Three years ago today (June 25th), a Ukrainian judge named Jonathan as our 7th Blessing from God! One less orphan!
I had forgotten what a Chunky Monkey he was! Sportin' lovely orphanage head wear.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
AND 6 months ago today, our first Ukrainian Princess arrived HOME on US soil! She has changed so much in six months. It is a privilege and blessing to see her blossom!
Four months home (Yes, all that snow is the end of April!)
At graduation parties the last two weekends
6 months home! Due to her "unique" hairline, she had her first necessary bang trim! Her hair is growing so fast. Fun!
We love you Jonathan and Grace! So glad you are part of our family!
We're HOME! More about that later, but first, catch up time!
Gotcha day was Sunday, and I wanted to post about it in a little more detail.
Sunday morning, we slept in some, and then finished packing. Vanya, our most awesome facilitator, got there 11 something and we loaded up. Then headed over to the orphanage to pick up our princess!
The nannies all gathered around to watch her get dressed in HER new clothes which was done by her favorite nanny, Tanya.
Of course we had to have the tights and turtleneck, but it was warm enough the nannies decided she didn't need the snow pants. :) And she kept her flower on! It stayed on for about 2 hours surprisingly and hasn't stayed on since... I think the nanny talked her into wearing it and then she forgot about it. lol
Grace and Tanya, her favorite nanny. Tanya is the one who came with us to get her passport pictures taken too. Since Grace did so well when we went to get that done, we joked with Tanya about her coming back to the US with us so Grace was happy all the time. :)
Not only did Grace love Tanya, the feeling was mutual. Tanya obviously cared about her and loved her. We are thankful that she had at least two nannies who loved her before we could get there to do so!
Where she slept the past years...
One of the nannies having her say goodbye to her grouppa. Watching her say goodbye and saying goodbye ourselves was the most emotional part of the day (and the trip!) for mom and I. We got to play with almost all of them, love on them, and get to know them. Saying goodbye and leaving them behind knowing they didn't have families was gut wrenching and heartbreaking.
Walking away from that orphanage forever and ever! Tanya walked out with us... and the sun was in a really bad spot for pictures!
Saying goodbye to Tanya, and in Mama's arms forever!
Getting buckled in, and the start of our 7 hour car ride! And going over the Kherson/Tsyurupinsk bridge for the last time. (We stayed in Kherson, the orphanage was in Tsyurupinsk.)
Grace did great for the most part on the long car ride! She only got upset when she had to go potty and didn't want to in her diaper.
We went out to eat once we got to Kiev, and Grace had vardnicki for her first after Gotcha day meal. :) Then we watched some Masha and the Bear in the apartment before bed, she laughed hysterically when mama changed her into her jammies!
Grace Olena, formerly just another of the 147 million, just another statistic. Now a daughter, a sister, cared for, adored and loved.
Maybe I'm the first one to post about Christmas Day?!? :-) But, you'll never guess! We have tickets booked to arrive home ON Christmas Day! WOOHOOO!!! I never thought it possible, but God has done it.
We got Grace's passport picked up and stamped late on Friday afternoon after a bit of running around in a taxi and taking the tram/trolley bus home (fun and cheap). Our best information right now says that the hospital in Kyiv is still out of the TB skin test serum (shortage exists in the US too). That shortage shaves a couple of days off our time in Kyiv. We should just have 2 days doing her medical and visa paperwork, and "should" be able to fly out on Wednesday - Lord willing!!!
Unfortunately, the schedule to fly from Chicago to Appleton is greatly reduced on Christmas Day...go figure. We would have had a 6 hour layover there. I think it would have about killed me to sit there for 6 hours when it is only a 3 hour drive. So, I think we will take a bus to the Milwaukee airport and my dearest husband will come pick us up! This route is exactly what we did when bringing Elijah home. The big difference is we sat in Chicago for hours waiting for our "delayed' flight, which was eventually cancelled. (Yes, I cried more than once.) This time it will be planned - well, as much as you can plan international travel in winter on a holiday.
So, we won't have a big airport "homecoming" which is fine. I don't think too many people would have come on Christmas anyhow. :-) Hey, one out of three adoptions isn't bad!
Tomorrow, Sunday, will be GOTCHA DAY!!! Right now, Grace is sleeping for the last time in that ol' institution. She doesn't even know her life is about to flip upside down! We know it is for the better - it just may take awhile for her to realize that.
We would appreciate your continued prayers for safe travel and Grace's transition to a new life! Thank you so much!
Well the 10 day wait is over and we are back in Ukraine! Mom and I that is.
Our flights were long of course, but okay. We were delayed 2 hours on our first flight, but we made the one out of Chicago because that one was an 1 hr late. We made up time in the air and made it to our gate in Germany with literally a few minutes to spare. Then on to Ukraine! Our MAF (most awesome facilitator) met us at the airport and we stayed with his and his beautiful wife last night (it's mid-morning Monday here).
Waiting in Chicago
eMy mom's update last night: We arrived safely in Donetsk with no issues! Thank you Lord. As soon as we got our boarding passes at the gate in Munich, it was time to board. Whew! We slept most of the way to Donetsk. Our MAF picked us up at the airport and brought us to his apt. We all had a wonderful meal (borsch and a yummy Paleo friendly casserole) made MAF's wife. We have all the amenities of home, including super fast internet. Oh wait, we dont have fast internet at home. But we are in good hands. Plan is to get some medical stuff done tomorrow morning to prove Sarah doesn't have TB so she can visit the orphanage. Then we'll head off to Grace's city to get the court decree, new birth certificate, tax id number, and then apply for her passport! Once we have the passport in hand, we'll head up to Kyiv. Anyway, that is the plan. Thanks so much for praying us here. God is so faithful!
One last thing..has anyone ever had "pomelo"? Our MAF just brought some home from the grocery store. It is a very large citrus fruit, kind of like grapefruit but much sweeter and not as juicy. Very yummy!!! Wondering if anyone has seen them in the States? Here's a photo of it.
Happy Sunday!
++++++++++++
This morning, we went to go get a chest x-ray done to prove I don't have TB and can visit the orphanage (I don't!), and then this afternoon, we drive down to region. Tomorrow we start the paper chase and I meet Grace!!! We'll continue visiting her this week while we wait for the passport. And gotcha day will sometime later this week, over the weekend, or Monday. That's when we will bust her out of that stinky orphanage forever and ever!
Then we head back up to Kiev, to do the embassy and medical appts for her. And then we will go home right after Christmas.
There is one less orphan today!!!!! Our God Reigns!
Introducing...
Grace Olena (o-LAY-na) Birschbach
Born in Kherson, Ukraine on March 4, 2005
Forever in a Family on December 5, 2013
Our court hearing went amazingly, AMAZINGLY well today! Only God! The judge did not ask any questions, nor did the jurors or prosecutor. The quickest court case ever according to our facilitator!! Only God could have done this. He gets ALL THE GLORY! We are SOO very thankful to the Lord for blessing us with our 8th child! We are also very grateful for everyone who has prayed for us, supported us, encouraged us, given financially to us, and especially for those that have been holding down the fort at home for the past 4 weeks. THANK YOU ALL SO VERY MUCH!!! Everyone had a part and we couldn't have done this without you.
Here's are a few more pictures from the day we first met Grace.
So, tonight, Pat and I will take an overnight train to Kyiv. Unfortunately, the train gets in too late to make the early morning flights out, so we'll spend the day in Kyiv and fly out early Saturday morning, arriving home mid-afternoon - Lord willing. Then, on the 14th, Sarah and I will head back to Ukraine and start the next paper chase for her birth certificate, passport, medical and visa. It will probably take about 2 weeks. So, yes, I will get to spend Christmas in Ukraine once again! :-) (I spent Christmas 2010 in Ukraine when adopting Elijah.) Rumor has the medical facility is still out of the serum for the TB skin test, so that may save us a few days if that stays status quo. The goal is to be out of the country before the BIG Ukrainian holiday of New Years.
Thank you everyone for all that you have done for us and our family. I can't wait to have all of us together under one roof! Love to you all!
Well, wow! Sorry for the long lack of updates! It's been just a week since we met Grace, and in some respects, it seems much, much longer. What a week it's been!
Our visits with Grace have been going pretty well. We've seen some behaviors we expected to see adopting an older child, but that is ok. We still love her all the same! I've seen her interact with other children and she is very gentle with them for the most part...unless she wants to be on the swing at the same time and then there may be a bit of a shove...totally normal. :-)
On Tuesday, we had the extreme pleasure of being able to visit with Elijah's biological family. It is always such a blessing and honor to be with them. Mama Tanya spoiled us with so many gifts. We are so grateful for Elijah to have this relationship with them (through us). I grieve that Jonathan and Grace will not have that with their birth families, but that is just the way it usually is over here. So, thank you Mama Tanya for making the huge effort you did to come and see us and for all of the beautiful gifts you brought for us and the children.
We have court date! Woohoo!!! God did the miraculous and our MAF (most awesome facilitator) was able to get all of our paperwork gathered to submit to the SDA on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the SDA now takes 2 weeks to process their consent that we need for court. (It used to only take one week.) So, court will not be quite as soon as we had hoped, but there is still a fairly strong glimmer of hope we can be outta here by the end of the year and the New Year's shutdowns. We were so thankful the orphanage director and Social Services were so easy work with in getting our paperwork gathered in just a couple of days.
Let's see what else..right now I'm not actually not "home" but in Krivoy Rog visiting Max! Check out his website at http://truehopeukraine.com. I know I've blogged about him several times. He really is the "real deal" and his ministry is making the difference in the lives of 1000s of children, teens and adults. He said right now is a very stressful time as the nights are getting colder and the kids from the streets need a warm place to sleep. Hmmm...what was the last thing you worried about? After this weekend, I hope to do a single post about Max and his ministry and ways you can help.
Early Wednesday morning, Pat and our MAF traveled up to Kyiv to return our rental car and submit the documents. Yes, every adoption brings something new for us and this time it was a rental car! And yes, Pat did drive in Kyiv!! Are you impressed? You should be! LOL It is no easy feat, but he did great! Our MAF did most of the driving though and it was indispensible in going back forth between the city she is living in and the city she was born. Anyway, we decided it would be best if Pat went home to be with the kids for Thanksgiving, so he totally surprised them on Thursday afternoon! They were shocked!!! How fun! :-)
So, I'd appreciate the prayers as I go it alone for a couple of weeks. I feel very safe and with only one visit per day, I'm home several hours before dark. I'm not concerned at all, but a little extra prayer support doesn't hurt.
This week, I'm looking forward to meeting up with a Canadian missionary family - you know, that speak English. :-)
I'm so very, very thankful for our caregivers at home. Even with Pat home, we will still need help during the day for school and what not. We could NOT have done this without you! Thank you so very much to the O and G families!!!
Thank you everyone for your prayers, love, support and encouragement. We deeply appreciate it!
Praising God!!! Everything went well today at our appointment. Grace is available for adoption. Good to know! :) We saw her baby photo. Too cute! :)
We went sovenuir shopping afterwards. You know you've been to Ukraine too many times when you have your favorite souvenuir guy to buy from! LOL (Rochelle, we went to see Alex again!)
I'll try to post photos later. I had to take a pic of my first (of many) bowl of borsch.
We'll travel to Grace's region Thurs night/Fri early AM. Train tickets are not looking too promising, so we may have our facilitator drive down. I can't say as I'm too heartbroken about not taking the train. We'll see how it goes!
Thanks again for all your love, support and comments. We deeply appreciate it!
After a big delay in Appleton due to weather in Chicago, we made to our flight for Munich just fine. In fact that flight was 3 hours late leaving. But we had a 3 hr layover in Munich, so we made it fine to Kiev. (The airlines pad their arrival times, so we still had an hour to spare...) Anyway, we slept a fair amount on the plane, made it through customs very easily, and went out for borsch for supper. Yay!!! LOVE borsch! Pat, not so much...
So, tomorrow, we have our appt to see Grace's file and start the process to get her referral. Please pray everything goes very, very smootlhy with the appointment. In Ukraine, we do not have a "hold" on a child until the referral is in our hands. Lord willing, we will pick up her referral Thursday afternoon and get on a train Thursday night. Friday will be THE DAY we met here!!
I'll update when I can. Thank you to everyone for your love and support to get us this far!
Adoption = "the biggest blessing and the biggest challenge you will ever face."
As most of you know, today was Orphan Sunday. November is National Adoption Month. In just over a week (yikes!), I'll be posting about plenty about adoption and the process of it. But for tonight, I wanted to link to Meredith's blog about Orphan Sunday. All of it so very, very true, and will be so much more true when we get Grace home. Thanks for reading it!
We have a pretty intense week coming up, not only with frantically getting ready to leave, but we have several additional appointments. I'd appreciate prayers! Also, please pray for my children's hearts as we prepare to leave. A few of them are having a tough time already. :-(
Luke 9:23 - "Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." The calling of adoption is not just for Pat and I, it is for our whole family. (Hopefully, I'll have some extra time while we are in Ukraine to do very long overdue updates on Elijah and Jonathan. You know, things like sleep study results, school, ENT, etc.) Thanks for praying for our family this week!
So, 11-11...Some of you may remember I like cool dates. :-) 10-10-10 was Elijah's benefit. 11-11-11 was the final re-adoption court hearing for Jonathan. 12-12-12 was nothing big, but I prayed about adopting again, and the Lord whispered to my heart, "You will know when it is time to adopt again." And so I did. So, 11-11. (Yes, it is 11-11-13 but who cares.) What happens on 11-11???
We fly to Ukraine!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that's right! We (finally) got our appointment date for 11-13, so we will leave on the 11th. WOOHOOOO!!!!
We are all SOOO very excited! We should be holding Grace in our arms on Nov. 15th, Lord willing. I CAN.NOT.WAIT!! We are coming Sweet Baby Girl! We love you and can't wait to bring you HOME where you belong!
(By the way, please do not hope for court on 12-12 for us. That is way too long. A 12-12 Gotcha Day would be an awesome miraculous thing!)
Please pray we are home with Grace before the end of the year. New Years is a HUGE thing in Ukraine. Not to mention Orthodox Christmas on January 7th, and Orthodox New Year on the 14th. Not much gets done the first 2 weeks of the year, especially in gov't offices. :-) I have lots of prayer requests, but I'll leave it at that for now.
Thanks everyone for your love, support and prayers!
We got word today that our dossier has been APPROVED!!! Everything is ok! I am SOOO relieved. If they would have kicked it back again, we would have to start over with new medicals and a good chunk of the dossier. THANK YOU JESUS!!!
So what now you ask? We wait. We wait again. We wait for a travel date to be issued. I'm believing for a miracle for an expedited travel date. That might mean the end of October. It may be the end of November. No idea. I need to finish tying up some loose ends with school planning and then I can turn my focus back to "nesting". :-) Oh ya, I have a gazillion more tomatoes to make into spaghetti sauce, carrots to slice and freeze, squash to bake and freeze, and basil to make into pesto to freeze...at some point before the frost comes in a week or two. As overwhelmed as I can feel at times, I'm so grateful for this opportunity to preserve our harvest for my family.
Thanks for praying! Grace, we are coming - SOON! Can't wait to wrap my arms around you, Sweet One.
Sorry it's been so long since we've updated. Well, we have news. Unfortunately, it is bad news. We found out a few days ago our dossier had been rejected due to a tiny date error. I may have mentioned a hundred times once or twice how picky the adoption authority is over in Ukraine. So, I spent the day in Madison yesterday getting the new documents apostilled. The documents are already in Paris as of 12:30 this afternoon on their way to Ukraine via FedEx. I think it may have helped a bit sending them from Madison instead of here, but I'm not sure. They should be there in time for my facilitator to get them notarized and submitted on Thursday, the 15th. (Yes, Rochelle, I know UPS would have them there in plenty of time. :-))
So, what does this all mean??? This is the very hard part. Once our dossier is resubmitted, we go back in line with everyone else that was submitted that day. Right now, submission to travel time is almost 3 months. (Families submitted same day as us in June got dates for 2nd week in Sept.) The thought of Grace having to wait 3 more months is something I can't even think about. She has waited SOO long. I feel so bad for her. My heart is breaking. After we got the news, all day I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. Plus, if you do the quick math, 3 months puts us at mid-November. Add a possible 6 week process. Ya...I swore I would never do Christmas in Ukraine again, but I may not have a choice. For those of you that are newer here, I spent the whole month of December in Ukraine to bring Elijah home. We knew from the beginning that it most likely happen and we were prepared (or I thought I was). It was very, very difficult. BUT, having said all that, we, as a family, will do whatever it takes to get her home. We can always celebrate Christmas when the Ukrainians do on January 7th. :-)
I know none of this is a surprise to the Lord. I am finding peace in this, as difficult as it is. We would appreciate prayers for quick approval of our dossier this time and a speedy travel date. Also, please pray for smooth "travels" for our documents and smooth submission on the 15th. (Ugh...when we started this process, "I" was hoping for court on August 15th. sigh...it would have been my grandma's 100th birthday.)
I have to go cut/freeze some beans, but if I get time in the next few days, I'll share a bit more about my day in Madison yesterday with some tips for families coming behind us. Some interesting things too...never a dull moment around WI's capitol.
I'll leave you with the verse the Lord gave me shortly after we got the news. (Couldn't help but smile about the word "submit" in the verse.)
Proverbs 3:5-6:
5 Trust
in theLordwith
all your heart and
lean not on your own understanding; 6 in
all your ways submit to him, and
he will make your pathsstraight.
Well, I have no news to share about Grace's adoption process. We are waiting. When we were submitted in mid-June, travel dates were running about 8-9 weeks out. Now...well...they are at least 11 weeks! Good grief. That timeline puts us in the last week of August. UGH! But, the only thing I can do is pray for the Lord's perfect timing. We want Grace home as soon as we possibly can, but are trusting in the Lord. Hopefully we will hear something in the next few weeks about our travel date as they are issuing them at least a month ahead of time. I'll keep you posted! Thanks for praying!
WOOHOO!!! Our dossier (all of our adoption paperwork) was submitted today to the Ukrainian adoption authority! (I guess it's called the DAP now, but in my head it's still the SDA. What can I say, old habits die hard.)
So, what does this mean exactly? It means all of our paperwork will be gone over with a fine tooth comb reviewed at some point hopefully in the next month or so. Right now, the SDA is running about nine weeks from submission to SDA appointment. UGH! I'm not sure why they are running so long now. (Jonathan's dossier was submitted on May 12th and our appointment was June 6th.) But, I am trusting in the Lord's perfect timing. I really do want to get our little girl home ASAP though! So, we are looking at traveling about mid-August. I'm still praying for sooner. We'll keep you posted!
Last Thursday, I posted how I had talked to our USCIS officer and he thought he would be approving us that day. And that it would take a week for us to get the hard copy (no emailing or faxing approvals anymore I guess - I did ask.). So, when Anna got the mail yesterday, she started signing the "I've got a golden ticket" song. ("Golden Ticket" is the nickname for the immigration approval - the I-171H form - that is the last piece of paperwork needed for the dossier.) "No way!" I exclaimed. She showed me the envelope and it was just extra copies of our home study from our social worker for our future reference. I didn't look at the rest of the mail because NO WAY was the "Golden Ticket" going to be here already. After all, Monday was a holiday (no mail) and the approvals come from Missouri...NO WAY.
About three hours later, I quickly glance through the mail. We were cleaning for company last night and thought it would be best to at least look at the mail before stashing it. And then - I saw it. In blue letters. Department of Homeland Security - USCIS. (This is my utterances and conversation to myself - only half of it out loud while Sarah and Anna are staring at me.) "No way - that can't be it. It's only Tuesday." I rip it open. "It looks different than last time. It's two pages instead of one. Is that it? I don't know. Where are those letters? "I-171H" Yep, that's what it says. It can't be. It says it is. Really? I guess it is! No way. I still don't believe it."
I am still in disbelief, Anna calls Pat and sings the song. (Yes, I'm sorry you will have the song stuck in your head the rest of the day. hee hee)
(As a kid, did anyone ever wonder how those 4 people in bed went to the bathroom? Or was that just me?)
Once I start coming out of my shock to think a little bit, Pat and I make a plan to meet at the bank to get the cover sheet notarized. Whew. Done. Once we are home and back to cleaning, we formulate the plan. Well, Pat is the formulator, not me. I can't formulate anything these days. He'll leave early in the AM (this morning), drive to Madison, get it apostilled using the one-day service, and we'll mail it out from Madison if he can't make it back here in time. (I'm SO thankful he has flexible hours. I would have gone except I had Jonathan's first IEP meeting at 11am. Can't really skip that!)
The Secretary of State office took about 3 hrs to complete the document. Meanwhile, Pat took his traveling buddies (Anna and Isaac) on a guided tour of the State Capitol. I guess history is done for the day!
The not-so-good part of the day...evidently FedEx doesn't offer the same speedy-quick service they used to (at least not from the store we shipped from). You know, the one that costs $200+? The quickest they could get it there was June 5th. Most likely, that will be too late to be submitted on the 6th (special needs dossiers are only submitted on Thursdays). I'm REALLY bummed about that. Really bummed. But, I'm just trusting the Lord's Perfect timing. I just want our little girl HOME asap!
So, the "Beast" is on it's way. Actually, this time around the dossier was much more like a "kitten" than a beast. Experience helps with that. A lot.
I am so thankful to the Lord for moving our process along quickly and smoothly. Praise His Name! Thank you for your continued prayers and support. Love to you all!
The customary photo The "Beast" with all of the pretty, shiny gold stars from the apostilling process
(Just one more rambling thing to share with you. I haven't had the privilege of being at the FedEx store to mail any of our dossiers over to Ukraine. For Elijah's dossier, Pat shipped it from Indianpolis. What a story. Jonathan's dossier was hand-carried over to Ukraine by Max. Providence of God's timing. And then Grace's was shipped today by Pat. I guess God is showing that it is ok to not have "control" over every.single.thing. That's OK! :-))
Yesterday, after we picked up the girls at the airport, we went to downtown Milwaukee for our Dept of Homeland Security USCIS biometric fingerprints. Our appt wasn't until 3pm, but we got there about 10:45 or so. They were gracious to work us in and we were out of there by 11:45 or so. All went well!
So, I called USCIS today and left a message with our officer. He called back w/in the hour. (Can I just say how much better this communication process is than 2 1/2 years ago? YAY!) He had quickly reviewed our file beforehand and didn't see any red flags. He'll review it more closely TODAY and will issue our immigration approval TODAY if nothing comes up. (We're pretty squeaky clean, so it should be fine. LOL) It takes about a week for us to receive the hard copy as it has to bounce through their system (this is the federal government after all). We should have the "GOLDEN TICKET" in our hands late next week!!! WOOOHOOOO!!!
Then what?? I'll drive it down to Madtown to get it apostilled (SO thankful our state finally offers one-day service) and then the whole dossier will be on it's way to Ukraine. Our facilitator translates everything as he approves it, so he will only have to get it notarized, sewn together (yes, I said sewn - with string - don't ask :-)) and it will be submitted - if there are no problems of course.
It sounds like it is taking about 8 weeks right now from dossier submission to traveling. :-( It was only about 4 weeks for the boys. So, I'm praying they speed up and we will still get there in July. I would love that for a birthday present! :-) Of course, we would have loved to have gotten there last month, but paperwork out of our hands just takes time as I explained in my last post about Grace's adoption. Really, we've only had about 2-3 weeks of processing time on our end due to Pat and our social worker being out of town at the same time. But that is the way adoption goes - hurry up and wait - over and over and over again.
Thanks everyone for your prayers! Please continue to pray we don't run into paperwork snags, esp like THIS one. This same exact thing happened to another family in our state just a couple months ago. Inexcusable in my opinion, but what do I know. The whole dossier (minus our I-171H approval) should be here in the next day or two, so we'll see how her spelling is this time as we used the same notary. (We like tradition. lol)
Love to all of you who continue to support us and encourage us! We are truly blessed. Thank you from the bottom of our heart!
I have to say I love the ladies down at the State Dept of Justice in Madison. For the 3rd time in a row, they nailed the state background check letters for our dossier. They even humor me by using blue ink like I ask them to! :-) (I have asked many others and many do not. Blue ink is not a requirement for Ukraine dossiers but it helps the folks checking the dossier to verify it is an original notary signature, not photocopied.) When the Secretary of State office goofed up the apostille on one of these background letters for Elijah's dossier, they were more than willing to work with me to get a new letter right away. Anyway, it is just such a relief to get a perfect letter and not have to wonder if it will be ok or not. By the way, in case you were wondering, the letters said we had no record. :-)
Just a side story - last summer, Pat was going to volunteer at a VBS that wasn't at our church. The pastor there wanted his date of birth to do a background check. Now, this is something they SHOULD be doing and I am glad they are doing it. But I had to laugh...I wonder if she wants county, state, Dept of Homeland Security or Interpol background check. We've had them all! hee hee
So, anyway, Grace's dossier is complete except for that Golden Ticket. We got our fingerprint appointment letters last week. We will travel south to visit the Department of Homeland Security the 3rd week in May. (The DHS is right next to my alma mater MSOE. Ya, kinda crazy a stay-at-home mom of seven, going on eight children, has an engineering degree, huh? I LOVE how God works out the true desires of one's heart! Anyway, it's nice to finally drive to downtown Milwaukee and not get a feeling of dread in my stomach.) Hopefully, we'll receive our immigration approval shortly after and get her dossier sent over by the end of May or beginning of June and get it submitted! I'm hoping we will be traveling by the end of July. Woohoo!
International adoption is a game of "hurry up and wait" over and over and over and over and over and over again. From the very beginning of the paper chase to the very end of arriving at the airport. When we started our home study, we got all of our paperwork done and turned into the social worker (SW) within about 2-3 weeks. It would have been sooner, but our SW and Pat were both out of town, so our final visit was out about 3 weeks after we got started. Home studies are very long and involved. Ours was about 10 pages long, which is actually short compared to some. (It's a little freaky to see your whole life summed up in 10 pages though!) The length depends a lot on the state requirements, and of course, what USCIS wants to see. Ukraine's requirements are pretty simple actually. We had to start over with our home study because in the state of WI, just like Ukraine, documents are only good for six months. Some of you remember how quickly we did Jonathan's adoption after Elijah got home. We had to redo all documents for that home study too even though Elijah had only been home 3 months. Plus, this time around, we used a new agency b/c our old one no longer does home studies for non-Hague countries like Ukraine.
So, we hurried up and got all of our paperwork turned into our SW , and it took our agency about 4 weeks to complete the draft of the study, and another week or so to get the hard copy in our hands and get our I-600a application in the mail. Our fingerprint appts are about 4-5 weeks after we sent in our I-600a. (Some states allow you to walk-in early once you have the fingerprint appt letter. Not WI! We tried a couple years ago. We failed.) All reasonable. Paperwork just takes time whether we like it or not. We have no control over that. We wait now for our immigration approval. We will then bust our be-hinds to get that Golden ticket apostilled by driving to Madison and paying for same day service. (I'm sending the rest of the dossier to get apostilled w/in the next week or so.) And then pay top dollar to my fav FedEx store in town here to get it into my facilitator's hands asap. Then we will wait. Wait again for a travel date after we are submitted. See how fun this is! I love it!!!! :-)
Please pray we get approved very quickly! Thank you to everyone who has shown us so much support during this journey so far. We are SO grateful!
(I'm going to label blog posts relating to Grace's adoption as "BRINGING GRACE HOME" so you can decide if you want to read them or not. :-) Our regular posts will be titled as normal.)
Our paperwork to bring Grace home is moving right along. We received our final home study this week and sent our I-600A off to Texas. YAY!!! The rest of our dossier is almost complete. We will receive our state police background check letter this week. We just need approval from our facilitator on all of the documents "print 'n sign" documents and a few others (once my scanner works again! ugh!) and that will be it - except for that pesky - but oh SO important - "Golden Ticket".
(I'll try and have my blog designer (Sarah) put the page back up on this blog for all of the adoption process abbreviations. But for now, if you are new the process or need a refresher, the I-600A is the application sent to the US gov't (USCIS) to get immigration approval to bring Grace back into the country. The approval comes on a form called I-171H, or affectionately known as the "Golden Ticket". The I-171H is part of the dossier and takes the longest to attain. Once we receive approval, we will be able to send the whole dossier over to Ukraine for immediate submission. After we are submitted, we should receive a travel date about 5 weeks later.)
We have sent our POAs (power of attorney) and Grace's letter of inquiry over to her country. It will be good to have official verification that she is indeed available.
Pulling a dossier together is SOOO much easier the 3rd time around. I can't even believe it. Things that took eight hours the first time and 15 minutes the 2nd time, just took about 5 minutes this time. We've still had minor glitches, but nothing that is not easily fixed.
Please pray for a quick immigration approval so we can get over to Grace as soon as possible. Thanks!
Ok, so I hope you don't mind I had a little fun yesterday with it being April Fool's Day. :-) (To those of you who emailed me, I'm very sorry, really.) The picture I posted yesterday was actually from February 2006 when I found out I was pregnant with Rebekah. Heehee
BUT......I am actually pregnant...sort of...I'm "paper pregnant"! Yes, that's right!!! We are adopting again!!! Lord willing, it will be a little girl this time. Yes, a little girl with Down syndrome, and yes, from that same "Eastern European" country that we know and love so much. Our hearts belong in the country that gave us our two youngest boys, that gave Sarah her passion and mission for life, and that will give us our 5th daughter and 8th child here on earth. (Of course, we would go wherever the Lord called us.)
This journey started out a little different than our last two adoption journeys. Pat came home from his work trip to Russia and told me a week later that he felt the Lord was calling us to adopt a little girl with Down syndrome. We just didn't know who yet. It took us a few weeks to seek the Lord's discernment and we believe we have found her. And again, different than our other journeys, we will not be sharing "who" we are adopting until we are in country, either when we get her referral or after court. We'll have to see how things go. There are a few reasons for this confidentiality that I can't discuss there. Sorry, but that's just the way we need to do it this time. I hope you understand.
We are hoping to travel in late July/August, but only the Lord knows. So please join us in celebrating with us (if you are truly happy for us, 'cuz not everyone is, but that is totally fine) as we seek to bring our newest daughter, Grace, home. We would appreciate prayers too of course. The attacks on our family pretty much began immediately, but we trust in the Lord. I would love prayers for a continued smooth adoption process and paperwork. Things are going well so far. Just let me say compiling a dossier is a breeze the 3rd time around on this end (so far). Hopefully, USCIS immigration approval will go smoothly too.
Our kids are SUPER excited too! They were literally jumping up and down when we told them. :-) I love that the Lord has given them a heart for the orphan and a willingness to open their hearts to another sibling yet again. Rachel (3 years old) has already informed Sarah is her favorite big sister is Grace, not her. :-) She's got it all figured out. And Anna said a very beautiful thing. Referring to the family photo at the top of the blog, she said, "Look Mom! There is a spot for Grace right in front between Rachel and Elijah." She's so right. It definitely looks like a hole that needs to be filled!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
