Delays

Unfortunately, not a whole lot of progress to report with the adoption. Despite having our paperwork for over a month now, U.S. Immigration has yet to assign an officer to our case. We successfully got fingerprinted again, with both boys in tow, so everything on our end is done. We're just still waiting on that pre-approval to adopt (we haven't been matched to a child yet- this is a step everyone has to take before adopting internationally) and they suggested we keep calling to check in on the status. We *think* it will be about another 3 weeks until we get our paperwork, but then it has to be authenticated and notarized. So pray that things get moving soon!

Otherwise, it looks like the Chinese government has changed a few things and the Chinese consulate doesn't want to authenticate/notarize some documents, so we have to change where certain things are sent and adjust a few minor things. Obviously, this creates some delays with getting all of the rest of our dossier authenticated and notarized. Our agency is taking care of it though, and has a plan in place to get things moving! We're thankfully that these delays are occurring concurrently, but it is still frustrating to be facing them at all. Once everything is where it needs to be, and we get our approval from immigration, we can send our dossier to China and then it opens up our eligibility to be matched with all of the available kids (still depending on the gender, age, special need, etc. that we specified). Our agency is still "optimistically" expecting all of this to take another 6 weeks (!!!!!!) though, which is not really what we wanted to hear. Then, it could still be as long as another 6-9 months to get matched, but that all depends on a million factors, like what kids are released to be adopted and when.

As frustrating as these delays are, we're trying not to get discouraged and trust in God's timing. Honestly, Nick is so steeped in schoolwork right now, even if we were ready to travel to China to get our daughter, I don't know when we would be able to! It's just a busy season right now and it would be much easier to travel when this quarter is over in June and he's done with school until the next quarter starts in September. That's fairly optimistic as far as getting the dossier done and getting matched with our daughter, but crazier things have happened! So, as difficult as it is to be patient, we know that God's timing is perfect and He is in control when we are not and the situation is completely unpredictable. We know that we will most likely be moving in June of 2017, so we're praying that our daughter can at least get a little bit settled before we have to completely uproot her again.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming about matching mommy/daughter hair accessories and trying to figure out how to get better at doing hair (the extent of my hair routine is usually a ponytail) and painting nails and all that having a girl entails. As much as we could totally use some estrogen around here, I am very comfortable in boy world and girl world is completely foreign! The boys are excited too- Eli keeps praying for his sister "Sophia"- no idea where he got that name, but he's stuck on it! Definitely haven't decided anything on a name yet, but I don't think we're going with Sophia! He's also trying to teach his brother the little Mandarin that we know (hello & my name is). Will is surprisingly picking it up!

I can't wait for the real "nesting" to begin though, once we know how old our daughter will be and be able to get a little taste of what she is like from pictures and videos until we get to travel to bring her home!

Thank you all for sharing in this journey with us and keeping us in your prayers! We could sure use them right now! It's crazy to think that we will eventually be becoming a family of five!