Red Letter Day!

Today was a red letter day!  Quite the wonderful day, in fact.  It has not been a wonderful week leading up to it however...

My sister has been extremely ill.  She has been in the ICU in New Orleans and until yesterday, I had been there with her.  She has been diagnosed with a fairly uncommon disease that was not easily diagnosed and before we had a definite diagnosis, we nearly lost her.  It was awful seeing my normally sassy sister so still.  I had to leave the office suddenly when she made a turn for the worse and fly down to her.  I didn't get a chance to say "goodbye" to Jaden and it was the first time I've ever been away from Katie.  I am incredibly blessed that I have a husband that said "go" without thinking of what I was leaving him with...an office already short-staffed by one provider in the middle of flu season and 2 littles at home.  I am also very blessed to have an awesome mother-in-law and staff that jumped in to help however they could.  It really does take a village.  After a few days and lots of prayer and good medical care, my sister had taken a definite turn for the better and so I was able to get home in time to keep our planned fingerprint time. 

We had a bit of a good news/bad news situation with our Supplement 3.  Since our current paperwork was valid until Jan 5th and our prints until Jan 8th, we had two goals...to get our supplement 3 acknowledged before it expired on the 5th and to have it approved by the 8th.  The good news was that we did get it in early enough that our time was extended and we didn't have to start completely over.  And the bad...Had it been approved on the 8th, we would have been sent an approval the next day.  As it turned out, she didn't get to review it until the 9th at which point the prints had expired and so she couldn't approve it.  I think in sympathy, she did get a relatively quick appointment for us just 2 weeks later (1/23) but that meant adding on the 2 weeks until the appointment and then however long it took her to pull our file and approve it.  SOMETIMES, they will allow you to walk in early to print but it is totally dependent upon who is working security that day.  The official policy is that you are to come only at your appointed time and date.  We already had today (1/16) scheduled out of the office for my birthday and so we decided to try to shave some time off the wait and try to avoid rescheduling a full day of patients for both of us.  (I have to throw in here that we are also incredibly blessed with understanding patients...they have been very supportive of the time we have been away from the office due to adoption related things)  So, off we went to the USCIS office in OKC at 8:00 am.  I was so afraid that they would say no that I was shaking.  The security guards took our papers from us, handed them back and told us to continue through security.  (Now, whether they noticed that we were a week early and were being kind or just didn't notice, I just don't know or really care!  Either way, we were off to be printed!)  So we went to the back, nearly giddy with relief.  We got in line and hoped that the printing ladies either wouldn't notice or wouldn't care.  I went first and the lady (Elsa, btw) was super nice and didn't say a word.  Tim, noticing the ease of my interaction, changed lines to get my lady also!  :)  We were numbers 1 and 2 for the day and back in our car by 8:20.  Smooth, easy and what a relief!  (For the last week, I have been OCD trying to keep my hands moist and cut free as they will not print you if you have the smallest paper cut.  After we left, I wanted to go play with knives.  hehe)  Wonderful birthday present number 1.

Very shortly after we left, I found out that my sister had been extubated at the hospital!  Whoot!  She didn't really want the tube in the first place; I was relieved that she had it less than 48 hours.  Wonderful birthday present number 2.

About 10:30, I called our officer at USCIS, ostensibly to let her know that we had been printed early but also in hopes that she would have pity on us and not wait until Tuesday to pull our file.  She put me on hold for a minute, pulled up our prints on the computer and came back on the line to tell us she was approving us as we spoke and she would try to get the approval letter out today!  Wonderful birthday present number 3.

Then we drove our 12 year old Honda Odyssey van to Bartlesville and finally purchased to new Odyssey that I have been drooling over for many months and got a wonderful deal.  Wonderful birthday present number 4. 

When I got home, I found out both of my big kids would be home for the weekend!  Wonderful birthday present number 5. 

All in all, I can't imagine a much better birthday.  It has been an exhausting, emotional roller coaster that I fully understand will continue for months to come but at least for today, the ride has come to a stop.

More steps!

Today our home study was sent from Dillon to BAAS for approval so that our I800A Supplement 3 could be approved.  We also received a letter from the USCIS (immigration department) that was a "Notice of Intent to Deny" because they have not received the homestudy yet.  We sent in the application expecting a temporary denial but hoping to get the homestudy in quickly afterward.  It looks like we will be fine on this and so should get to avoid the 40-60 day wait for 1800A!  Whoot!!  Our agency usually takes 2 weeks to approve it but the lady at BAAS has said she will try to get it done tomorrow.  I really hope she doesn't forget.  Our current I800 expires 1/8 and Ian's birthday is 1/9.  I wish we could be there for his birthday or barring that send a cake.  :(  They generally don't allow you to send packages until you have your LOA, which is a few steps away for us.  With LOA we should be about 8 weeks out from travel.  I guess that they worry that parents will back out and how awful would that be for a child to be told they had a family and then not have one?  I know, too, that even 8 weeks is a long time for a 10 year old to wait once he knows his life is about to make a radical change.  Telling Ian now that he has a family would probably make the next 6 months difficult for him.  Sigh.  I can wait. 

From here, we wait on the official I800A, supplement 3 approval and then take that and about a dozen other documents to OKC to be authenticated.  Then we send all of that to the Houston Chinese consulate for them to approve and then we can be DTC (dossier to China).  That puts us in line for China to review our information and send us our letter confirming that we still want to adopt Ian.  Lots of steps still but we are excited to be this close to finishing this step.  We are still holding on to hope for early summer travel to China.

On to Katie and Jaden...
We had Christmas in Florida and celebrated Laura's 25th also.  The kids had a great time.

Before we left we had an early Christmas at NaiNai's house.  It was so sweet.  Jaden saw all of the presents and was bouncing around chanting "presents, presents" and his daddy pulled him aside to remind him to be gracious with his presents and his response was, "I'M getting presents, too?!"  He was so excited even thinking that none of them were for him.  He has such a sweet heart.

He is coming along in school.  Academically, he has made huge strides.  He is so much more comfortable with his letters and his numbers and is working on a few sight words.  With his sensory issues, he is also making strides.  He is starting to learn how to ask for what he needs and has put himself in a quiet area a couple of times when he needed down time at school.  Sensory processing issues will be something he has forever and the key to him being successful will be his ability to self-regulate his sensory diet.  (Meaning sensory experiences, not food.)  I am so blessed that his teacher really loves him and is forgiving when he doesn't do as well as we would wish.

Katie has continued to blossom!  She has had so much fun having all the family together for the holidays.  She is going to be sad when Laura and Mitch have to be gone for school again.  She is speaking so well; she is just amazing.  She isn't growing as much as I would like although she seems to eat constantly.  She is a busy, busy girl.  She is such a cuddler.  :) 

Thanks for continuing to pray us through this journey.