I-797C came in!!!!!!!

Well our I-797c came in just the other day! I am so glad that it came in so quickly hopefully this means that our fingerprint appointment will come just as quickly. I don't want to jinx that chance, but ya never know! We spent the weekend with little Amel again, this time we had her for 4 days! Michael and I both had a blast with her. She's 20 months old and so fun. I am hoping we'll get to keep her again this weekend...but alas we have to go the week without her and wait until Friday to find out for sure! Keep your fingers crossed for both reasons please!!

Paperwork back: Round one

So we got our first i600a form sent back to us; the one that I had forgotten to send the check with. Whew i can breath easy knowing that one wasn't just outright rejected. I am surprised however how quickly it got back to us. I hope the one we sent with the right information and the check will be approved and just as quickly as this one was rejected. So cross your fingers and say a little prayer please!!

i600-a ..one more time

Ok, so after I had a heart attack about not putting the check in with our i600-a, I calmed down and read the instruction sheet that I printed off when I googled the form. It says that if you do not send in the fee, or sign it they will simply send it back. I tried to call fedex and cancel the shipment of the form, but of course it had already been delivered. So, I triple checked the form and the fee this time and sent it again via fedex. I am praying to God that this will not keep us from being approved and from getting our fingerprinting appointment. I feel so stupid, but alas here we are.

uuggghhhh

Well we just sent off our I600-A, but however at 3:30 a.m I have realized I forgot to put in the check..yeah I really hope this doesn't mess up our chances of having the form approved when i resend it tomorrow. I guess I was just so excited to send it off that I forgot the check. UUGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah-got

Well today I went to get the mail and in it was one of the shirts we had ordered for my brother. We are planning on telling our family soon and giving them shirts that have Amharic written on them. The one we recieved today has the word for uncle written in Amharic on it. I've been very emotional throughout the process thus far, but I never expected to feel so strongly about this one shirt. Today looking at this shirt I realized this will change my relationship with my brother and that amazed me. My brother and I had been close as kids, but as we grew up and became teenagers we grew apart. Now that I am married and he is in college four hours away, our relationship has grown and in the positive direction. Looking at this shirt made me cry. My brother has no idea that he is going to become an uncle ( if all goes to plan, knock on wood). I just can't believe that he will become an Ah-got ( uncle). He will forever be a part of our daughters life and I cannot wait to tell him. I know he will be excited, eventhough he is only 19 he will be great with her. If my brother ever reads this I want him to know how much I love him and how glad I am that he will be my daughters Ah-got.
(p.s I read Michael's post and am glad to see hear that he is excited, I know he will be a great daddy!)

Home study in the mail (Daddy edition)

This is daddy talking here... this is my first post on our blog. Megan kept telling me that I should post something but nothing seemed to hit. This, however, hit...

I decided that we had waited enough time to hear something about out home study. As you can read below, out Arkansas agency had completed the home study and had sent it to our Oregon agency electronically for approval. Our Oregon agency had replied that only a few things required change. We waited and waited and Megan was getting ancy... so I arrived in my office this Monday morning and decided to email our Arkansas agency to get an update. Megan had emailed them over and over and they had stopped responding. I wondered if they would ignore me too. I was surprised to receive an update from them within an hour of my message! The response: The home study is in the mail today and we should receive it tomorrow! I asked Megan and she said this means that it was approved by our Oregon agency and we can move forward! This feels official now and this is why I am posting. Now we wait to hear what to do next!

Sara Groves, "I Saw What I Saw"

Starting back up...it's about time!

Well I haven't written in a while and I felt it was time to post because we finally are one step closer to holding our daughter. We got the first draft of our homestudy in and there were very few corrections that had to be made, so hopefully it won't be long before our agency approves it! It seems like it's been months since we had our last homestudy meeting and the wait for the draft seemed endless. At several points from the last meeting til now I had kind of become lost in the process and began to feel a lot of distance with the adoption and it felt strange thinking I could have a daughter in Ethiopia. However, this past weekend we had our friend's 18 month old for two days and it made all the feelings come back to me. I watched my husband turn from a man into a father. Eventhough this little girl was not his he treated her like she was, he held her in the pool, played with her and made her laugh. It was amazing to think one day I will have that. I cannot stop thinking about our daughter and if she's been born or if she's still inside of her mother's tummy...does she have dark skin or is her skin a mocha color...is she being well taken care of? I cannot wait to hold her for the first time and to watch her grow and learn to say mommy and daddy....one step closer to my daughter....one step closer to going from a couple to a family...one step closer!