Well, the short story here is that I really have nothing to update. Our paperwork is still sitting at US immigration waiting to be approved. We are on day 54 of our wait. The first half of this wait went very fast as we were waiting for fingerprinting. But once we did our fingerprints done on November 3rd it feels like it has stalled. The really hard thing is that when we started doing our paperwork people were getting approvals at about 55 days…Now that wait has increased to 75 days or more. So we still have at least three more weeks to wait and that is assuming our homestudy was done perfectly. If there is any question at all, they send out a letter for more clarification and that just delays the approval even more. Plus we have to contend with the holidays. I don’t know about the USCIS but in my office everybody slows down during the holidays. I had hoped to have our paperwork going to China by the end of December, but it looks like it will probably be the beginning of January. Even more frustrating is that once our paperwork gets logged into China we have to wait for them to translate, process and approve our formal request to adopt. They will be getting our paperwork right before Chinese New Year where the entire country shuts down for at least a week. I can’t even begin to estimate how long this next process will take. I had hoped that April was going to be promising, but it looks like it will be May or later. I just want to go get Elise. I know she is happy, and I know she is in a wonderful school and foster home, but she needs a family NOW. There is no substitute for a loving family, as dysfunctional as we are we will still love her beyond words.
We are sending Elise a small present for Christmas…a little backpack, some warm pajamas, lots of hair things and a noisy cell phone toy. Plus we bought some good chocolates to send for the staff and teachers. It is very difficult to only buy what will fit into a box the size of a shoebox. I want to get her everything, but in due time that will happen. I wish we could be with Elise for Christmas, but I take comfort in knowing that this will be her last Christmas away from her family.
I guess I do have a small update. I received an email from Elise’s wonderful preschool teacher. I believe that she is her English teacher. She says that Elise has finally realized that she is not the center of attention and that she has to let the other kids have time with the teachers as well. She is doing very well with her English and uses some words outside of class which is great. Her teacher is French so I wonder if Elise will have a French accent : ) Elise loves to have her hair in scrunchies and loves to show them off and look pretty. Truthfully that kind of scares me. I was never a girly girl so I hope that I don’t take that away from her.
We had a very nice Thanksgiving with my parents, brothers and sisters. I missed my two older boys but will get to see them very soon for Christmas. I had five days off of work in a row and it was glorious…I did nothing!! Well, we did get our Christmas tree and it looks very nice.
Hopefully next time I post it will be with our approval and I hope it is sooner rather than later. One can always dream, right?
