A Big Day!

We no longer have to feel quite so blue about this adoption process... It feels as thought we have turned a corner and we might now be headed in a forward direction. In the mailbox I found  a letter that we have been waiting for and it made me shake to open it. We received our 

Department of Homeland Security letter that gave us favorable determination for advance processing of orphan petition. In English that means the US government determined upon review of all our paperwork, that we are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans.

This is what the Nepali Ministry has been waiting for in order to move us into the next stage of matching us with a child. Reading the letter made both Bob and I chuckle as we continue to wonder when we will know who SHE is. When will the referral come, when can we plan to know who is intended for our family? The waiting is much more challenging than we thought it would be. Not only because we are eager for her arrival into our family but because we have no control over anything that happens throughout this process. We simply wait. We talk about the next phase of parenthood and just this week I began to show Bob what I would like to do in creating a room for our daughter. Even that felt a bit strange. We learned this week that many areas of Nepal only have electricity for six hours a day so some weeks it is challenging for our agency to be in contact with the attorney who is closely working with the government as the adoptions begin to get rolling in Nepal. So this week there was very little news from our agency. The look on Owen's face above says it all... Some days when well meaning people ask how it is going that is the face I would love to make. Instead today we are smiling. We are smiling because somewhere thousands of miles away our daughter is either already born or soon to be born to a birth mother who will have to make the most courageous choice of her life. Someone recently told me to pray for the birth mother. Pray for her health, her choices, her courage to find the right orphanage where she will leave the child we will someday be blessed to meet.

Our three Musketeers!

Waiting...

So what do you do when the wait feels long? That is my question of the moment. We are so willing to see the next step in this journey. What age will she be and what circumstances will surround her being relinquished into an orphanage? What will she look like and when can we begin to wrap our minds and hearts around bringing her here into our world? I think being so in love with my three boys makes wanting to know "her" even that much more difficult. I never knew that this process would feel so deep, so overwhelming, so exciting. There are so many unknowns right now and waiting on the Nepali government feels hard for a control freak such as me. Some days I want to shout from the rooftop, "hurry it up already!"  But then I quietly come back to my center and I realize that this timing is not about me, it is not about what season will be easiest for us, it's not even about how will we do this when we have to leave three children behind. It is not about which of my sisters will be able to go with us and it is not about the gap that feels to be growing between my youngest Owen and his soon to be sister. This is about faith... It is about adding a child into our family when the timing is right and when all things happen in the manner in which they should. We do not get to control this. Somewhere halfway around the world there is a pregnant woman who wonders how she will care for the child that grows in her body. Or maybe there is a child already born who has nobody to hold and love her, nobody to guide and respect her as she grows up. Maybe there is a grandmother who struggles to feed the five children she has been left to care for. We do not get to know when and how just yet but the story is unfolding and sometime soon God will show us his perfect plan.

The Latest

Well I tried to post one of the weekly updates we receive from our agency just to make everyone laugh.It didn't quite work. Perhaps we are the only ones who can truly appreciate the humor. This process and Nepal as an adoptive country is just so darn confusing.

After submitting our dossier we were then told to begin working on the I 600 A(also known as the I171H) form which goes to the Department of Homeland Security where we will be approved or denied the ability to obtain a Visa to bring our Nepali daughter to the US. Interestingly enough, I have a friend going through the same process with a different agency who completed this form months ago before the dossier was submitted. So we went to work getting the birth certificates and marriage license and all the other goodies required to get the form submitted. It is now in and again we wait! 

We now begin to wonder how long we wait before we begin to "get ready?" How does one get ready when the timeline feels a bit endless?  We have a very strong faith that this journey to our daughter is in God's hands, but it is so hard to find the patience and the courage to wait. We are all getting eager to just see a picture of who she is. The next step should be a referral from our agency which will include learning who she is and being able to view her health records.  After receiving the referral we have two weeks to have an international pediatrician review her records and then we must accept or decline. How odd that statement is. She is waiting for a family and we are waiting for her. We cannot wait to accept her with arms and hearts wide open.  

The Dossier paperwork is complete! We mailed everything today to our agency. From the agency everything gets sent to Nepal for translation. We are thrilled! Now we wait.

Yippee!

So what's next

This week we finish up our dossier and a million signatures all needing to be notarized. We send the dossier which includes the home study to AGCI in Portland for their review. Nepal is a very picky program so everything will be 

carefully scrutinized to be certain all information matches up. Next AGCI will submit the entire packet to the Ministry of Nepal. Then we wait and wait and wait. We really do not have any idea how quickly this new Nepali process will go. The Ministry of Nepal process' the info and they seek out the child best suited for our family based upon our request. From there we will receive a referral. This will include a picture and whatever background and medical history they have on the child. Then we work with an international pediatrician to rule out any health issues. We will have two weeks to accept or deny the referral. From the acceptance of the referral we will have approximately four weeks before we must travel to pick her up. The in country stay will be 7-10 days while we complete immigration paperwork and obtain a Visa for her to exit Nepal and enter the USA. So that's the process from this point on all subject to change of course :)