Rwanda Day 2

We had a fantastic day today!  We started off at court and our hearing took about 10 minutes.  I was really a non-event.  The judge will have our ruling ready at 11:00 on Thursday.  We were hoping for sooner but given our POA had indicated this could take a week and we should plan accordingly, we are ok with the delay.  After court we went to Home of Hope to see the baby.  While there our POA convinced the sisters to let us take him for the day since we had been to court.  We could leave the orphanage with him so long as he was back by 5:00!  They let us see the room where he hangs out during the day and the room where he sleeps.  We got to love on some of the other kids too.  After that we loaded into the SUV (boy is this kiddo going to be in for a shock when he is strapped into a car seat!) and headed to our hotel so we could move to the new place.  After we moved we headed to lunch at Bourbon Coffee.  The food was awesome and we will definitely be going back there.  While at lunch the baby tried his first rice cereal.  I have a feeling it is much more bland than the porridge he gets because he HATED it. It was so funny watching him take a bite and realize it tasted gross and spit it out.  Hunger won in the end and he ate a little bit.

After lunch it was nap time so we went back to the hotel to hang out and rest.  We took our first nap together as a family and then hung out.  Oh boy, it this little one super cute. We finally got some smiles and even a laugh or two.  After that our time was up for the day and he had to go back to the orphanage for the night.  It was sad to leave him, but I know he is in fantastic hands.

Chris and I had a fantastic meal tonight then back to the hotel to get some sleep before our day tomorrow.

Rwanda Day 1

After almost 24 hours (18 on three different planes), we arrived at Kigali International Airport last night around 7 pm local time. Our POA, Fidele, picked us up and brought us to our hotel. We started bright and early this morning with a visit to the secor to sign the Act of Adoption. We were delayed a bit while we waited for the nuns but we ran some errands during the wait. When Fidle got word the the nuns were at sector, we headed there. The Act of Adopion form is in a huge book. We signed it and waited just a bit longer for it to be signed. Fidle tells us that we were really lucky to get it signed so quickly.

After sector, we headed to the bank so Fidle couldd pay the fees for our court hearing. Once paid we headed to court to get a hearing date. We are set for tomorrow morning at 8 am and hoping and praying for a quick ruling.

After court we grabbed some lunch then went to Home of Hope to see our guy. Oh my, is he cute! I can't wait to share pictures once we pass court. The nuns told us that he likes to eat and you can tell. I am hoping he'll fit in the clothes we brought.

We are probably going to move hotels tomorrow to one offering a suite for $30 less per night. So far things are going really well. Praying that things continue.

Update

We have had a lot going on since my last update.  Davis left for a visit with his grandparents (Chris' parents) in Birmingham, AL on Friday, July 16.  He will not be home until July 27 and I already miss him like crazy.  He is having a fantastic time.  Yesterday, he and his granddaddy saw Despicable Me and the day before that they drove to Huntsville to visit the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.  He got to ride on rockets and see a Star Wars exhibit.  I am pretty sure that Davis is going to be bored to death when he gets back home.  The good news is that we leave for vacation in Disneyworld just a little while after he gets home and he'll get to see his grandparents again.  I am posting this at work so I cannot upload any pictures but hopefully when Davis gets home, I'll have lots of pictures from his trip to be able to post.

Samuel is being his typical super-cute self.  He is still so busy with everything.  His vocabulary has been exploding lately.  Its so cute to hear him say new words.  He is going to school 3 days a week and seems to be thriving there.  He is learning a lot and making new friends.

I turned 40 (gasp!) years old on Friday, July 16.  At first I was all depressed about it but realize now that its just another day.  I did pamper myself with a pedicure and a 110 minute massage that was heavenly.  On Saturday we had a sitter that stayed with Samuel all night (first time we've ever done that) while Chris and I headed up the road an hour to Oklahoma to WinStar casino for a fun night out.  We went to a nice dinner, saw Bowling for Soup and Better than Ezra in concert, and lost money at the casino.  It was nice to get away and both Samuel and the sitter seemed no worse for the wear when we arrived home on Sunday morning.

We've made a lot of progress on the adoption front.  It took a while for our dossier to be fully authenticated by the Rwandan embassy but we received it back yesterday and today it is officially on its way to our power of attorney in Rwanda who will deliver it to the Minister's office so we can officially be DTR (dossier to Rwanda).  We are in the waiting stage now and it could be quite a while (I am thinking a year or so) before we hear anything. 

Sorry for such a long and boring post but we've had a lot going on and I have not updated in forever.

At the Embassy

I got our documents back from Austin on Friday and fed-exed them to Carol at Dependable Adoption Courier Service (highly recommended) on Saturday.  She received the documents on Monday morning and had them completed at the state department on Tuesday (she had to do them over two days since there were too many documents for the state department to do in one day).  The documents made it to the Embassy of Rwanda today where hopefully they will approve us to adopt and we can get our dossier to Rwanda.  I am hopeful that we'll be able to have our dossier officially submitted by mid-July.  Then the waiting begins. 

On the Way to Austin

Our dossier documents are on the way to Austin for authenication.  This the first of a three-step authentication process before we can send our dossier to Rwanda.  We are excited to be moving forward and hope the authentication process moves quickly. 

Approved!

We got our USCIS approval yesterday so now I am frantically pulling together the rest of the documents we need for our dossier.  I have my medical on Friday (and am hoping the doctor will just sign the form since I was just there for a physical for the homestudy) and am really trying to get everything ready to send off to Austin next week.

We still have a long way to go but are so grateful to have this one step complete.  So glad that USCIS changed the process and we weren't processed in Dallas.  We'd still be waiting.

What is it like?

Please read this post to get a glimpse as to what life is like in the orphanage where our son will come from.  I just read the post and I am crying and praying for our son and the other boys and girls who want and need parents who will love them more than anything else.

Another step closer

We had our home study visit this past Saturday and it went really well.  We should have the final report in 30 days or so.  We have to gather a few more items for the report and send them to our social worker but we will be done with this part really soon.   The best news is that since we were a client of his from our prior adoption, he charged us much less than he would normally charge for a new international home study. 

Even though we had been through the home study process before, I still fretted about the house being perfect (which is nearly impossible with a 6 year old and an 18 month old tearing it apart as fast as I can pick things up).  We had a really nice visit together, then he talked to Davis by himself (I evesdropped on the questions - mostly he asked Davis about our discipline methods and whether he was excited about having another brother) and finally talked to me and Chris individually.  The last part was a safety inspection and since our house is already baby proofed that was no problem at all.

Our social worker did warn us about the Dallas office of USCIS.  They are notoriously slow in processing the i600s and usually send back letters saying the application is not complete without including a name/number to call for more information.  Typical government bureaucracy!  Nothing that I didn't already know but still upsetting.  I really want to get our dossier into Rwanda by July but it will totally be out of my hands. 

Making Progress

The social worker that we used for our home study when we adopted Samuel will be doing our home study for our new adoption as well.  I really like him and he thinks this home study will be pretty easy for him since he'll just need to update our old one and add a few additional things needed for an international adoption.  That does not give us much time to clean up the house but I know we can do it and the SW is pretty laid back so it does not need to be perfect.  I'll probably take a day off of work in the next week or so to get the house picked up since our weeks and weekends have been so busy lately. 

I also have my physical scheduled so we are moving along.  I think I have all of the official documents (birth certificates, marriage certificate, etc.) that are needed so hopefully once the homestudy is complete we can file our i-600a and officially start the waiting process.  We'll continue to work on our dossier during that period too but the dossier requirements are not too bad.

There are 9 families in Rwanda now picking up their 12 kids and most of them have blogs that I have been folloiwng.  It is making me very anxious to be there too.  Soon.

Big News!

Although a lot of our family and friends know this already, I am officially announcing to the world that we are starting the process to adopt again.  We are going to go the international route (from Rwanda) this time and I am very anxious to get the process started.

From all of the research I have done, we should have a new son join our family in 12 - 18 months.  I have already called the social worker that did the home study for our domestic adoption and he is willing and able to do our home study for this adoption too.  I am hoping that we'll be able to get the home study done relatively quickly since he already knows us and can use our prior home study as a starting point for a lot of the boiler plate stuff.  Unfortunately the first part of the process (after the home study) is getting approval from the INS and the Dallas field office has one of the longest processing times in the country.  The national average to process a I-600A is 3.5 months and the Dallas office averages 7.7 months.  We are just starting the process and I am already annoyed by the potential delays but just pray and hope that our son is/will be well taken care of until we can get to Rwanda.

I'll be using this blog to track our progress in this journey.

I will be happy to answer any questions if you leave them in the comments.