All of our documents have finally been apostilled and returned safely to us.  This Tuesday our dossier will be sent FedEx to Ukraine!  Then we will begin the long wait.  Below is a photo of the room I painted for our child. 




I've always looked forward to Memorial Day weekend as 3 days to have off of work for fun, sun, and grilling out.  This year with our brother-in-law in Afganistan it takes on a whole new meaning.  My prayers go out to the families who have lost loved ones who served our country.  My brother-in-law says the children are beautiful in Afganistan and he would love for my sister and him to be able to adopt from there.  I pray for his continued safety and for a day when Afganistan will be a safe and stable country where international adoptions take place.  
Have a great Memorial Day!
 

Yesterday I went to USCIS to file our I-600A application.  Lucky for us the office for SC is in Charleston so I went to file in person hoping to save us some time in this process.  I did not take copies of our birth certificates and marriage license.  I wasn't thinking I needed these since we had already submitted copies for our homestudy which is also on the way to USCIS by way of DSS.  When the USCIS employee or "Mustache Man" told me I would need to come back with the copies in order to submit my application my eyes filled with tears.  Now like I said---the office is in Charleston!  All I had to do was run home after work and get the copies and then go back but for some reason I suddenly felt like I was letting our child down by not having the application filed at that very moment!  Mustache Man must have thought I didn't believe these copies were necessary so he made the mistake of showing me a large stack of envelopes that he needed to enter and all of these adopting families had sent in the copies of birth certificates and marriage licenses.   All this did was frustrate me more since I realized that these parents would get their applications in before me.

Fast forward to the afternoon.  When I had looked online I saw they were open until 4PM.  I raced around all day so I could get back in time.  When I show up the door is locked.  The security guard had to inform me that they always close at 2PM not 4!  Now my eyes are not just filling with tears but they are falling off my face.   Poor security guy...I think if he could have filed the form himself he would have just to stop my tears!

This morning nothing was going to stop me.  A different security guard was on duty---good sign, he's never seen me and doesn't realize I'm way too emotional over turning in this application!  Then I wait to see Mustache Man and he remembers me from yesterday.  Mustache Man is obviously a busy guy but to keep my eyes tear free today he entered our application in his computer immediately!  I am extremely happy since the stack of mail with those other families I-600A applications were still sitting on his desk from yesterday. 

No tears today, only a big smile.  Yet another step closer to meeting our child!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Bailey!  If you lay on the 4 leaf clovers does that bring you luck?

Why Bailey is one of the reasons we want to adopt...
Bailey and her litter were found by a dumpster when they were only 4 weeks old.  I showed up to the animal shelter only hours after they had been brought in.  The officer who found them had the last name of Turner, my maiden name, and when I walked in and put my name on the list to adopt her they asked if he had called me...they thought I was his sister.  How else would I have known that these little ones had just arrived and needed a home?  Because she was meant to be my baby.  I would run into a burning house, jump in front of a car, or any other number of things to rescue my girl.  During the 1st year she cost me a fortune.  She suffered from mange which many pups whose moms are strays have.  She also had severe separation anxiety and tried to chew through the doors of my condo to come find me at work.  It didn't matter that between medical bills and repair expenses she was draining my bank account...I would have sold all of my belongings to help her get better.  Luckily, after a year of treatments and installing a doggie door we were able to work through the problems.   Then Jay and I decided to get married.  He's allergic to animals but started taking allergy medication 3 years ago to live with Bailey.  He fell just as in love with her as I had.  So much so that when I walked down the beach to the spot where we were to be married I saw Bailey sitting on the sand with the rest of the crowd waiting to see her parents get married.  We then proceeded to take her on our honeymoon.  Which is when most people decided we had lost our minds over a dog.  Bailey is now 4 years old and the only thing I don't love about Bailey is that she's not human and therefore can't live to be 60!  Bailey loves to go on walks with her mom, play in the backyard with her dad, and to catch tennis balls in the ocean.  She adds an enormous amount of joy to our lives each and every day.  Adopting Bailey was one of the best decisions of my lifetime. 

Bailey didn't deserve to be left by a dumpster and our child certainly doesn't deserve to be left in an orphanage.  Both deserve a lifetime of happiness & love and that's what we plan on giving them.
I can only imagine the love we will feel for the child we're going to adopt but I'm confident that it will be extraordinary and I'm so very thankful that we decided to adopt---again.

Thanks to all of you who have been visiting the site!  Many of you have asked questions and I thought I would try to answer a few. 

--Most likely we will be adopting a boy.  There are more boys available than girls.  Dylan is definitely hoping for a boy!
--We would like to have our child home by Christmas but there is no way of knowing.
--After we finish all of the paperwork & home study we submit it to Ukraine.  They have 20 days to review and if we are approved they will send us notification of when we should arrive in Ukraine.  Once there we will stay for around 3 weeks.  Then we (the 3 of us) come home!
--We expect our child to be between the ages of 2-5.
--Our child may speak Russian or Ukrainian, it depends on the area they are living in.  The CD and books that we ordered came in and I'm trying to learn the key phrases to speak to a child in both languages.

For now we continue on with the paperwork and look forward to the more exciting parts later.

Candice