I joke and say that I am "paper pregnant" and it's "adoption hormones" but truthfully, there is a lot going on.
Betty's hair and make-up trial. She is going to take everyone's breath away on 12/14.
Our boys are great.
They are making tough decisions about their lives and exploring their place in the world and these are necessary though never easy growing pains.
I dropped Taylor off at Mass Maritime Academy this past weekend.
He is at orientation.
Orientation is run boot camp style to prepare them for life in a regimental academy.
It's very disciplined.
I took his i-phone home with me.
He is cut off from the outside world.
We are allowed a little glimpse in to his new world as the school does an orientation blog with daily updates on the training of the cadet candidates.
You can follow at:
Taylor is in 1st Company.
This is a tremendous opportunity. Admission was more selective this year than ever before.
Between the blockbuster Captain Phillips casting light on the merchant marine life and US News and World Report naming MMA a "best value" in education, the admissions competition was tough.
We are so proud of Taylor for making it in.
Nevertheless, it was really difficult to drive away on Saturday.
Harder than I had imagined.
My stepdaughter from my first marriage is getting married to a wonderful man this December. We went to try on dresses at the beginning of the month and she looked so beautiful. She radiated in her final choice. Her beauty, from the inside out, was jaw dropping. Tears? Whoo! Her wedding day is going to knock me out!
It was just a minute ago that she was twirling in special occasion dresses. When Betty was little that was how she judged a dress: by the swirly-twirlyness of the skirt. I can tell you that her standards have changed BUT she did get a fabulous skirt!
On the adoption front we are kicked in to high gear. Our homestudy is done! We are sending it off to the USCIS for processing, which usually takes 4-6 weeks. They will give us our biometrics fingerprinting appointment and after that we will prepare to send our dossier to our agency to be reviewed and hopefully sent to China! That's a pretty big deal in our world. The DTC (dossier to China) date is a huge milestone. It puts us in the fourth quarter!
We have had a few emotional set backs. We realized that we will not, in all likelihood, have our dossier to China by 9/14.
That is the due date.
Our agency assured us that this is fine and they are prepared to submit a request for an extension on our behalf. This is a routine procedure and does not reflect negatively on us...but it was difficult to accept.
We just really want to bring our sweet girl home.
We also lost our SW right after our homestudy was completed.
We became really attached to her and were looking forward to doing post placement visits with her but we do wish her well in all future endeavors.
She was super awesome to work with and came in clutch at the eleventh hour to change our adoption approval to "two children."
And YES...
You read that right.
Two children.
Because:
We saw a little girl.
She is bright, beautiful and super sweet. Nine years old.
She is at the same hospital as our Yiman. We were each thinking about her privately and then found that we were both thinking the same thing.
We couldn't shake the image of her.
Our conversations of "too bad we couldn't" quickly turned to "why can't we?"
Then Pete said the magic words every wife wants to hear "it can't hurt to look into it, just in case".
Well, that's a done deal, amiright?
After speaking with our children and our extended family we spoke with our SW and we were approved for two!
We got the little girl's information and gave it to our agency. They were happy to try to locate her adoption file.
We started talking bedroom furniture, names, schools, doctors and treatment.
In other words, we were in this.
110%
That is, until we weren't in it.
She has no file for international adoption at this time.
She never has.
Nine years old.
I prayed so hard that this would not be the news I heard.
Soul crushing.
I wrote an impassioned plea to my agency.
I begged to see if a file might be made soon.
Even if not for us...for someone.
She deserves a family.
I am waiting for their reply.
We are really having a hard time finding peace with this turn of events.
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