Oh my heavens! I can't even believe we are halfway through November and I haven't posted ANYTHING since the beginning on April. Seven months of silence.....and yet good news have come in that time!
I'll take more time to fill you in on the details of the new developments in our lives but the brief outline....
1. Our dossier was accepted on June 11 and we received our first waiting list number of #143. We moved to #142 on June 26. Aug 15 we moved to #138 and then most recently November 8 we moved to #134. It's slow slow slow slow progress, but movement forward nonetheless.
2. Liliana Mae Wanee joined our family on July 9, 2013 weighing in at 6lbs, 15oz and 22" long
We are in the process of setting up some online fundraisers other than our coffee fundraiser, so we'll keep you up to date on that.
Promise....I'll fill you in on the past 7 months soon!
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Just a short note
I checked in with our agency yesterday. Our family coordinator said she just heard from the lawyer working in Honduras on our agency's behalf -- our dossier has been translated and is now awaiting the approval process!! Unfortunately, once it is there, we don't have a way to know how much longer it will take to get our approval and waitlist number. We're just happy to know that it has been translated and is sitting somewhere waiting for someone to comb through all of our documentation.
Slow and steady wins the race :-)
Slow and steady wins the race :-)
Friday, April 5, 2013
The past two months...
Significant things have happened in the past 2 months :-)
February was our DTH!!! :-)
DTH = date to Honduras.....the culmination of our paperchase. We received our letter of approval from the Honduran consulate in D.C. at the beginning of February and by Valentine's day, our paperwork packet (dossier) was off to Honduras for translation and approval. From my own timeline goals we were about a month behind (mostly because of the delay in our psychological evaluation), but the Lord's timing is right and we trust that everything is still right on with His timeline which is exactly what we want. We're waiting for the dossier to be translated and then approved (or for us to be possibly contacted with the need for additional documentation). After that -- that is when we get our waitlist number. To get translated and approved, it seems for other families we know in the program it takes about 5 months. That means we may be welcoming our first Wanee child to the world at the same time we're getting our official waiting number from Honduras. Please pray that this process goes quickly and that there is no additional documentation requested that could slow the process!!
We feel so blessed to be able to have our family growing at the same time in two very different ways. And yet, in so many ways it is very similar. It is humbling to see these things unfold before us as we continue through the process.
1. The most common question we're being asked about our biological baby is whether we are going to find out the gender. Our answer is, "It'll be a boy or a girl" heehee...which is exactly how we're approaching our adoption. We've left ourselves very open for the Lord to place the exact child we are to have in our lives -- boy or girl, baby or toddler or preschooler--God knows what our family will look like and we are trusting Him to guide that. We are eagerly anticipating what He has in store for us.
2. We have an idea on the timeline of our adoption, but so much is up in the air. We're told 3-5 years, but who knows when things may surprisingly speed up or slow down with adoptions in Honduras. We are spending this time to be prepared for the time when we get the phone call, email, etc about our child being matched to us. Just the same, we know a pregnancy is 40 weeks, but unexpected things can happen (like our friend having their baby 5 weeks early!!) and so we are taking this time to prepare to be parents to an infant child. Time spent waiting should not be wasted with it just passing by....we want to be intentional so we are ready for what is in store for us!
3. We can't wait to meet both of these children. I know there will be an some sort of immediate maternal connection to the child I have growing inside once he/she is born.....but just as I day dream about what this baby will look like, what they will be some day, etc, I also daydream about our Latin love and who they will be, what their personality will be like, what will they look like. Our Latin love is already just as dear in my heart as is the baby in my belly and my heart beats anxiously to meet both of them!!
I could go on forever with the amazing lessons the Lord is teaching us and preparing us to be parents, both by birth and adoption. If you would have talked to us a year ago (well before we had officially committed to adopting and well into our acceptance of likely not having biological children), we could have never EVER dreamed this was how our life would be progressing.
God is so good to walk with us and surprise us with His ways along the journey. I am so blessed to be a child of His and pray that I will be a reflection of His character and love to our children that are on their way!
More to come soon (I promise) .....there are good things happening in the Honduras program :-)
February was our DTH!!! :-)
DTH = date to Honduras.....the culmination of our paperchase. We received our letter of approval from the Honduran consulate in D.C. at the beginning of February and by Valentine's day, our paperwork packet (dossier) was off to Honduras for translation and approval. From my own timeline goals we were about a month behind (mostly because of the delay in our psychological evaluation), but the Lord's timing is right and we trust that everything is still right on with His timeline which is exactly what we want. We're waiting for the dossier to be translated and then approved (or for us to be possibly contacted with the need for additional documentation). After that -- that is when we get our waitlist number. To get translated and approved, it seems for other families we know in the program it takes about 5 months. That means we may be welcoming our first Wanee child to the world at the same time we're getting our official waiting number from Honduras. Please pray that this process goes quickly and that there is no additional documentation requested that could slow the process!!
We feel so blessed to be able to have our family growing at the same time in two very different ways. And yet, in so many ways it is very similar. It is humbling to see these things unfold before us as we continue through the process.
1. The most common question we're being asked about our biological baby is whether we are going to find out the gender. Our answer is, "It'll be a boy or a girl" heehee...which is exactly how we're approaching our adoption. We've left ourselves very open for the Lord to place the exact child we are to have in our lives -- boy or girl, baby or toddler or preschooler--God knows what our family will look like and we are trusting Him to guide that. We are eagerly anticipating what He has in store for us.
2. We have an idea on the timeline of our adoption, but so much is up in the air. We're told 3-5 years, but who knows when things may surprisingly speed up or slow down with adoptions in Honduras. We are spending this time to be prepared for the time when we get the phone call, email, etc about our child being matched to us. Just the same, we know a pregnancy is 40 weeks, but unexpected things can happen (like our friend having their baby 5 weeks early!!) and so we are taking this time to prepare to be parents to an infant child. Time spent waiting should not be wasted with it just passing by....we want to be intentional so we are ready for what is in store for us!
3. We can't wait to meet both of these children. I know there will be an some sort of immediate maternal connection to the child I have growing inside once he/she is born.....but just as I day dream about what this baby will look like, what they will be some day, etc, I also daydream about our Latin love and who they will be, what their personality will be like, what will they look like. Our Latin love is already just as dear in my heart as is the baby in my belly and my heart beats anxiously to meet both of them!!
I could go on forever with the amazing lessons the Lord is teaching us and preparing us to be parents, both by birth and adoption. If you would have talked to us a year ago (well before we had officially committed to adopting and well into our acceptance of likely not having biological children), we could have never EVER dreamed this was how our life would be progressing.
God is so good to walk with us and surprise us with His ways along the journey. I am so blessed to be a child of His and pray that I will be a reflection of His character and love to our children that are on their way!
More to come soon (I promise) .....there are good things happening in the Honduras program :-)
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
So many things to praise God for!
Hope this update finds the new year starting as happy as it has for us!
Our first and newest update is that we're pregnant!
Holy cow! I know! We were certainly surprised when I found out I was pregnant right before Thanksgiving. I am 14 weeks along now and will be due at the end of July. With our agency we just had to submit a "Concurrent Family Building" application and our social worker needed to write a letter recommending that we were able to both adopt and have a child by birth at the same time. That was all just approved by our agency and so we're able to continue with our plans as originally laid out.
We feel so blessed that we have two children to expect now - they're just on different timelines :-) We see different challenges but also many blessing in the way our family is growing. Kyle and I were prepared to wait 2-5 years to bring home our first child -- God says our first child will now be home in 6 months! Now we'll be "broken in" and "experienced" (haha, are parents ever?) parents for when our adoptive child comes home. We are also thrilled that our children are guaranteed to have each other! We knew we wanted to have more than one child, but now it's a sure thing.
Second update is that we got our immigration pre-approval in the mail today!!
Cool story: Last week I called USCIS to see where our application stood that we sent in to them mid-November. We had our fingerprints done on December 10 and so I was beginning to worry that it was a month and we still hadn't been approved. I called the office and spoke to a very nice and helpful agent. She looked us up in the system and told me that we hadn't even been assigned a case worker yet -- this was pretty disappointing. She did say that she was currently working on her cases that had come in around the same time so she anticipated we'd be getting a case worker within a few days. I asked her to at least check that our fingerprints and such were all in the system -- she confirmed this, so that was at least good news. fast forward to the end of the day.....I had a message on my phone from the same agent I had spoken to earlier in the day. She said that when we hung up, the next application on her desk was ours! She worked through processing it, said it all looked good to her and it was just pending approval of her supervisor! She said she anticipated that it would all be approved within a day and we'd have the paperwork within the week. How amazing is that? God is so good!! What are the chances that our application was the next one she would get to and what are the chances that she would take the time to call me to tell me this?!
Even better news is that now we have our last official form. Now we have to get a copy notarized, certified, and apostilled -- the last missing piece so that we can finally get our paperwork to Honduras! Once we get that to our agency, the paperwork will go and we'll have a several month wait to be on the waitlist. During that time Honduras may tell us they need certain forms redone or resubmitted or that they need additional documentation. We're praying that none of that is required, but as we've seen thus far -- it's all in God hands and we trust that He is in control of it all.
Thank you all so much for your prayers! I hope that through these updates you can see what a wonderful God it is that we serve and how He can take care of even the smallest details in our lives.
Our first and newest update is that we're pregnant!
Holy cow! I know! We were certainly surprised when I found out I was pregnant right before Thanksgiving. I am 14 weeks along now and will be due at the end of July. With our agency we just had to submit a "Concurrent Family Building" application and our social worker needed to write a letter recommending that we were able to both adopt and have a child by birth at the same time. That was all just approved by our agency and so we're able to continue with our plans as originally laid out.
We feel so blessed that we have two children to expect now - they're just on different timelines :-) We see different challenges but also many blessing in the way our family is growing. Kyle and I were prepared to wait 2-5 years to bring home our first child -- God says our first child will now be home in 6 months! Now we'll be "broken in" and "experienced" (haha, are parents ever?) parents for when our adoptive child comes home. We are also thrilled that our children are guaranteed to have each other! We knew we wanted to have more than one child, but now it's a sure thing.
Second update is that we got our immigration pre-approval in the mail today!!
Cool story: Last week I called USCIS to see where our application stood that we sent in to them mid-November. We had our fingerprints done on December 10 and so I was beginning to worry that it was a month and we still hadn't been approved. I called the office and spoke to a very nice and helpful agent. She looked us up in the system and told me that we hadn't even been assigned a case worker yet -- this was pretty disappointing. She did say that she was currently working on her cases that had come in around the same time so she anticipated we'd be getting a case worker within a few days. I asked her to at least check that our fingerprints and such were all in the system -- she confirmed this, so that was at least good news. fast forward to the end of the day.....I had a message on my phone from the same agent I had spoken to earlier in the day. She said that when we hung up, the next application on her desk was ours! She worked through processing it, said it all looked good to her and it was just pending approval of her supervisor! She said she anticipated that it would all be approved within a day and we'd have the paperwork within the week. How amazing is that? God is so good!! What are the chances that our application was the next one she would get to and what are the chances that she would take the time to call me to tell me this?!
Even better news is that now we have our last official form. Now we have to get a copy notarized, certified, and apostilled -- the last missing piece so that we can finally get our paperwork to Honduras! Once we get that to our agency, the paperwork will go and we'll have a several month wait to be on the waitlist. During that time Honduras may tell us they need certain forms redone or resubmitted or that they need additional documentation. We're praying that none of that is required, but as we've seen thus far -- it's all in God hands and we trust that He is in control of it all.
Thank you all so much for your prayers! I hope that through these updates you can see what a wonderful God it is that we serve and how He can take care of even the smallest details in our lives.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)