Thursday, December 30, 2010

december 30, 2010

wow!  tomorrow is new year's eve day!  sooooooooo glad this year is over.

not glad for the rapid passing of time, for aging, for my children growing up so fast before my eyes, for the days and weeks and months we are losing with ben.  but, glad for the nearing day that ben will be home with us, with people who love him, with siblings - real siblings, not just bunches of children with whom he has to compete for food, clothes, toys and love and attention, physical contact and having his needs met.  glad for the year to be over so to put that horrible winter further behind us, jim's job will become permanent in feb, our unpaid taxes will be paid, and most importantly, we will be on our way to china sometime in 2011, to hold our son and our childrens' brother, bring him home, where he belongs and complete our family.

i have to offer a short word of thanks to all the friends and family who are supporting us unconditionally during this endeavor, what has become the most challenging of all four of our adoptions.  i can not even begin to express the gratitude we feel in our hearts for your unwavering, steadfast love and support.  thank you.  it is not enough, but it is all we have.  thank you.

on the dossier compilation front, our dedicated and marvelous courier has challenged the gaping maw, the grinding teeth of that most terrifying place, The US Department of State's Office of Authentications, and emerged triumphant with our dossier documents!!  snatched from the Fiery Breath of Indifference, Carol Fredericks of Dependable Adoption Courier Services (Dependable ACS:  http://www.dependable-acs.com) challenged those government zombies in their devastatingly gray and boring cubicles of ennui and saved the day!!  after lying around for 18 days, our documents were revived and swept off to the embassy of china today.  they will be completed and packaged, mailed back to us for review next week, by week's end, and then off to our agency to await that final document from USCIS:  the magical and most coveted I-797C!!!!
(formerly known as: I-171H.  remember THAT document!  HA!  defeated by HAGUE!  and replaced with the creeping, eye-stabbing, feet-dragging horror that is the two-month-long-extending process of filing first the I-800A: Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country, followed by the I-800: Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative, which, finally, if you haven't become a dessicated, dehydrated shell of a human, leads to the Much Coveted and Completely Necessary for Travel to China to get your now 14 year old Child: The I-797C, Notice of Action.  yipee.)

stay tuned, stay hydrated, stay awake.  i'll post when the dossier goes off to ccai in colorado to sit on it's ass for two months and await the precious document...

and stay away from zombies.  you've got red on you.

No comments: