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.

Where Has the Time Gone?

I cannot believe our little guy is already 19 months old.  Where did the time go?  It seems like just yesterday that he was a helpless newborn that needed us to do everything for him.  Now he is an independent (almost too independent if you ask me) toddler that is the light of my life.  At his 18 month appointment he was 25.6 lbs and 33.75 inches.  He's been sick the last few weeks - he started daycare part time and his immune system is working overtime.  He's been well for about a week now so hopefully we are on the mend. Here are a few of his 18 month pictures.  He got really sick the day after these were taken so I bet he wasn't feeling well for the pictures but they turned out great anyway.  Enjoy!

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.

Wordless Wednesday - Partners in Crime

For more Wordless Wednesday participants, go here.

Fight for Preemies - Bloggers Unite

As I have posted before, Davis was born at 31 weeks, weighing 3 lbs 9 oz. He spent 7 weeks in the NICU. You can read the story of his birth and the first few weeks here. I have posted numerous pictures about Davis and how amazing he is but today we fight for all Preemies.

In An Average Week in the United States*:

10,440 babies are born preterm

1,664 babies are born very preterm

6,769 babies are born low birthweight

1,217 babies are born very low birthweight

In 2006, there were 542,893 preterm births in the United States, representing 12.8% of live births.

Between 1996 and 2006, the rate of infants born preterm in the United States increased more than 16%.

During 2004-2006 (average) in the United States, preterm birth rates were highest for women ages 40 and older (16.8%), followed by women under age 20(14.7%), ages 30-39 (12.7%) and ages 20-29 (12.1%).

During 2004-2006 (average) in the United States, preterm birth rates were highest for black infants (18.3%), followed by Native Americans (14.1%), Hispanics (12.1%), whites (11.6%) and Asians (10.7%).

In 2005, the annual societal economic cost (medical, educational, and lost productivity) associated with preterm birth in the United States was at least $26.2 billion.

November is Prematurity Awareness Month and today bloggers unite to fight.  Please take a few minutes to visit the March of Dimes to learn how you can help.