After our home study we completed necessary paperwork to inform Immigration that Charlie was a part of our family and we still would like to adopt internationally. We also received our completed and super officially notarized copy of our updated home study. The immigration form (called a Supplement 3, which sounds pretty official) was overnighted to USCIS on November 22. Our original immigration approval took about 10 days (I think), so hopefully there is a letter from the federal government in our mailbox this weekend saying we're still good to go. I don't expect any issues, but it will be nice to have it on paper. This isn't holding up matching or anything, but I like to get the "To Do" list checked off.
We are now three months into our wait for a referral. In the adoption world we say we have been LID for three months. We still expect to wait about another three months. Some days waiting is hard and other days waiting is harder. Praying for her helps because that is something we can do when really there isn't much else we can do for her right now. We decided to wait until closer to Charlie's due date to talk to Graham about his brother, which didn't really work out since Charlie was over 5 weeks early and he was totally blindsided. To avoid the blindside again, we have started talking about Graham's sister with him. I am sure he doesn't understand it all, but at least we can avoid another blindside. He knows her name and his mispronunciation is adorable. We keep telling him she lives far away right now and we will have to go get her. Hopefully that sinks in by late Spring/early Summer when we think we may travel.
We did officially pick a first name! We have seriously been talking about names since April when we found out Charlie was a boy and we would be adopting a girl. It's REALLY nice to be able to call her by name rather than our nickname "China Baby"! We are waiting to pick a middle name until we receive a referral, since we may or may not use her Chinese name depending on who named her and what meaning it may have for her later on. Graham's middle name is Tom's middle name and Charlie's middle name is Tom's first name, so we felt like we should definitely use a family name. We have decided on Elizabeth (my middle name) and will be calling her Ellie! Or as Graham says, "Eddy"! :-)
I am very thankful that this time next year we will be teaching Ellie all about Christmas!
This is the face of a little boy who just rolled over for the first time Sunday!
Graham is getting so big and can peddle on his bike!
Please pray for Ellie and that we will know who she is soon!
