Tales From Boyland : ????????????

Thursday, August 14, 2008

????????????

What will it be? Who is this little person? Pink? (Hard to fathom in this household!) Blue? (Continuing trend.) The ultrasound date is SET--for a week from next Tuesday, the 26th. So people...what are your guesses? We can't wait to find out! Tony and I had the big "name talk" last week...the final names are chosen, and I must confess...I am both longing for another boy...and longing for a little girl. I'm glad God has both planned and chosen and is personally knitting this little one together. He knows who the perfect little person is for our family--the little one who we all need, and who needs us. Amazing.

7 comments:

Marti said...: Of course I want to say pink, but that makes me want to go against the expected answer and say blue. But I'll stick with my original thought and say pink. I can't wait to find out, either way!; 8:01 PM
sacra vim said...: I vote PINK! But only if it's a soft, light dusty pink (I'm a little picky, okay?); 10:30 AM
Unknown said...: Oh, you know my heart was set on a houseful of boys, and then I got my Sunny Day. And it is true joy to watch my darling husband turn into a pile of mush when his little girl holds his hand or sits on his lap and gives him a kiss.

So... still can't decide.
Good thing we don't get to, huh? God makes much better choices.

I am looking forward to seeing you and visiting. I will come out soon, after the kiddos start school.; 8:33 PM
Unknown said...: I should say, I will come out and visit after MY kiddos start school, being the "throw them to the wolves" public school parent that I am. :-); 8:35 PM
Jodi said...: I'm going to say "pink" don't know why just have that feeling. :)

Glad to see you on the blog again. Been wondering how you've been doing/feeling. Can't wait to hear the u/s results.; 5:48 AM
Unknown said...: I love your boy trend because you are such an amazing Mommy of boys! You embrace it and those boys are such sweet little men. A girl on the other hand would be loved and trained by YOU, so of course she would be perfectly adorable as the baby Sissy in the family! Either blue or pink will be a complete adventure!
Love, Jen; 6:53 PM
mama said...: When I was pregnant with #1, we did the "wait and see" rather than the ultrasound method. I wasn't sure. . . years of seeing noisy active little boys made me hope for pink. Then he was born!! Oh joy!! The first ten minutes after his birth all I could say was, "It's a boy! It's a boy!"

The second one I had no preference, but all the boy clothes and toys. . . and God gave us another blue to use them.

The third one, still no preference. I strongly felt that this was another HE and it was fine. In fact, I was worried, what would I do with a girl?? And I was shocked when SHE was born!! Infact, I asked my midwife, "What am I supposed to do with this?" She laughed.

I'm happy to say I've adjusted well. Pink is about the same as Blue, only a little more, well, pink. :D

My vote for you: I don't have one. I'm just so excited for you and know that you will love whatever you have. (But I pray that the ultrasound will be clear for you!)

We'll be expecting a blog posting later that day, ok??; 8:05 AM

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We're Officially On Our Way!
Boyland is on the adoption train. We've had some twists and turns (including welcoming precious son #5!) and a whole lot of waiting before the official waiting for this child began...but...our application has been approved with Children's Hope International! We are considering that day, February 21, our official "begin date". We're gonna need a LOT of support and prayer along this journey...so please...hop on the train with us (and maybe, just maybe, even consider jumping on board a train of your own?!)

The Timeline:
Summer 2010: Heard God's call for adoption. Began researching in earnest

October 2010: Decided to go for it! Held fundraiser #1. Began paperwork for home study

November 2010: Discovered we were (!) pregnant. Paperwork went on-hold in order to grow and welcome our sweet baby!

May 2011: Held adoption fund raiser #2

June 2011: Welcomed our beautiful 5th son!

August 2011: Found what would become our adoption agency

February 8, 2012: Application and $100 sent to Children's Hope International

February 21, 2012: Application approved; approval paperwork began.

March 1, 2012: Approval paperwork completed and sent in with $1000. Officially in CHI's Ethiopia program! Re-started home study paperwork.

March 24, 2012: After lots of paperwork, collecting documents, being fingerprinted, and having health exams, the home study paperwork and $725 were sent in.

April 21, 2012: First home study visit completed.

April 30, 2012: Second home study visit scheduled.

May 7, 2012: We're home-study-approved!

July 6, 2012: Home study and preliminary application sent to USCIS in Dallas, TX with $890. Balance of $1725 sent in to Catholic Social Services for completion of our home study. Compiling of documents for dossier is in full-force....WHEW....lots of papers...and they all seem to cost something. $25 here, $50 there... Lord, please keep replenishing our fund!

August 1, 2012: Reported to Homeland Security for USCIS fingerprinting appointments.

August 2, 2012: Applied for Jessica's passport $135

August 3, 2012: Applied for Tony's passport $135. Please pray these come quickly so we can send in our dossier. Also please pray for God to provide $5500 because that's what we need to send WITH our dossier.

August 17, 2012: Jessica to Homeland Security for fingerprints AGAIN. Scanned and sent over all dossier docs to our agency for proofs. Waiting on passports, USCIS pre-approval and about $4,000 to be provided.

September 10, 2012: Turns out my fingerprints are "unclassifiable" (whatever that means) so we needed to send in State Police clearance for USCIS. Waiting....waiting.... but the passports are here and our agency has gone over our dossier docs. Basically we've got some snail progress going on.

October 8, 2012: We've finally got it, Folks. Our I-171-H is in our little hands. We need to make a change on our Power of Attorney for our in-country assistant, and need a re-do on a notary on a document. Waiting for someone to return to Alaska in order to have the notary re-done.

October 23, 2012: Mercy, I'll be SO happy to have this dossier completed. The last two documents are re-done, and have been sent to be checked by our agency. As soon as we get the "OK", the whole shabang will be sent to Juneau for State Certification. Oh...also found out we need to send some docs to Minnesota and Wisconsin for State Certification. Does it ever end?

November 1, 2012: Faithful God sent a family to our doorstep with a check for $1500. We pray--He hears--He makes things happen. WHAT an encouragement, and just when it was sorely needed. All our documents are en route to Juneau, AK, Madison, WI, and St. Paul, MN, respectively. Praying they all get where they need to go, get the approval needed, and return to us safely. After working on papers for 6 months, it was practically like sending a child on an airplane to send those out of my hands!

December 2012: Documents have all been State-Certified, returned to us, sent on to our agency for bundling, sent on to Washinton D.C. for final certification and authentication, AND sent on to our representative in Addis Ababa! Faithful (always) God has provided every bit of the $ dossier fee. We're officially a waiting family (#104) and waiting to be matched with our child. In the meantime, we've got the other 1/2 of our adoption expenses to raise, which includes travel, in-country expenses (translator, lawyer, etc.) and other immigration expenses. It is such a relief to be to this point. Prayer needed and appreciated. Pray for our child(ren,) our birth mother & family (who knows what they may be going through?) Thank God for funds raised, and pray for remaining funds to be raised.

July 31, 2013: We have lots of "no news" at this point. Continuing to save and raise funds. We are #72 on the "waiting families list."

October 24, 2013: We are #63 on the list. There are some significant slow-downs in some regions of the country at present, and it affects paperwork completion for children to be referred for adoption. Prayer appreciated.

September 30, 2014: We are #54 on the list. Our agency has not received any referrals in months and months. Unless a major miracle takes place, we cannot adopt from Ethiopia for several more years, which means this is fast becoming the end of this path for our adoption. We still have hopes to bring a little one or two into our family somehow. Pray with us?

January 2015: We received official word that Ethiopia is essentially closed. We will be withdrawing from CHI. Uncertain as to whether we'll be pursuing another means to adopt or not...waiting on His Word. We will continue to earmark our adoption savings for adoption until He tell us otherwise.