What's Next?

So- our part is essentially done. Now we sit back and wait.  We are working towards raising some more funds- we need to be ready to pay Lithuania $13,000 in the not-so-distant-future.

We have a rough time-line that is super exciting!

Our Dossier will arrive in Lithuania next week- yay!

In roughly 6 weeks we will receive a referral for, hopefully, our twins.  We will need to submit a letter of acceptance.  At this point we can start sending weekly letters and pictures- via email- to our new kids!  We can even send them a care package!

After we accept the referral we will need to submit another form to US Immigration.  Once we receive clearance from them, a court date in Lithuania is set.  This court date will hopefully be in 2-3months after the referral.  Once we have that date, we will know when we will travel.  The plan is for us, Al and myself, to go to that court date and request that the judge waive the customary waiting period and allow us to bring the children home then.

The chance that our Christmas could be with FOUR kids makes me giddy!  I would love to take Asher and Annalise to the playground where Al and I decided to adopt on THE day we decided to make this leap of faith.  How cool would that be?

Please pray for us!
Pray that our documents arrive safely and are translated quickly.
Pray that we receive our referral quickly- and if the twins are not meant to be in our family that God would give us peace for that.
Pray that we would be able to soak-up these days with just Alden and Adeline.
Pray for Asher and Annalise to be healthy and accepting of us.
Pray for a compassionate judge to waive our waiting period.
Pray for us as we travel- it is ridiculously cold there in the winter.
Pray for my sister, Rebecca, who will meet us in Lithuania and help with Adeline and Alden and even travel back to the states with us.

Dossier Complete- Whew!

There are some rather impressive sounding words that I can now throw around at parties and sound super smart.  These words I previously had no clue what they meant- by definition or for what they stood for.   Since I am a nice person, here they are, so you can understand them when I use them, and so you, too, can sound super snazzy!

Dossier- a compilation of massive amounts of paperwork- criminal background checks from every state you have lived in since you were 18; doctors' reports concerning the health of everyone in your household (pets included); marriage licenses (not more than one, but multiple copies of it); birth certificates; HomeStudy papers; tax returns; this isn't all of it, but you get the gist.  The kicker?  All of these documents can NOT be dated less than 6months ago!  It's a LOT to juggle and Al has been a pro at organizing all this!

Apostille- a fancy seal to verify that your notary is indeed a real notary.  Just about every document above had to have this done.  We are so blessed to live in our state's capitol so Al was able to drop off our pile of documents in the afternoon and pick them up 24hrs later.

Attestation- another document that states that the documents it is attached to, is authentic.

See?  Aren't these cool sounding words?

Want to SEE what is looks like?

Our Dossier was shipped to Michigan, where our agency is headquartered.  There it is checked against the massive checklist required by Lithuania and copied in triplicate form!  Friday, a copy and the originals will be shipped to Lithuania!  There they will be translated and then presented to the office handling Waiting Children.

Imperfect Blessings

Big things have been happening here!  We have been calling Immigration every Monday for the last few weeks to see where we were in regards to being assigned a Case Worker- what has been a two- three week process is now taking 90 days....  Last week, I spoke with a man who told me that if our children were in medical danger, we could apply to be expedited!  Since our twins have some potentially serious issues- brain swelling, strokes, blindness- we contacted the international Doctor we have been working with.  Within 10min of Al sending her an email, she called him!  She was on vacation and did not have the ability to write the letter, but she would do it first thing Monday morning when she was back in her office.  True to her word, around 9am on Monday, she emailed Immigration and us her letter.  We were grateful for this- but had been cautioned that it would probably not work.  

24 hours after receiving the doctors email, we found out we HAD been expedited!  We not only had a Case Worker, she had already reviewed our case, approved us, and had put in the mail our 797!

Yay!!!!!  Our twins health needs, their imperfections, are actually helping them get to us and the medical help they so desperately need!

Once we receive the 797, our huge packet of papers, aka The Dossier, will be dropped off downtown to be appostilled!  We hope to have it all on it's way to Lithuania by mid-week next week (it has to be mailed to Michigan first and THEY mail it to Lithuania).

We are thrilled with this and are greatly excited!

Now to pray that it doesn't take too long to translate all our documents into Lithuanian and for Lithuania to decide if we may indeed, have the twins!

Sweet Asher and Annalise- it's my prayer that we have you home for Christmas {a Mom can hope and pray, right??}

Waiting...

We are still waiting to be assigned a Case Manager at Immigration.  We were told that once you mailed in your hefty application (along with all the documentation), were fingerprinted, you would have your 797 usually within 2 weeks.  That is not the case any longer- it only took a month of waiting and several phone calls to find this out.  NOW, Immigration takes 40-70 days from receipt of your application, to even assign you a Case Manager.  We will hit day 40 on Monday.  So we will continue to wait and inquire weekly about our status.  Al is going out-of-town next week, so we will probably have lots of important things happen.   Wonderful if that is the case!  From those who have traveled this Adoption Road ahead of us, we hear that these kinds of things are perfectly normal and actually not that bad.  So, we will continue to wait....

Dress

Our house is covered- and I mean covered- with pictures of Adeline and Alden.  Each phase of their life is fully documented, framed and proudly displayed!  This was all warm and fuzzy until we decided to adopt older kids who more than likely, will have no baby or toddler pictures.

Deciding which pictures to eventually take down has been something I have been wrestling with.  I want Adeline and Alden to still be seen, but I also don't want Asher and Annalise to feel jilted.  It's going to be a fine line- and I'm just not that athletic.  Good thing God is in the details!

In Adeline's room there is a picture of her in THIS dress.  She is one years old.  Surrounding the picture  is a white mat where friends and family wrote words of encouragement to her.  

I am SO thrilled to have found the exact same dress for Annalise during one of my sifts through the local Goodwill!  I can't wait to take Annalise's picture in it, surround it by a white mat, and have friends and family write words of encouragement to her.

It's not much- an adorable dress, a picture, and a mat filled with words- but I can't wait to see it all together!  Something that my two daughters will share.

Hope

 At the beginning of our Adoption Journey, I saw this necklace and bought it.  Al and I both agreed that "hope" was the driving force behind our choice to adopt- needing to share the Hope of Jesus and the Hope that He gives us continually.  Al even had a bracelet made that said "hope."  Something simple yet it stands for something more profound.

Tonight, we found out that our little girls' name means Hope.

When the Lithuanian lady shared that with me, it was all I could do to not cry!  Our God is SO big, He gave Al and I both the same word to encourage us, and it is the name of the little girl we want to be a part of our family!

{side note, the little boys name does not mean anything cool- it just a super popular name today in Lithuania- still, we love him and can't wait for him to be a part of our family}

While we continue to wait for Uncle Sam to approve us and send us our final form- we will rest in this comfort that God is in our details!