How Long is the Wait? Part 12

 


To read some of the previous posts in the series click here.

This is a post that wasn't supposed to be written.  If things had gone according to my plan N would have been home with us by now and we would all be bonding.  That has not happened.  As with much of this process we learn to be patient.  We also learn to trust God.  As much as I would like to be able to pick up the phone and ask someone how much longer? there is nobody that I have found that can tell me and I have tried.

The goatee has not grown much in length.  It still is about 20 cm long.  Our summer is moving forward with J and G participating in a day camp all week and some swim lessons. We are all mentally ready to go, we think, but wait none the less. We now just hope that N will be home with us this summer. It would be great to have some time to bond before the start of school.

We are still here

We have a friend who the past few times we have seen her has lovingly said "Your still here." I think the sentiment is perfect and pretty much sums it all up.  We are still here.  We have been able to skype with N every week since we started.  It has been great to interact with her and she has started to open up just a little bit.  The highlight of the sessions may have come last weekend.  It was Sunday night and N showed us the Mothers Day card she made for Jenn. It only took seconds for the tears to come.

We don't have any new information at this point.  We are a week into the one month wide of "normal"  wait times.  Now as you may remember from following our journey many parts have not followed the "normal" timeframes.  So here we sit waiting.

This week we put the boys to bed before the skype session.  This was disappointing to them both which is a nice thing.  We told them that they would be able to stay up Memorial Day weekend.  J said that it was two long away and that we would be in the Philippines at that point.  I told him that would be great.

We made contact

Tuesday was a good night.  I had stayed home from small group, the boys were in bed and Jenn and I were cleaning up a bit.  I looked down at my phone and notice a message on Skype from F's social worker.  She had been out of the office for awhile and was just getting on to Skype.  She wanted to know if we might be able to meet some time today.  Umm Heck Yes. Since the Philippines is 12 hours ahead of us today for them meant tonight for us.  We were able to set it up for about 30 minutes later.  We woke the boys up and everybody eagerly awaited the call.  We had no problem connecting this time.  We learned that F like to be called N and she is very shy when she first meets new people.  It was very exciting to be able to see her and we showed her around her room.  We hope to be able to have more conversations in the future to continue to ease the transition.  It becomes even more real and exciting every day.

Excitement and reality

Just over a week ago we got an email we had been waiting 3 months for, but truly had given up on ever coming.  The email said a Skype session had been set up with F and we would be able to talk to her for the first time.  We were all very excited and had about a week to prepare.

So on Sunday night we let the boys stay up later than normal so we could all get to talk to her.  The scheduled time rolled around and we eagerly hit the call button.  Call Failed.  That is ok though people are often late to meeting especially when technology is involved.  So we waited 5 minutes and tried again. Call Failed. Alright they are still getting set up and this seems like it might be their first time using Skype before. Five more minutes. Call Failed.  This is where I realized it probably wasn't going to work.  The person we were calling also had not yet accepted our contact request.  The request had been sent 3 days prior.  We kept trying though, every five minutes. Unfortunately, we kept getting the same result Call Failed.  Eventually after about 40 minutes we decided it was time for bed.   We still hope to be able to chat with F before we have to travel but we have not yet heard back from ICAB about rescheduling the call.

On the positive side the clock keeps ticking.  We now are two months into our three to four month wait.  Travel plans are being put together. Contacts are being made. Clothes are being acquired.  All that is left is to bring a little girl home.

How Long is the Wait? Part 12

To get caught up on the series see part 11 here.

So from a beard growth standpoint I am pretty stagnant again.  That is ok though because there is plenty else happening.

We are rapidly nearing the end, we hope, of this phase in the journey.  It would be my hope that the next post in this series would be the cutting off of the goatee.  For that to happen on June 15 we would either need to be home with F or in the Philippines bonding with her.

We now are just a little over one month into our 3-4 month wait.  Then it becomes all systems go.  Currently we are doing as much prep work as possible.  We have looked at some hotels and possible flight routes.  We have started to reach out to family and friend to gather as much info as possible that could help with our trip.

It is fun to have so many friends excited about what is next.  People regularly ask whether we have heard anything new.  Unfortunately the answer is not yet.  It is another period of quiet.  But hopefully this one will be much shorter than the last one.

Jenn and I both finished up what hopefully is our last set of finger prints.  This marks the 6th time we have been finger printed during the adoption process. We think this marks the last piece of the puzzle we need to contribute before we travel.

Back to the Philippines

This part of the process seems to be a lot of back and forth.  We have moved another step forward and the ball is back with the Philippines.  We just received our provisional approval of our I-800 form. This form gives us permission to bring F back into the country with us.

The Philippines now needs to do medical evaluations of F and apply for her Visa.  This part of the process is supposed to take about three to four months.  After this wait all that is left is to travel.  It is very scary, exciting and crazy that we really have just one more thing to wait on.

Another step forward

photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/129891689@N02/16740449969 

This is not a picture of the little girl we will be adopting 

We have moved one more step forward.  This was the Philippines accepting our acceptance of the referral. This part took the anticipated month, well once I remembered to send the check.  Yes you read that correctly.  With all the excitement, anticipation and holidays I forgot to send the check to our agency in CA for a couple weeks.  Once they had the check things went quickly. I am pleasantly surprised it only took a month to hear back as the check arrived in the Philippines right around Christmas.

At this point I think we are back to a waiting game again. We have finished all the paperwork that I know of.  We have also just had our home study visit.  From here we have two more waiting periods. The first is waiting on USCIS to approve the visa for F to come home which should be about three weeks.  Then we wait on the Philippines to do physicals and other check ups of F, this should be about 3-4 months.

We continue to be excited about this and are reminded about the many challenges it will bring.  We pray continually for God's strength and guidance during this transition.