It's A Wonderful Life

We still have not received our TA.  I've been scouring the Internet looking for time lines.  The word is 1-3 weeks with the average taking 3 weeks.  All I am finding on others blogs is 5-10 days. How we have ended up in the slow line throughout this whole adoption I don't know but I have not given up hope.  It is hard to stay faithful and know that Heavenly Father is in charge and knows what is best. Most of the time I am doing very well, that is until I talk to my sister.  Thank you very much. :) The kids ask at least every 15 minutes if we have gotten our TA.  Doug said goodbye this morning and pocked his head back in to make sure I would call him as soon as we get it. I just had to chuckle, of course I would call, IMMEDIATELY.  Silly man.  Ressa called right after she got off work last night to see. Everyone is very anxious here to have the children home.  No one wants to wait any longer. I'll keep everyone posted. ...

To all those of you following our adoption journey, I'm sorry for not keeping you updated.  We did have our Article 5 delivered.  Now we are waiting on the Travel Approval.  Our sincere hope is that we receive it today.  It is possible but with the opposition in this journey it will be by divine intervention that we receive it.  If our TA does come today we are told we will travel September 9th.  If it doesn't come we will have to regroup.  There are some serious decision that will need to be made if we don't make it.  We are not wanting to go in October because that is when we can finalize Olivia. This sweet girl deserves to know she is important enough that we would make the decision to do whatever is necessary to make her a permanent part of our family as soon as possible.  To wait until November causes Hyrum and Bria to be alone for 2 more months and then puts us back home the beginning of December.  I am concerned abo...

Yes miracles do happen. We have had opposition in all areas of our lives lately.  They include everything from adoption to finances to school and many others.  We have prayed much for help knowing that all of these things were beyond our ability to overcome.  I will admit that I was beyond my natural ability to cope. All I could do was pray and turn my emotions off while I waited for the help to come. Yesterday started with Doug and I on the phone until 10:30 trying to get the kids' registration approved for school. This was after several weeks of going back and forth on immunizations and what is required. We finally talked to the right person and got it done.  It was a simple one minute conversation because this person was in Utah not Virginia and knew what was required.  We got our confirmation this morning and now all the curriculum can be sent out to us.  We have also been fighting the Middle school to get Creed registered.  Doug got a...

Tonight during Family Night we played Bingo. I was sitting next to Niya helping her and she leaned into me and gave me a big hug.  This happens numerous times a day and an "I love you" added with it. Tonight she said "I'm so glad I have you." Well sweet Niya,  I'm so very glad that I have you!

I have known for some time that there is a crisis in international adoption.  We have personally been affected by it as well as millions of children. We are led to believe that the USA and UNICEF are on the side of the people but they are most definitely not on the side of the children.  It would be good for everyone to read the following article.  It just touches the surface of what is happening on the adoption scene world wide.  Many countries have been shut down to international adoption with no domestic adoption options available.  Over a 100,000,000 children have no mother and father and partially because of the works of the Department Of State and UNICEF these children will never have the love, nurture and care necessary to become contributing stable adults.  The beliefs of these agencies are only perpetuating war, poverty and moral decay in this world. I highly recommend you read this article and pass it on. http://communities.washingtont...

Have you ever experienced challenges when something good is just around the corner?  Opposition is a spiritual principle and it has been alive and well in our home this week.  The frustration with the USCIS officer came to a head on Wednesday - we ended up about 10 days later than what the normal turnaround time is for that approval.  Our senator's staffer was completely ineffective.  Our 401k took about a $2,000 hit in the last 10 days with all the economic turmoil on Wall Street.  This ate into the money we were going to liquidate to pay for two college tuition fees next month and the rest of the adoption. I made a transition in my office a couple of months ago and that has disrupted our income at the moment, so the 401k money turned into being our safety net for the adoption.  One of our dishwashers broke down - they are Bosch, so probably not cheap to fix.  At least we are fortunate enough to have another dishwasher.  We wi...

One more step closer.  It was a painful step, but at least its done.  We determined that our senatror's office really didn't have any effect on the speed of approval of our GUZ letter from the visa center.  He didn't really accomplish anything to expedite the I800 approval getting sent to the visa center either. We were completely lied to by our officer at USCIS, then she sent the email to the visa center to the wrong email address.  When I called her for the tracking number for the 2nd day package sent to the visa center she said they never give those out.  Magically in about 2 minutes she had it. We ended up talking to her supervisor - she was apologetic and asked what she could do, but by that time the package had already arrived in the visa center and there was nothing more we needed from that office.  We just submitted a formal complaint to try to save the next family some delays and misinformation....