referral of either a little baby girl OR twins. The chances of being matched with twins is VERY low, but it's a possibility. Not sure if many heard that and didn't want anyone to be shocked IF by some 100th of 1% chance it actually happens. You know our luck! Only God knows the plan he has for our family and who he has waiting for us!
Jeremiah 29:11

Biometrics? ...Check

Today we had our fingerprinting appointment for Immigration. It was super simple and quick. We arrived at 7:45am for our 8:00am appointment. We were done and back in the truck by 8:20am. We didn't know how long to expect it to take, but were expecting to possibly have to spend a good part of the day there. So we were quite pleased to be done in 35 minutes. Now we wait for our Immigration approval -the infamous I171H form.

Tomorrow Sean and I begin our first round of immunizations. Sounds fun eh?

Sissy?

We have been talking to the girls a lot about the fact that they are going to have a new baby sister -trying to prepare them as best we can. We often ask them what they would like their baby sister's name to be. They've suggested Lauren (the name of their latest babysitter), KeeKee (which is "blankie" in our household 2 year old talk), "Sissy" and other common household item names. Each night we pray for "Baby Sister" and her birth family and ask that God keeps them safe and healthy. The other morning out of the blue Emma said to me, "I want it." I of course asked her what she wanted. She said, "I want baby sissy." I thought it was so sweet. Maybe she's starting to grasp the general idea of ANOTHER sister.

Whew!

We had a small issue with our immigration paperwork due to an error on my part. When we submitted our application at the end of March, the instructions indicated to include your maiden name. Well I apparently missed the definition of the word "include" and only printed by maiden name and not my married name. Since we were applying as a married couple and I was listed as the spouse, I didn't think twice about it. Well when we received our notification of our fingerprint appointments the paperwork came in my maiden name only. I temporarily freaked out thinking this would for sure cause some serious delays in receiving our immigration approval and wondering if we would have to start the entire immigration process over. Well today we received good news from our case manager.... "It’s all taken care of – just go to the appointment on the 23rd and your married name will be placed on the file." I was ecstatic. I don't know what she did or what kind of connections she has, but she took care of it for us!

Our agency has been great to work with so far, and we're super excited we chose this one to assist us with our adoption. We loved the service we received when we interviewed them initially, and we were of course attracted to the much shorter wait times for a referral compared to many other agencies. Regardless of any kinds of delays we may have had or may have going forward, we rest in knowing that God has already chosen the little girl who will join our family. He knows exactly who she is and when she'll come home to be with us.

Mis-understanding

The packet we were waiting for finally arrived last week, and today we were able to have a conference call with our Case Manager. She walked us through the next few steps of our adoption process. The bad news is that we found out we're not actually on "the list" yet as I thought I had understood. We were simply accepted into the Ethiopia Program on May 21st. Now we are waiting on our Immigration Approval from USCIS (form I171H). But before we can receive our Immigration approval, the USCIS has to capture our biometrics (ie fingerprints), which we have to do on a specific date, at a specific time and location which they completely control. That's OK though. We just received the notification of our appointments with the USCIS in the mail! So we will go to Portland on June 23 to be fingerprinted. Once this is done we'll wait for our final immigration approval letter which should arrive in the next 5-6 weeks we're guessing. Once that arrives, THEN we will be added to the list for a referral.

We tried to get a more specific estimated timeframe from our Case Manager today regarding how long it will take to receive a referral, but she was still pretty vague -except for saying that she's very sure we would receive a match within 10 months of being on the list. She did tell us that we need to expect the possibility of receiving a referral much quicker than that as well, as that could happen too -which was very encouraging. She wouldn't tell us how many families were ahead of us, as she said it could change between now and when we receive our Immigration approval anyway. She agreed she will share more details once we receive our Immigration approval.

Still waiting

We are still waiting for an update on our next steps. We have been in contact with our Case Manager briefly. She advised she mailed us a packet of information before the Memorial Day weekend, which she would like us to review before we have a voice to voice conversation with her. However we still haven't received the packet. :-( She sent a 2nd one UPS which should arrive this week. So we're hoping to have a conversation with her later this week to get some more information, and I'll post when that happens. The good news is that this delay only affects me and my sanity and has nothing to do with how long it will take us to get our referral. :-)