New Vice Minister of Justice

Mark had to work over today, even though he traded his scheduled overtime to someone else, so we had to rush around to get to Lifebuilders tonight. We didn't even have time to check email before we left. So we were really excited to see a message in our inbox from Kay. Basically the email said that Milena, the attorney from Vesta, had met with the new Vice Minister of Justice who is in charge of adoptions. She felt that this director is even more adoption-friendly than the last, that the new council members have been chosen and that the first meeting of the International Adoption Council (IAC) should be meeting next week. The best news is that Milena has been invited to attend the meeting. Basically, this means that the new governmental officials should cooperate to get our adoption completed.

Every day we race home to check email...Maybe we will get notification of our court date. So even though it wasn't the news we were hoping for, we were glad to hear something. Mark joked around during small group that he might have to live in an apartment for a while if we don't have a court date by our next small group meeting on October 20...Yes, I have been a little irritable during the past couple of weeks. Between the stress of parent/teacher conferences and this waiting...I've been a "tiny bit" grouchy. I might just have to go to Bulgaria, call the MOJ meeting to order, put my hand on the stamper, and help them approve our documents...Deep breath, more praying, deep breath, sigh...It isn't the waiting as much as not knowing what is going on that I find so annoying.

Getting Ready...to Wait

Over the weekend, we traveled to Oxford, Mississippi to watch Blaise run, but the meet was cancelled because of rain. Blaise was so disappointed because this would have been the first time since high school that Adam and Vince would have been able to see him run cross country and probably the last time since this is his last season. Adam arranged to be off work and Vince drove home from Marion, Indiana and met us in Effingham. We made the best of it, though. Blaise joined us since this is his fall break, so we ate at Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston and even stopped in Cairo to see the confluence of the rivers on our way home. It seemed like a mini family vacation. All of the boys were talking and laughing and trying to decide which superpower would be the best one to have. They even sang their own rendition of "Father Abraham" (complete with motions) for inclusion in the family video I am making for Gracie to see when we pick her up. It is hilarious. On our way home we stopped in Effingham to say good-bye, since Blaise and Adam are going to spend the next few days with Vince. I'm sure they are having a ball right now in Indiana.

We also marked another "must have" off our list on the way home. We found a backpack for Gracie! We want to give her something to carry her special things in when we go to the Visa interview and on the flight home. We thought it might make her feel safer. This backpack is a padded bear that is soft enough to use as a pillow, but can hold a book, crayons, pretzels, some little Polly Pocket dolls (Melanie told me these were essential toys for a 4 year old girl.), a sticker book, comb, chap stick, and any other "important" things she might want.

I also just ordered her a pair of slippers that look like a lamb and a little dress from L.L. Bean. Somehow buying a few things for her makes me feel like I am doing something to speed up the process. We are still waiting to hear that we have a court date. In the meantime, check out this cute backpack...

Waiting for a Court Date

On September 16, we got an email from Kay at Tree of Life saying that the Bulgarian agency asked about our dossier and that they are waiting for the signature and consent of the Minister of Justice in Bulgaria. After it is signed, our dossier will be sent to court. After our court date is set, we will be able to officially start the countdown. Seven days after court, if all of the documents are in order, the Bulgarian governments approval of our adoption will be final. Usually it takes 6-8 weeks after the court date to complete the remainder of the paperwork (get a new birth certificate, set up an embassy interview, arrange travel) and travel to bring her home. The way I understand it, since we are under the I-600 petition with the Department of Homeland Security, we will apply for Gracie's visa after her embassy interview. Then we will wait in Bulgaria while the visa and passport are processed. That is why our second trip will probably last 7-10 days.

The past few weeks have been busy, which helps the time to pass more quickly. This week, midterms were due as well as benchmark exam results, parent-teacher conferences have started, Mark is still working a couple of twelve hour days every week and one day each weekend, my class goes on a field trip this week, I am observed and evaluated by Mr. T. this week, and we have been trying to catch up on the yard work and getting Gracie's room set up. Our garden is also overflowing with tomatoes and I have been canning apple sauce and salsa. I won't have to worry about being bored...

On Friday night, we went to the premier of The Informant!, a dark comedy that was filmed in Decatur about ADM's price-fixing scandal complements of Donna, my coworker. We had a great time looking for all of the Decatur locations and spending time with the other teachers from school and their spouses. After the movie we all went to the Bizzou, a restaurant downtown for supper, too. It was so nice getting together with the teachers outside of school.

I find myself frequently wondering what time it is in Bulgaria and imagining what Gracie might be doing. During church today, she would have been eating supper...I really don't think that anyone is talking to her about her new family or the adoption. The concept of family has to be foreign to her. I wonder also if her best friend, Emanwewe, has been adopted yet. Usually domestic adoptions are expedited, so Grace may have watched her best friend leave the orphanage with her parents and not return. Maybe this will help her to be prepared. I do hope that she is healthy and doesn't think that we have abandoned her. God, please prepare her heart for joining our family and help us to get a court date soon.

Shopping

Shopping has never been my favorite pasttime, but I enjoyed looking at girlie things this weekend. We took the tape measure on our shopping trip and what we realized is that Gracie is going to be really hard to fit...definitely she will need slims. Now I understand why some of her dresses were so short during our visit. We don't know how up-to-date her weight report was, but 23 pounds isn't very much for a 4 1/2 year old. According to the weight on the size charts, she should be a 2T, but her waist to floor measurement of 19 inches means that most 2T long pants will be capris! We also measured the waists on the 2T and 3T pants and most of them were about 20 inches. When I measured her waist on our visit, it was 18 1/2 inches. Either I will be adding elastic to the waists of everything, she will need a belt (which we bought today), or she will be wearing a lot of dresses and tights.

Buying just a few things really increased my anticipation. I can't wait to bring Gracie home. Since Mark has been working so many weekends, we made a list of things to do before she gets here and are trying to make sure that we have everything ready in time. I guess we are "nesting." On his last weekend off, we cleaned the garage and "dejunked" so we have more room for storage; this weekend we shopped for a mattress, headboard, dresses (for picking her up and the embassy appointment), and shoes. I took the little paper cut-outs of her footprint for shoe shopping and she will need either a size 7 or 8!  She has long skinny feet like her daddy.

It is good that we started looking early, because we didn't buy anything except some little cotton tank tops, a set of three tiny little belts (that Mark will have to shorten), and one pair of pajamas. We did choose a mattress to buy that we will order next week, but there were just too many cute little dresses that we couldn't decide on any of them. I also went through all of the donated clothes and organized them by size so I know what we will need, sort of. Hmmmm...it has been a long time since I have had a toddler around. What will we need to take with us for 8 days in Bulgaria with a 4-year-old? We may have to take her shopping and check an extra bag for the return trip. I wonder what she would think of the mall...

Good News/Bad News

The good news: We got an email from Kay at our agency and she said that we don't have to worry about getting Gracie home before her birthday. In fact, she contacted Jane (our 3rd social worker) to clarify the regulations. We also found out that our documents have been sent to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and we should be given a court date within 20 to 30 days! Then, according to Bulgarian law, Gracie will be ours 7 days after court. We just can't pick her up until the US government sets up the Embassy physical and interview and we get the visa and passport. Usually parents travel within 6 to 8 weeks of the court date. Her age shouldn't matter because they expect her to be home before the end of the year anyway. We are still hoping for November!

The bad news: We got the final documents for post placement, fees, etc. and a copy of the 17C. Well, they did correct the spelling of our name in most of the 17C document, but not all of it.  And, another document that was translated from the Ministry of Justice, The Certificate, has our name spelled wrong on it, too. Somehow, the translator thinks it is Duhnam...I sent off another email to Daniel about the errors...We can see from following our FedEx account that TOL, our agency, just FedExed some documents to Bulgaria this week ($45) and my guess is that they will have to be redone and re-sent. Please pray that it can be fixed swiftly and does not delay our court date.  I really don't want to get to the Embassy appointment and have all of the documents denied because they don't have our names spelled correctly on them!

When Will She Be 5?

I got an email from the social worker with our home study agency asking for an update, so I told her about our visit and our current status of "waiting." She was happy to hear about our progress and was anxious to help us get the US paperwork in order. She also said that if we were not positive that Gracie would have her Bulgarian visa before her 5th birthday in January, that we would need to update the home study document (complete with another home visit since she is not the social worker from our previous home study), send it for DCFS approval, and then get a new updated I-171h from the Department of Homeland Security which can take weeks or months. This just didn't make sense to me since our home study approves us for a child age 0-5 years, and Gracie turns 5 in January. I thought that she would be 5 years old until she turns 6 in 2011. Well, today she replied that, although it makes perfect sense that she will continue to be 5 until her 6th birthday, apparently most countries don't look at it this way. I guess on her birthday, she actually will start being older than 5! So now...we are waiting for more information from our Bulgarian agency to find out if we need to update our home study for ages 0-6 just to be certain that we don't have another delay. We really want to get Gracie home quickly, and we really don't want to pay for a home study update and struggle with the Department of Homeland Security again. (DHS is the office that denied our home study after we waitied 3 months saying we were missing some documents and then called a month later to say that they had made a mistake.) Usually the wait between the first and second trips is 2-5 months. We know that God's timing is perfect, but please be praying that His timing is also swift!