That's A Wrap

I was waiting on our USCIS approval to come back from being apostilled and got it in the mail Thursday afternoon.  I knew people were traveling THIS weekend (like tomorrow!) and I wanted to get our dossier to them if possible so they could carry it over for us so that we would not have to mail anything directly to Charlie's country.  So, as soon as the envelope arrived (and I had been impatiently stalking tracking the package and checking the mailbox multiple times a day all week) I quickly starting asking for addresses so I could overnight everything.  I got a thumbs up from someone but never got her address.  I waited...and I waited...and I even messaged her again asking for her address...and nothing.  Now the post office closes at 4:30 and it was nearing 4:00 so I was starting to get a bit irritated.  I went to message this poor, kind soul YET AGAIN when I suddenly remembered something.  Once upon a time someone had been trying to send me Facebook messages and though they swore they sent them repeatedly, I never got them.  It took someone telling me that there was an "other messages" box that you can only see from your desktop to finally get all the messages.  Maybe that's where the address went!!!  So I frantically logged on and yep, there was the address, sitting in that d@mn folder since 2:30.  I grabbed the paperwork, jumped in the car and raced to the post office.  Thank goodness nothing in our town is more than five minutes away.  I leapt out of the car with 15 minutes to spare and ran into the post office.  I was so nervous.  As I put the dossier into the envelope and double checked that it would be guaranteed to be delivered, I asked the postwoman for a prayer.  She looked at me like I had just asked her to mail her kidney.  What is it about working for the post office that makes people so apathetic?  Anyone else experience that or is it just me???

(Here is our dossier being wrapped up.  I swear giving that paperwork to a stranger was like giving her my child to mail.  Or my kidney.)

So that's it.  We have submitted our paperwork.  All of it.  There is nothing left to do but wait.  According to our facilitator we should be traveling in the next 30-ish days.  How utterly terrifying and exciting all at the same time.  Normal feelings, I'd imagine, at this stage in the game.  Ready or not, here we come!!!

  

Happy Father's Day!

Yes, I do know that Father's Day was in June but, as any divorcee knows, you don't always have the luxury of having your children on major holidays, so we celebrate when we can.  This weekend we are all together and what better way to celebrate than with BBQ, beer, fireworks and and a three day weekend?!  

Even though we dedicate a weekend to celebrating fathers, I know for a fact that my husband does not get nearly the recognition he deserves.  So, I'd like to take this moment to let him know how much we truly do appreciate him.

My husband does 90% of our cooking.  He probably does at least 60% of our cleaning.  He is our designated handy man, bug squisher and heavy stuff lifter.  He works full time and is half-owner of our clinic.  He takes call and works nights, weekends and holidays so that our business can be successful.  He parents not only children here but also two he doesn't get to see all the time.  He drives every other weekend on Friday evening after working a full day to pick them up.  A large portion of the time he drives all the way to where they live (about three hours away) so that he can watch a piano recital or softball game.  He then gets home at 1 am and gets up to make us a big breakfast on Saturday morning.  He plans weekend camping trips so we can spend time as a family.  He willingly jumped on this crazy adoption roller coaster with me and has been a major catalyst in getting our paperwork done so quickly.

There are a million more things this man does for us and sadly, often, we forget to thank him as much as we should.  So this weekend, Hubby, is for you.  Though you may not always be doing what you'd like, we are always thankful that you're a part of our lives.  I can't imagine them without you.

Love always,
Wife

The Final Countdown

We are so close to Charlie that I can almost taste it.  We are fully funded and went for our USCIS (Customs and Immigration) fingerprints on Wednesday.  We drove over an hour to get to this place for our 9 am appointment, walked in at 8:45 and were back in the car by 8:59.  I texted our facilitator to let her know we had those done and she told me to start calling USCIS and bugging them for an officer.  When I had called a couple weeks prior we still had not been assigned an officer, our home study hadn't been matched to our application and they had sent us a letter requesting more documents before they could proceed.  

I called USCIS, gave whoever answered our case number and she told me, "Hold, please; I'll connect you to your officer."  We had an officer????!!!!!  I left a message with Officer M. and when she called me back the next day she informed me that she had reviewed our file, all looked good and that, once she got our fingerprints on Wednesday, she mailed our approval letter out the same day.  For those of you who don't know, this is absolutely unheard of.  The average wait time for approval is 75 days.  And that's once you've been assigned an officer.  Which can take weeks in and of itself.  If I could have reached through the phone and hugged Officer M. (who, by the way, was extremely friendly and helpful) I would have.  I can't tell you for sure how many times I thanked her but it had to have numbered in the thousands.  

As I texted Hubby and our facilitator to update them, the butterflies hit.  

In the beginning I was 51% terrified and 49% excited.  As we moved through the paperwork and things proceeded relatively easily, the scales shifted to 25% terrified and 75% excited.  I'll be honest, now that I know travel dates are looming on the very near horizon, terrified is back with a vengeance.  Before, this was all paperwork with an occasional picture of a very cute little boy.  But now that picture of that cute little boy is about to be replaced by the ACTUAL little boy.  

Sh*t just got real, y'all.  

The last of our dossier will be mailed next week and that's it.  There is nothing left to do but wait for travel dates.  So, as we end the paper chase part of this journey and enter the next phase, I'm praying for lots of peace and sanity.  (And wine.  I'm not gonna lie.  Because hey, sometimes, when all else fails - wine.)  I'm praying for the strength to use those butterflies for good and not for evil.  To focus on the goal and not get bogged down in the doubts, because daily it could go either way.  

Ready or not, Charlie, here we come!!!      

Family

Aven spent this past week at camp and brought home all of the crafts they'd made.  One was a "family tree" picture.

She has me, her dad, all three sisters and, at the top of the "tree", she included Ason, which is what we have decided Charlie's name will be (we are going to spell it Aeson, which is Greek for a man who was given a second youth.  Pretty fitting, huh?).  She did this herself, without any prompting or any "and who else is in your family?".  I cannot begin to tell you how much it means to me that, as we impatiently await his arrival, when asked to name her family, Charlie is just naturally a part of it. 

Life Balance

I've found that life comes in seasons.  Sometimes those seasons last only weeks, sometimes the season seems like it will never end.  And every season has a theme.  This season can best be described by the quote below:

I feel like every day I am doing okay.  Just okay.  We aren't jumping ship yet but neither am I going to fill journals with all the wonderful things each day here lately brought.  I'm not sure when the day got so short but there is just not enough time for everything.  And I'm not talking about fun stuff like swimming at the beach or weekly massages.  I'm talking about the mundane every day.  When did doing what you need to do begin to occupy so much time that there isn't any left for the things you want to do???

The thing is, I'm not unhappy with my life.  I love what I do, my family, where we live.  I just feel like the amount of time I'd like to devote to each of those things every day adds up to more than 24 hours.

It's all a means to end; I get that.  This season will pass just like the rest of them.  I just hope, at the end of it, that my children will forgive me for yelling too much, for hugging too little, for being a bit too distracted and hurried...

The next season of life will be a beautiful one.  And this current one?  It serves as a beautiful reminder that sometimes it's okay if some days all you can be is okay.  

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

THE END IS IN SIGHT!!!

Our home study FINALLY  got completed and sent to us and arrived at USCIS on Monday.  We waited Eight.  Long.  Weeks.  for the d@mn thing so its arrival was something to celebrate.  (The sad part is that the hold up had nothing to do with us.)  :/

BUT!

The paper chase is nearing its conclusion.  All of our remaining documents have been notarized and apostilled.

Aren't they beautiful??????

We are still waiting on our FBI clearance apostilles which was a whole other near crisis in its own right.  We sent our remaining documents to be apostilled, our home study to our Hague agency and our FBI clearances to be their fancy apostille place all at the same time.  All from the same post office.  And all via the same postal service (two day priority or whatever it is).  We got tracking numbers like we were supposed to.  So when the other two packets of things arrived at their destinations, were processed AND mailed back to us, I, of course, wondered where the third (and final freaking thing we are waiting on so we can send our completed dossier off) packet was.  So I logged on and checked the tracking number.  The only information it gave me was that it left the local post office May 9th.  It is now May 19th.  I drove like a mad woman up to the post office to have them track it further.  They're the post office, right?  Furthermore, they are the post office from which we mailed the documents.  They should have more information than I do, right?

WRONG.

They couldn't tell me any more than I already knew.  But they promised to look into it further and get back to me.  There was a phone number on the receipt with the tracking numbers (that I diligently put in the gilded folder that we keep all our adoption paperwork in) so I called to see if they could help.

DUMBEST IDEA ALL DAY.

The woman I spoke to was soooooooooo rude and condescending.  And STILL couldn't provide me with any more information other than the stupid package left our local post office ten days ago and was still en route.  When I mentioned that the other documents had arrived, been processed AND sent back to us already and that it had been almost two week since we mailed it, said postal worker snottily reminded me that ten days was, in fact, NOT two weeks.  I wanted to CHOKE this silly woman.  She said she'd take down more information and send it to her supervisor who would get back to me in two to three business days.  She asked me for the address that we mailed the document to and when I told her I didn't have it in front of me, she replied - again in that same holier than thou tone - that, "it's a bit hard to track a package without the address of its destination, ma'am".  No sh*t, Sherlock, but you're the stinking post office!  Shouldn't YOU know the address???  Needless to say, I tracked down the address, gave her the information so she could "get back to me" (yeah right) and hung up while mentally (and literally) flipping her off.  And the US Postal Service wonders why it is going bankrupt...

Since I had the address pulled up I looked to see if this government office in DC had a phone number.  You know, because I'd been having such good luck with government offices that day.  I found one and called, knowing full well I would NEVER actually get anyone on the phone.

BUT I DID!!!

And this woman in DC was so helpful and come to find out, our package HAD arrived.  On the 18th.  It took it nine days to get there.  Score yet another win for the US Postal Service.  But our FBI clearances will be back to us in 7-12 business days and then all the paperwork is done.  We are also fully funded (YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so all that is left, essentially, is waiting for travel dates.

It's starting to get real, y'all.....

I know I've said it before but I cannot thank everyone enough for all the time, love, support and funding they have thrown our way.  It's been beyond amazing.  Stay tuned; it only gets better!

Miracle League

There is a special needs baseball league here in our county called The Miracle League.  I heard about this wonderful organization randomly on Facebook and decided to volunteer as a Buddy for one of the players. This was long before special needs adoption was on our radar so I volunteered just for fun.  After one game, I was hooked and the girls and I have been to nearly every game since they started in 2014.  I bring the girls with me to most games and they "buddy" right along beside me.  They have a blast and I feel like it teaches them a number of important things like helping others is fun. It also exposes them to a lot of different types of special needs so that they grow up comfortable with all kinds of people.

The league was founded by one of our local special needs moms.  She and her son had been involved with their local chapter of The Miracle League prior to moving here and when she found out there wasn't a club nearby, she started one.  The league has grown by leaps and bounds with each passing year.  Whereas before we weren't sure if we would have enough Buddies for each player, we now often times have too many Buddies and each player gets more than one.  We've had multiple elite baseball teams volunteer to come out and partner up with our players.  We also have a number of local high school kids who have been to every game.  Local photographers have donated their time to take team pictures and we've had some amazing donations from other area baseball leagues. The stands are full every week with people cheering on our players.  There are smiles on everyone's faces and the kids always play their hearts out.  It's awesome to watch a lot of these kids come out of their shells as they become more and more confident each week.

If you haven't heard of The Miracle League, check out the website. See if you have a local club. If you don't, start one. It is an amazing experience for those on and off the field.

And just think, come fall we will be out there not only as Buddies but with our very own Miracle League player. 😉