Waiting

The January LID (log in date) we were hoping for isn't going to happen. We're still waiting for the social worker to make final revisions/tweaks on our Home Study report. It appears to be about 95 percent done, but the agency has sent it back for minor corrections/additions. This was after I sent it back to correct Hubs being referred to by the wrong name in the report (I have been having fun calling him "Roy", though) and a bunch of other little nitnoid typos. Who knows...maybe "Roy" will stick - he has been answering to that over the Christmas weekend!!

So, once our Homestudy Report is completed, our paperwork can be sent to USCIS (U.S. Immigration) for approval, which we are being told is taking 60 DAYS! Once that comes back, then our stuff can finally go to China. We are still hoping he is here for his birthday, though....1 Jul. That would be fun.

I've read two really good books while I've been waiting - one is Silent Tears, by Kay Bratt, which details what life is like in a Chinese orphanage. Just by looking at Doodlebug's pictures, we can tell he is in a really good foster home and isn't hungry or cold. But, it was good to get the perspective and it gives some good insight in to the sheer number of orphans in China and the way they're managed/administered. The other books I have read is Message from an Unknown Chinese mother, by Xin Ran. This gives the perspective of mothers who abandon their children or give them to orphanages to be adopted by Westerners. It's a collection of stories of different women - some of them shocking, some of them sad. It helps to give me a better perspective on what would make a woman leave a defenseless child in the street. I don't accept it, but I have a better grasp of how different the life of a rural Chinese woman is from my life.

I am still figuring out this blog thing and everyone who knows me knows the depth of my computer skills (that was a joke) but here is a picture of OUR COPY of our adoption paperwork so far. Our agency has been given two of these packets and our social worker has most of this stuff, too. I know there will be more paperwork to come. The little blue notebook is my almost daily "jot it down" pad...I used it at first to keep track of the bazillion police clearences that we had to get for our dossier and then I started using it to keep records for our taxes. I jot down whenever we get something, mail something out, or something significant in the process happens. We also used it to keep track of our game of Trivial Pursuit this past weekend, but that was kind of an accident - one of my guests grabbed it off my desk and I said "sure, use that" without realizing what it was. So, we've got this as a potential souvineer for our boy someday that he can use to re-live our journey to him, if he so chooses...or as evidence that his Dad knows way more useless facts than his mom.