OUCH!!! But So Worth It!

Today Ken & I went to get our 2^nd round of shots for when we finally get to go to Ghana. Our first appointment was the 28th of October.

 Can I tell you?….I really, really don’t like shots! But my children-to-be are more than worth it! Thankfully our nurse was very gentle with giving them.



Ken was thrilled not to have to take the horizontal position again. You see, my darling has a habit of passing out when giving blood. In fact, was told, don’t come back by the Red Cross. Recently, he passed out while getting a simple blood draw at the doctor’s office.

On the way to the health department to get the immunizations, in Oct., I joked with him that it would be interesting to see if he passed out from getting the shots. Guess what? He almost did. Poor guy, I couldn’t help it, but I laughed. He claims he was thirsty and knew he would get a free coke if they thought he was on the verge. Don’t believe it, though. Lol. He was thrilled he didn’t have any trouble the second time.   

Another, A Year Ago…

A year ago today we mailed our application to our adoption agency. This of course was another exciting day.

A year ago…..

One year ago today we knew we would be adopting from Ghana.

I remember being so excited to finally know where our kids were. Up until that point, we had been overwhelmed by the country choices and the needs in those various countries.

Age Limit Change

Today I met with our home study agency to see if they would be willing to change our age maximum to 7years. You see, we learned the child(ren) can be no older than the age you are approved for at the time the visas are issued. And since the whole process seems to be taking longer, we don’t want to risk being matched with a 6 year old, only to lose him/her because he/she turned 7 before we could get through court, and then get visas.  The agency graciously agreed and now we wait for the revised home study and endorsement letter. Once we receive the new copy we will have to send in a request to have our I-600a amended.

Another Hill Conquered

Yay! Today we received our I-171H (I-600a approval). Of course, as has been our way, it did not come without issues.

First I must tell you that as of March 2010 all I-600a applications are being processed at one USCIS location. Because of that, all paperwork from the various USCIS offices were loaded in boxes and sent to the new location; now, back to the story.

We mailed our home study and endorsement letter required for the I-600a application on June 11, 2010 (we had mailed the application on Dec. 2, 2009).  We waited and waited. I finally gave USCIS a call, in August, to see where we were in the process. The lady I spoke with could not find our info in the system. She said it was probably still in a box somewhere and that it could be weeks, or months, before it was processed. So we waited & waited some more.

I called again at the beginning of October and spoke to a woman who was very helpful. Unfortunately, the news I was given wasn’t good. Apparently our paperwork had been lost. She was able to eventually find our name in the system, but nothing more. I guess this was occurring enough that she was given the authority to have us send in copies of our original application, home study, and endorsement letter. (Praise God!!!)

I mailed the copies of everything on October 13^th and we received our approval today.  We are so thankful that that is over.