Monday, May 20, 2013

Small Bump in the Road, But Lots of Progress!


First, the Bump in the Road!

On Thursday, we got a letter in the mail from USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services).  I was excited, but nervous to open it. Was this our approval letter/form? Nope! It was a letter requesting more information before we could be approved.  USCIS requested an updated homestudy because 1 required sentence was missing from our home study (a very important sentence that is standard to all home studies, but somehow was missed in ours.) I called our home study agency on Friday, and by today (Monday) the problem was fixed! Our homestudy agency was super cooperative in correcting it with out charging us and Andrew was able to pick up the updated homestudy today! Tomorrow, it will go out in the mail to USCIS. We should get a letter of approval in the mail from USCIS shortly!

Second, Lots of Progress!

Our placing agency, Children of All Nations, has finished getting all our documents apostiled (authenticated at state and/or federal levels). As soon as we get our approval from USCIS, our dossier will be sent to Bulgaria to be translated!

Waiting....

Right now, all we can do is wait while our paperwork is completed, then translated in Bulgarian for approval by the Bulgarian government. While we wait, we are busy! Andrew successfully completed another semester and is officially halfway done with his masters course! This week he will be starting a summer class. Andrew will also be working a lot more hours as a trim carpenter in the summer and be working on finishing our basement in the evenings. I have 1 week left of teaching preschool before we are out for the summer. Next week, I will be taking a short 3 day missions trip to Haiti for a to help train teachers at a Sunday school training seminar. For the summer, I will be babysitting a lot more hours!

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Birth Mother's Day

Thus far in my life, Mother's Day has always been a day to celebrate the wonderful mom I had. (And for the past three years, it has also included thanking my wonderful mother-in-law for raising such a great son!) This year on Mother's Day, I can't help but think about our kids' birth mother. I found out that the Saturday before Mother's Day is Birth Mother's Day. I wonder...What our kids' birth mother is/was like? Did my kids get to know their birth mother at all before going to their orphanage? What were the circumstances that our kids could no longer live with their birth mother? Did she die? Did she have to leave them at an orphanage for some other reason? I wonder what their birth mother looks like. I hope someday to have a picture of her, for our kids' sake. I hope that if she is still living, and if our children want too, that someday we can meet her. And if I am ever privileged enough to meet my children's birth mother I want to tell her some things. I want to tell her "Thank you. Thank you for giving your children life. Thank you for giving them all the love you could." And I want her to know that her children will be okay. That we will love them and care for them.


PS. I write about our kids in this article as if they are already ours. No, we don't have a referral yet. But as future adoptive parents, we think of our future kids as "our kids", even though we don't know their names or ages. They may not legally be our kids yet, but in our hearts, they are and always will be our children!