Happy Valentine's Day Everyone and Adrian- Happy Birthday!!

We aren't big on Valentine's day as a romantic day. It's Adrian's day and today he is 14. Did you read that right? Yep. 14!! He is so smart, patient, sweet and loving. I am so proud to have him as my son. I often wonder how I got to be so lucky with so many wonderful children. He was the first. He was the one who made us parents for the first time. He gave us something bigger than ourselves to think about. He made us realize how much we love children and love having them around. He's a true blessing and I hope he knows how much we love him, admire him, and wish only but the best for him. Happy Birthday Adrian!

Minor Setback

Well the I-800A was sent in with the homestudy on Friday and I'm reading through the homestudy Saturday and I find a mistake. Our homestudy provider only approved us to adopt a child with developmental delays. Dongyue's needs are a little more significant than that. Sure enough, after talking to my agency just now, we were supposed to have her exact special needs listed and an approval for those needs. Ugghh. But I'm starting to get used to this now and I'm not letting it bug me as much as I did before...So long story short, there is a way to fix it. Once my application is logged in at USCIS I will get an officer to discuss this with and send a new homestudy to. Breathe...

I-800A has been sent!

I'm doing the happy dance everyone!! Let's do it together!! Our homestudy was finally finished this morning. I drove down to Shelburne to get it so that I could send our I-800A in to USCIS today!! Of course, this means another 2-3 months of waiting but I am so glad to be just waiting, instead of being the go-between for the homestudy provider and agency. The agency is now talking about travel in November. I am still hoping for a September travel date but it is all up to USCIS and China now... Let's hope we get workers who are on the ball!

I am ashamed to say that I was in a really bad place this week about all of this. I even threatened, but didn't really mean it, to throw in the towel. I know, silly, but I wasn't sleeping and I was really frustrated. I have a couple of horoscopes sitting under my monitor at work that back when we were deciding to do this they kept me going. I'm going to share them here-

"Maintain a steady pace and remain sure of your choices. You have discussed an issue until you are blue in the face (I think they meant until Aaron was blue in the face, ha!). Have you not made a choice?"
"Understand what needs to happen. Keep reaching out for others. Look for the unusual path. Realize that what you want is going to happen one way or the other."
"Though you feel you cannot juggle a new opportunity in your life, you can. Stop. Toss negative thinking out of your life and eye newfound potential."

These keep me focused. Onward we go!

Cozy Blanket

I wanted to send Baby A a blanket and my agency warned that although we might send her a blanket it will probably get mixed up with the general wash at the orphanage and she might not get it back again. My solution to help avoid that happening was to take one of her pictures and transfer it to fabric, then sew it onto a blanket and trim it with ribbon. They will know exactly whose blanket it is just by a quick look! I'm so proud of it- here it is: