I never promised to update our blog regularly, just remember that when you look at the 5 month difference in this post and the last. This is a judge-free zone, deal?
It feels like a lot has happened in the last few months in the adoption journey! Here is a little timeline to get you caught up:
March 6:
We submitted our i600a, which is the application to the U.S. Government petitioning to be able to adopt internationally. This is also the form we must fill out in order to get our biometrics (fingerprinting) appointment. They basically send you a letter with a date, time, and location (Ft. Smith, AR or Kansas City, MO...both are over 2 hours away) and you have to drop everything and be there. Not stressful at all, right?
March 11:
We got an email that our i600a was received and being processed!
March 20:
We received our biometrics appointment! We knew we had a trip to Baltimore and a trip to Texas planned in the near future so that meant there were only 4 days out of the next few months we couldn't make it to an appointment. Guess when our first appointment was ... when we were in Baltimore. We submitted a request for a new appointment and had high hopes we would get a good one!
March 30:
We received our next biometrics appointment! Guess when it was ... when we were in Texas. Of course. Because that's how adoption journeys go.
April 1:
Bad news: We received a letter saying our home study was missing the sentence, "The child's bedroom meets the requirements set forth by the state of Missouri." Because of that, our i600a wasn't accepted yet. Good news: Our social worker is amazing and added in the sentence, got 4 new notarized copies, and brought them to us so we could send them off!
April 9:
We received our next biometrics appointment! WE WERE AVAILABLE! We put it on our calendars with permanent marker (ok, Isaac put it in his phone but I am basically living in the Stone Age and put it in my trusty planner) and vowed to be there, come hell or high water.
April 15:
Y'all. I have the sweetest friends EVER. Seriously. Ever. Just when I thought I was about to lose my mind with this process, they COMPLETELY surprised me and planned a fun night of painting pottery for the nursery, eating yummy cupcakes, and giving me sweet encouragement. My cup runneth over.
April 18:
We FINALLY received Isaac's long-awaited birth certificate from the U.S. State Department! We had been waiting on this for a couple of month's and weren't able to send in our dossier without it. Isaac was born in England so in order to get certified copies of his documents, we basically had to sell our souls to the government in exchange...Ok, it wasn't really that bad. But we DID have to wait a million years for it. Or 3 months. Whatever. It wasn't good. Moral of the story: be born in America OR if you're born in England, at least have a sexy accent to make the wait more tolerable for your wife.
April 21:
We submitted our dossier (big stack of paperwork with everything from marriage license to life insurance policies to doctor's notes to proof that we're not horrible people)! Once our agency received this, we were officially on the list waiting to be matched with a precious Caribbean child that needs a family.
As of now, we are on the waiting list and have absolutely no idea how long until our number is up. It could be tomorrow, or it could be in 12 months. My stick-to-my-paper-planner-and-always-know-what's-happening-a-year-in-advance self loves this aspect. Or not.
But in all seriousness, we are so thankful to be on this journey. This time of waiting has been so unbelievably sweet. We are loving our last bit of life together as a twosome and eagerly anticipating life as a threesome (or foursome? I'm praying for twins!). God has been faithful to remind us of our purpose in this: to be able to show love, comfort, protection, and hope to a child who otherwise may not know those things and above all to make the love, comfort, protection, and hope of our Father known to a world who otherwise may not see it. When those things are the end goal, how could we ever complain about the wait? We look forward to the day when we get to tell our child about the way God orchestrated every detail for their joy and for His glory.
See you in 5 months! Just kidding. I'll do better. Maybe.
Sometimes you just need some inspiration from your 3rd grade teacher to get you blogging again. Thanks, Mrs. Pybus!
