Is the Dog Subconscienly Preparing us for a Baby?

yea, so check out what Joplin decided to do to the table



Is she trying to say "hey, you think i'm bad, just wait until the boy is here" ????

Any ideas on how to fix this???

p.s. - They really are good dogs, she was just trying to look out the window that is in front of that table.

-s

Nothing now to do but wait

I600A lady emailed us back.. She got it!!!! YAY!!
Now there is nothing to do but wait. No paperwork to fill out, no emails to send and no mess ups to fix we are just waiting for a referral.
I am so happy she finally emailed us back. All the email said is "we have it" LOL all i needed to hear. I felt like saying now was that so hard LOL. She didn't HAVE to email us back though to i am happy with any info we get. Now we just wait for it to be approved and show up in our mailbox.
Wait wait wait we are at the point were all we do it wait
-C

We emailed and

No response!!!! I guess we will email her AGAIN next Wed. then if we don't here from her again i swear to god i will go down there! I don't think i am supposed to go down there but come on we are three months behind because of our social workers mistake, i cant take the risk of another three months! This is the most frustrating part of the adoption so far!

Email?? Again??

So in the bottom of the I600A lady's sig there is a disclamor saying she does not have to respond if the homestudy has been received or not. Now our situation is very different. We are not paranoid families checking up...Something went wrong they did not get it and this mess up is costing us precious time. We emailed the I600A lady last week asking if she received it and got a response within the hour saying to try again next week that they are three weeks behind on mail. So we emailed her yesterday (a week from first email) and no response. Should we email her again? Her sig says she doesnt have to say so she is doing us a favor in replying at all so dont annoy anymore.. Or no this got messed up we are a special case and have every right to bug the shit out of her?? This problem was brought to our attention over a month ago and is still not resolved i am about to lose it on someone... Anyone volunteers to be my punching bag??
-C

1month 3 weeks

Can you believe we MIGHT be almost half way through the referral wait?!?
Next month we will have a lot more information about the wait. Still i cant believe we are almost 2 months into it! I hope the rest of the time goes by this quick!!!!
-C

Yay! Finally Some Semi Good News!

Since about the 8th we have been really down about the adoption because of something one of the agency employees said, so Friday I put in a message with the head woman at the adoption agency regarding the comment. The comment was that AFTER referral (which is 3-6 months from when dossier was sent in December), there was ANOTHER 3 month wait, THEN the travel time (which is 3-4 months). So we were wondering why there was an extra 3 month wait(between referral and travel). Today the head woman at the agency called me and I explained what I was told and she said I was misinformed that there is referral and then travel time is 3-4 months!! :D She also said that its starting to move quickly and more referrals will be given out in the next week. She said I should call in a month and she'll have a better idea of where I am on the waiting list :D So yay i might have a actual timeline! But for right now it seems we're still on track for referral around March or April and travel in June or July!!!!

-S

Yes, We're Still Alive :D

We haven't posted in OMG 9 days... but nothing has really happened... until today and its not much so please don't get your hopes up.

I called the Home Study agency again because its been over about two weeks since the social worker said she would get in touch with the lady at USCIS about the I600A/missing home study debacle. Her assistant gave me this lame excuse about "oh she does interviews with families all over the state and sometimes she doesnt get in until 10pm and blah blah blah". I was way nicer then I should have been... so she goes on to say "maybe you should follow up with her..." exsqueeze me? baking powder?(any of you guys get that?? lol) you guys mess up and you want me to fix it?? ugh, fine I say. So I call the lady at the USCIS and bam, mailbox is full... crap. So I email her... and yes, i CC'd the HS agency, you better believe I let the lady know that this was not my fault... literally 2 minutes later (and I have the email to prove the time stamp if you don't believe me) I get an email back from her. She says, "write back in a week, it hasn't had time to get in your file". O_O you have to be joking. It was overnighted 2 weeks ago! Ok, I understand that its not the fault of the USCIS and Atlanta is the "hub" for all of the adoptions taking place in the Southeast, but it takes 3+ weeks to go through the mail?? wow... ok fine... but now i'm thinking how come I'm getting excuses from my HS agency saying that they dont have time to contact USCIS but I get an email back in 2 minutes???? Am I being lied to? At this point I don't care if I'm at the bottom of the list for processing, i just wanna know that the HS got there, its ok, and its in my file and I'm in line to be processed. Gah, waiting sucks.

In other news, my dad is responding well to chemo... thats a good thing. He also likes Slim Fast so he's drinking about 8 of those a day, low in fat so his digestive tract and stomach dont reject it and push it back up, but high in calories and vitamins. He is getting about 2800 calories a day from those, plus whatever small amount of food he is eating. Saturday, me, mom, dad and Court are going up to the Bass Pro Shop to get us all fishing licenses. My sisters and brother in law come in from Texas this Saturday or Sunday (they are driving and not sure when they are going to leave) and that next Friday or Saturday we are all going to take him up to the lake to go fishing and hopefully he will feel ok and possibly rent a cabin. He has another 6 hour round of chemo on the 25th so we will see.

ttfn!

-S

Frustration

Well, we just found out that the wait may be longer.
AND
Have not heard from the I600A lady yet.
SO FRUSTRATED!
-C

And the Saga Continues...

So I talked to the social worker (person that messed up) today. She still hasn't gotten in touch with the USCIS(the state / I600A person), she said she would try again today. But she did verify that the home study arrived!!!YAY!! Hopefully I won't have to wait another 3 months and the USCIS lady will take pity on my situation.

Update on dad, he had chemo today from 9am - 3pm. I called around 4:30 and mom said he was doing ok. So all is good there so far!

On an upbeat note: Its been over a month since the dossier was sent to Ethiopia. 1/4 of the way through the referral wait!!!!

I600A and Missing Home Study cont...

Still haven't heard from the I600A woman. Last time I emailed her she got right back to me both by phone and email which leads me to believe that she is out of town. I talked to my social worker yesterday and she said she left a message and hasn't heard back from her yet but assured me that she would let me know when she talks to her.

On another note, my step dad is starting chemo Monday morning. Originally he was supposed to find out his results of the PET scan, lung biopsy and MRI on the 11th. But the oncologist called and scheduled an appointment today. Turns out he has cancer throughout his body (not his brain though). They estimate that with chemo (6 hours every two weeks indefinitely) he has about a year to live. This is truly one of the saddest days of my life. I can't go over there until this cold goes away because he has pneumonia and the last thing I want to do is expose him to this. Hopefully it will go away soon so I can go over there. This makes me want to get Caleb that much sooner. The first time he asked me if we were choosing a boy or a girl and I told a boy he said "good, now I'll have a fishing buddy" I really want him to take Caleb fishing, ugh I'm starting to cry again.

Thats it for now.

-S

I600A and Missing Home Study

Well, I finally got to talk to the social worker and they admitted that they didn't send the home study and it was an oversight. They confirmed they sent it out overnight today and the social worker was supposed to talk to the lady at USCIS. I didn't confirm that because she had left for an appt by the time i called, I will call tomorrow, u can bet your ass on that one! lol. Hopefully everything will be set right and we wont be behind 3 months grrrr!! But I have to admit mistakes happen, we are human as frustrating as it is, it was an oversight and they are taking care of it and thats what I really care about. I still like the agency, they handled the situation in the correct way :)

-S