Happy Day

Since my last post I have been feeling really down.  I have been praying a lot and questioning our decision a lot.  I just couldn’t understand, if we had made the right decision, why things were not working out for us.  In my head I kept thinking that just because you are doing everything right that doesn’t mean that things will go perfectly, but it does mean that things will eventually work out.  In my heart, though, I was feeling so discouraged and just couldn’t stop thinking that we had made the wrong choice and that maybe our baby was somewhere else or maybe the timing was all wrong and now we were way too into it to get ourselves out of.  I tried not thinking about it, but I still couldn’t shake the discouragement and depression.  

Then Sunday I had Jason check to see if our NBI clearance ever made it to Manila, since we paid extra to have tracking on it and we never received our return receipt.  It has been a month and we have heard nothing, so Jason checked and found out that the last place it was tracked was leaving Canada.  We don’t know if their tracking system is just messed up or if it just disappeared, like much of our mail has seemed to do throughout this process.  This is not what I needed to hear.  I was already feeling so miserable about everything and this just made it ten times worse.  Talk about discouragement.  I didn’t even want to go to church after that, but I forced myself to go because I knew I needed it.  It made me feel a little better, but I was still having a hard time and knew I could not take one more thing.  I had a hard time sleeping last night. I just couldn’t stop thinking about everything and wondering if we really were on the right track and if so how long this was going to take.  I prayed about it quite a bit last night off and on and pleaded with the Lord to let us know if we were headed in the right direction.  I just needed to know for sure so I would have the strength that would be required of me to get through any more setbacks or problems.  I knew from the beginning that this would not be easy, but I really had no idea how hard it was going to be.

Now for the good news.  After 10 LONG months of working on our home study, it is finally finished.  For real this time!  Everything has been approved and notarized and it is on its way to us this very day.  Our social worker called me this morning.  She usually just emails unless it is important and she wanted to be able to tell me over the phone that it was finally complete.  I was a little nervous to answer the phone at first, I just kept thinking “Oh no, what now”.  I am so glad I did though.  I cannot even begin to describe how happy and relieved I am right now.  This is HUGE for us and it is a step that I thought we would never get through.  I would like to say that it will be smooth sailing for us after this point, but I have a feeling that nothing in this process is going to be easy for us.  Maybe if I just expect the worst then I will be pleasantly surprised if things do start to go smoothly.  I guess the Lord really does know just how much He can push us and when we have reached our breaking point.  I know this was an answer to my prayers and I feel so good knowing that we are one step closer to bringing our precious child/ren home.  

Although this is a huge deal for us, it is really just the beginning of the process.  Now, once we get our home study in the mail, we mail it on to the USCIS along with our I-800a form and they will file it and then schedule us for fingerprinting at their office in Yakima.  They will also begin reviewing it and they most likely will be asking us for additional information.  Our social worker said that so far 100% of all applications have not made it through on the first try.  All of them have needed additional information, so she is not expecting ours to be any different.  She just doesn’t know what that information will be.  She told us to hold onto the letter that she asked Jason to get from his counselor and not to send it with the home study, but instead wants us to wait and see if the USCIS asks for it because they may not need it.  She said the same thing about the NBI.  We will probably wait until they tell us officially that they require it before we go back to Canada to get it done again.  Who knows by then maybe the first one we sent off to Manila will just show up in our mailbox completed.  I will definitely be praying for that or that the USCIS will not require it.  As much as I like Canada, I am just not looking forward to driving all that way just to get something done that we already did.  Plus, Jason does not have much time to take off this month or next and we already will need to drive all the way to Yakima, hopefully without the kids, to get the fingerprinting done.  Once we are approved with the USCIS we can then have our agency send our dossier and home study on to the Philippines and then we will have to wait about 6 weeks for their approval.  Once approved with ICAB(Inter Country Adoption Board in the Philippines) we are officially added to the waiting list for a child and will begin our wait which could be anywhere from 1-3 years.  I guess that’s all for now.  I will post again if anything changes or when we find out what additional info the USCIS is going to require of us.  Here’s to hoping it will be nothing.  We could be the first to be approved on the first try.  Miracles do happen, we finally finished our home study after all!