Waiting...

I've had a couple people ask me how the waiting is going. So...here's my response. The waiting is going well. It seems way too soon to get "the call," so in some ways it doesn't feel like we are really waiting yet. Our Dossier was sent to Poland just over one month ago. I know there is translation time and time that we need to be approved by the court. I assume that if that is supposed to take 2-3 weeks, then it will really take 4-6 weeks.

I also know that we've had roadblocks before (infertility, homestudy delay, etc). So I actually have very low confidence that our Dossier is actually in Poland! I do trust our Agency, they are obviously very adept at the process and well-connected in Poland. So, my brain does believe that it is happening.

The waiting is exciting. I do know that our child is right around the corner. He or she is alive and breathing and waiting for us, just like we are waiting for him/her!

We are enjoying our last adult-only time right now. We are going on lots of dates, drinking at bars, trying to plan a few getaway weekends and we are staying up late and sleeping in on weekends. (Jealous?)

In my own little world, I don't anticipate getting a referral for at least 2 more months. I base that on nothing other than thinking that it takes time to get in "the system." Then I anticipate having one or two referrals that we may not accept. I've heard often that people are not entirely comfortable with their first referrals, so we are trying to prepare ourselves for that. We have to balance the fact that every child needs a home, with the reality of what we feel like we can really handle.

Immigration - I 171H Received

We received our immigration approval! Good news! We received the I-171 H form in the mail the other day, and it provides that the U.S. has given us advance approval for adopting an orphan in Poland. We were pretty unsure as to when we were going to receive this approval, partly because the USCIS's website is really off on its estimations (as least as to Omaha), but we got it. We completed the filing of our application with immigration on December 1, 2007 and the approval was dated February 28, 2008. So that was just about three months. I sent the document off to be apostilled today, so we will send it to our agency very soon.

This was really the last piece of paper that we were waiting for before getting a referral. I don't think that waiting for this has slowed anything down, as everything has already been sent off to Poland. That reminds me...I should ask our agency if they can confirm that our Dossier has been translated and filed yet.

Names (Cont.)

My mom reminded me that her Grandfather's name was Hipolit, which seems to be the Polish version of "Philip." Also, my Great-Aunt used to call my Grandfather Francheski (which may have stemmed from Franciszek), although we always knew him as Frank.