The Envelope

Yes, the beautiful long-awaited (just about 4 weeks, to be exact) envelope arrived in our box on Saturday.  In it was the letter saying our I-800a was approved, meaning the powers that be looked over our big homestudy packet and the results from our fingerprinting and approved us to bring an orphan into this nation.  This was the last big piece of our paperwork puzzle.  I scanned it and emailed a copy to our agency, who now has our final approval letter for our dossier in the mail and on its way to us.  We will then get to hire a courier to take our entire packet of paperwork to the US Embassy in DC for some important verifications and then on to the embassy of the other country, also in DC. 

We are getting close to sending it all to that African country, which must not be named in the blog world.  Then....yes, then...we just wait some more.  The very next step will be the referral of a specific child.  That is really exciting.  Or it would be really exciting if we thought it would happen quickly.  I know, though, that our country has yet to issue a single referral.  We will wait and be one of the very first people to receive a referral.  We hope it will be soon, but we just do not know. 

If I'm honest, I tell you it's hard to be connected to this adoption process.  It's hard to believe that there is a child on the other end.  I know it happens and it will be shocking and amazing when it all works out, whether we get the referral next month or next year sometime or if we have to rethink everything and go a different direction.  It will happen, but it's hard to feel that the little steps we are taking right now are actually leading us closer.  There's no pretty 9-month/40-week time-line for this way of expanding a family.  There's a lot of uncertainty and waiting and wondering and hoping and trusting and basically going on with your life as usual, trying not to think too much about the future.  There's lots of eating chocolate, too.