Another milestone passed

Yeah! Finally we are in the "passed court" phase. This is so great! This means we have been penciled in as parents, and if no one comes forward to claim our girls we will legally be a family! Yippee!
The next question is, when do we get to meet them? Not for a while yet.

Here is the basic run-down:
* wait for the 30 days to be up and get the Certificate of non-appeal- this will probably be about four more weeks.
* get new birth certificates and passports with correct names- 30 more days
* file the I600- here is where it gets tricky. Our agency is really pushing to file it in the US adding somewhere between one and three more months until meeting the girls. I plan on filing in Congo, which means I will be in a hotel for 3-5 weeks, but bonding with the kids and experiencing their country-something extremely important to me. So, time will tell if the agency or the parents win out on this one.

So, depending on many factors, we will be a legal family in about two weeks, but not be physically a family for two to five more months. It is so exciting to be one step closer!

Enough Already

Ok, this blog was not a place I created so I could moan, groan and complain. It is really easy to do that though when you know nothing of the status of your case, when you don't know when you will travel (one date had us going this week, now who knows!), and when for all you know the adoption process has all been a very expensive dream with no end in sight....enough already!

But, I digress. Happy thoughts, inner peace, joy radiating out..one day I will look back on this with fond thoughts of free time, movies that are not cartoons and nights out without a babysitter. It is absolutely beautiful outside with birds chirping and neighbor kids playing, life is not too bad after all.

On days like this as you journey to your adopted children, remember how lucky we are, how many little things we should be grateful for and slow down the thoughts running through your head by taking a long walk in the sun - or spin circles in a sunny field, even better! Enjoy life even when you obsess over what you don't have have or fully know, after all we only live once (unless your Buddhist).

Just Keep Swimming

I love Nemo. Basically any Pixar cartoon is great in my mind. With nothing new to report and being in the complete dark over if my file is even in Congo anymore, I am going to repeat, "just keep swimming"- words of wisdom really.


I'm sure there are Bible verses, Buddhist mantras and Pagan rituals I could try too. If some good news doesn't come our way soon I just may resort to all of these and more.


So to all the adoptive families out there sitting in limbo, playing the waiting game and checking your email every 10 minutes, think of Dory the fish and smile.

A Shower & Hope

I have been so busy I haven't been able to write about the wonderful adoption shower my family and dear friends put on for me. It was so amazingly overwhelming to have so much support and love surrounding us, I almost feel like the cute thank you cards I'll be sending out are not enough.

 Here is a quick recap. We had food- but not pink punch and finger sandwiches. We had fufu, goat, and champagne mixers (I know our girls eat fufu and goat, the champagne was just for us:) )

We had games, but thank goodness no guessig my stomach size with string or guessing the candybar in a diaper. Instead we got to name as many African countries as we could and figure out trivia questions on the DRC.

We did have cake and some of the best sugar cookies on earth (thank you Papa Dave!):
  

In case you can't read it, the cake says, "you did not grow under my heart, you grew in my heart" with a heart in Africa and a heart in Colorado-  it still makes me tear up!

Finally, we received so many gifts for the girls it took 2 hours just to find a place for them at home. Thank goodness we now have two car seats, a double stroller and a wagon among all the other packages we opened- we are so blessed!

It was a blast! Here are Matt and I after opening gifts- the scarf is from a great friend who just adopted from Ethiopia-

I hope this shower sent out enough good energy into the universe that it will have no choice but to bring our girls home to us soon. We have not heard from the judge and are starting week 8 after going through court....come on good mojo, let our girls come home and enjoy all the new things they received!