Try again...

I made it back from Atlanta one more time and have the state "seal" on everything and have sent it back to my agency. My dossier has to be translated into Vietnamese now and hopefully will be in Vietnam in about 2 weeks, I hope. Now I wait. This is the most surreal thing I have every been through. Trying to control my emotions, excitement, doubt, fear and everything else you can imagine is very difficult. I am sure I will have to pester my agency at least weekly to find out if any little bit of information has come to them. I really don't see how they could blame me. I sure would like to reap the rewards of all the hard work that has gone into getting this adoption together. We will see...

Hard as I try...

It seems like throughout my life, no matter how thorough I try to be, I always miss something. Carl, the guy at my agency that I deal with, called me today to let me know that they had received my dossier. We were going over it over the phone and of course I had filled out one area that I should not have. That was not a big deal. Next, as he was looking them over he said that there was not a state seal on any of them. DUH!!! So, I am leaving tomorrow night when I get off work, driving to Atlanta, AGAIN, to be at the Secretary of State's office at 8:30a.m. on Friday. Carl is overnighting the documents back to me so they will be here in the morning. I will get them "state certified" then hopefully be able to send them same-day back to him. 

I have learned alot of things I never even thought about during my adoption process. The most valuable is acceptance. The ability to let things that you have no power to change float over you and not keep you in a useless state of existence, is priceless. Not that I am not REALLY pissed off for a minute...LOL. But to "not live in the problem but in the solution", I have known before, but I guess needed to be reminded. I have people tell me all the time that they hope that the child will appreciate what I have gone through to get him. What is more important than that is, that I appreciate all I have gone through. The process of adopting an international child has been one that has truly changed me for the better and helped in my evolution into the kind of person I REALLY want to be, and most often don't live up to. 

FINALLY!!!!!

It has been a few weeks since I made an entry here. The only reason I am going to go into all the details is for reference. As I stated in my last entry, I was fingerprinted in Jacksonville and was under the impression I could pick up my approved I600A form that I have been waiting on for nearly 5 months now, the following Monday. Instead, it turned out to be a day over 2 weeks later. I picked it up this morning at 9a.m. When I held it in my hand, I was almost emotional. This is the United States Government approving me to bring an orphaned child into this country. This is the one thing you absolutely have to have or you are out of luck. In addition to the 5 month torture of waiting on it, I had to have a ton of documents notarized, then taken to the county where the notary was licensed, then county and state authenticated, which means the notary's signature was validated. Because of different documents being notarized in different counties, I went to the Clayton, Worth, Lee, Dougherty and almost Baker county court houses. Thank God I asked if the Baker county notary if they had someone else who was in a closer county. Organizing all the papers, which are written in both English and Vietnamese, and making sure everything had been done correctly was a job. There is no way I can express in words how difficult this has been since I was working on a deadline of getting my "dossier" documents overnighted to my agency in Ohio by this afternoon. I made it to the FedEx office at about 6p.m. I made sure that the forms were in a hard envelope as to not get damaged. There was 8 months of hard work in that envelope and it was such a relief finally getting it sent off. These documents have to be translated and then sent to Vietnam. I was so excited about getting everything done, I forgot to send the fee for the translation in with the dossier. I will do it tomorrow. As I have said, it has been awful waiting these past 5 months on the approval of this form, but now comes the hard part. I will know by September 1st or before if I will be able to get a child. As it stands right now, I have to be given a referral by that date. Maybe that will change and the Vietnamese government will be a little more flexible on that date. At least I can now say that I have done everything that Vietnam and the United States have required of me to adopt a child. I just hope and pray to God that they come through on their end.

Tomorrow!!!

It is May 12th. I am in Jacksonville, Florida. Tomorrow morning I have an appointment to FINALLY have my fingerprints taken at 8 a.m. Possibly by this time next week, I will have the approved form in my hand. The one I have been waiting on since January 9th. I am proceeding with caution, with this adoption. I am well aware there is just as much chance that it will happen as there is it will not. I have not been buying many things at all from the beginning. Just a few. Tonight before I left my hotel to get dinner, I drove around the area I am in just to see what was around. I had been looking for some letters to put on the wall that spell "Aeson". I found a store that had just opened next to a Kohl's and found them there. I guess that was a real act of hope or faith, however you want to see it. 

Hope

It is late, but Carl, the head of the agency I am using, called tonight. I was discussing with him some details of the dossier that I am getting ready. He was very encouraging in alot of ways. The agency is not requiring alot of the fees at the usual time frames because of the risks involved right now. As I stated earlier, I am going for my fingerprints for my I600A in one week. This is a big deal. I discussed with him being open to a child that might be up to 2 years old or maybe even a little older if it comes down to that. There are only about 12-13 on the waiting list for boys at this time. I think alot of people might give up with all the things going on right now. Even though there is some doubt in my heart, I am not giving up. I feel led to go on. It may be just wishful thinking, but I feel like it will happen ( at least that is how I feel today ). PRAY YA'LL !!!!!