I spoke with the immigration officer yesterday to get an update to see if his boss has reviewed everything. He did say that the boss has not given it back to him yet but he thinks it should just be a few more days. In the meantime I found out that we will not be able to do the final adoption while we are there. I asked the attorney if we could apply to have a court appearance in July, we are not able to appear until after August 16th. I figured what's one month give or take, right? Well his response was that we absolutely can not apply until after Aug 16th. Also, given that it is Africa it would take several months to get a date, then the government goes on break in Oct. so that would delay it by another several months. So we are going to have to make two trips to Benin. We are going to make a trip to pick her up & then we will go back to do the adoption later.
In addition, I sent an e-mail to the social worker who did our homestudy to get her opinion as to if it would hinder Tati & Brian's bonding if I went to pick her up by myself. She said she doesn't think it would hurt anything at all, in fact, many famiilies do this to save $$ which is the same reason we are considering it. This way I can have some intense time with her and when we get home I can back off and let him have some intense time with her. He is going to be taking a couple of weeks off work so the 5 of us can spend time getting to know each other.
We are getting so excited, we can't hardly stand it. Will post more as I know it.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
GREAT NEWS & Update
I talked to the US Immigration department yesterday. The GREAT NEWS came, he has approved our request to bring our daughter home!!!! So he tells me that according to the research he has done we are the only americans to ever adopt from Benin. Wow. So he wants to run this by his boss to make sure he did everything PERFECT before he actually releases his approval. Because, you know you don't want to screw up something the first time you deal with a country. As the rest of this process has gone I am not sure exactly what will happen next. We have several posibilities but I will know more as we move forward. This is going to be difficult, emotionally, because the end is in sight but it is still going to seem like it will take FOREVER to get here. I can't wait until we have our daughter safley in our arms. I was watching Oprah yesterday & there was a family just like ours, it was too strange but on the other hand very encouraging.
I haven't read much in my Love & Respect book in the last couple of days. I plan on getting back to it in the very near future. Sunday night I had some much needed therapy by some very very dear friends. The bottom line of what we talked about is that I have put much effort into my marriage lately, to get it back on track. While that is great, things have shifted and I need to put some effort into me. I need to look inward and upward to my Lord. I need to take some time for me to be able to fully repair my marriage. I also need to stop looking outward for "something to do," my only focus needs to be on myself, my family, & my job. Since this therapy session with my friends I feel like I have a renewed sense of spirit. I hope & plan on it to continue.
Having dinner with an old friend tonight, someone I haven't seen since High School. 20 yrs of catching up, can it be done in one evening?
I haven't read much in my Love & Respect book in the last couple of days. I plan on getting back to it in the very near future. Sunday night I had some much needed therapy by some very very dear friends. The bottom line of what we talked about is that I have put much effort into my marriage lately, to get it back on track. While that is great, things have shifted and I need to put some effort into me. I need to look inward and upward to my Lord. I need to take some time for me to be able to fully repair my marriage. I also need to stop looking outward for "something to do," my only focus needs to be on myself, my family, & my job. Since this therapy session with my friends I feel like I have a renewed sense of spirit. I hope & plan on it to continue.
Having dinner with an old friend tonight, someone I haven't seen since High School. 20 yrs of catching up, can it be done in one evening?
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Spring
Ok, so I'm about half way through my Love & Respect book. (Yes, I know I am a slow reader & on top of that I get like 30 min a day to read, maybe. So no reason to point out the odvious) Anyway about 1/2 way through & it is just as AMAZING as I was hoping it would be. I told Brian to not pay attention to the places I underlined because that was purely for me & not places I was underlining for him to focus on. So what was a few underlined sentences here and there became a journal. I found myself underlining all over the place & then jotting notes about my feelings in the margin. So it has become a way to communicate what was going on inside my head at the time when Brian decides to read it. I hope he decides to read it......
The other crazy thing about this book is that it pertained to our life & our marriage SO closely that I actually put down the book and looked around for a camera to see if they were writing about what they saw in our specific house. I mean this guy has us pegged down to the letter!!! The bottom line of what this book teaches is that a woman's fundemental need is love & men's is respect. What happens is that when women feel unloved they try to love more and more to motivate their husband to love back. Men do the same thing, when they feel disrespected they will not engage in an arguement or do other things out of respect for their wife to get the wife to show some respect in return.
Now I try to never blame the past or anyone in the past for mistakes because I firmly believe people do the best they can with what they have at the time. All that aside, this book has taught me that I never knew how to respect my husband or any man for that matter. This book has helped me with how to deal with my dad, my son and any other man in my life. Not only my husband. I have started the respect "thing" now I have messed it up a couple of times but the important part is that I am learning and I am open to learning. Unfortunately, I feel like I am fumbling around some of the time. On the positive I see glimmers of the love I so desire due to the respect he is feeling. Example; the other day we were leaving a party at a friend's house & it was raining, well not only did he go out to move the car closer he also brought an umbrella up to the door to get me. He has not done something like that in as long as I can remember & I didn't even know we had an umbrella in the car so he really had to look for it, that was a conscience decision to do that for me. I felt SO LOVED........... hopefully we will have more of these moments in the future.
The other crazy thing about this book is that it pertained to our life & our marriage SO closely that I actually put down the book and looked around for a camera to see if they were writing about what they saw in our specific house. I mean this guy has us pegged down to the letter!!! The bottom line of what this book teaches is that a woman's fundemental need is love & men's is respect. What happens is that when women feel unloved they try to love more and more to motivate their husband to love back. Men do the same thing, when they feel disrespected they will not engage in an arguement or do other things out of respect for their wife to get the wife to show some respect in return.
Now I try to never blame the past or anyone in the past for mistakes because I firmly believe people do the best they can with what they have at the time. All that aside, this book has taught me that I never knew how to respect my husband or any man for that matter. This book has helped me with how to deal with my dad, my son and any other man in my life. Not only my husband. I have started the respect "thing" now I have messed it up a couple of times but the important part is that I am learning and I am open to learning. Unfortunately, I feel like I am fumbling around some of the time. On the positive I see glimmers of the love I so desire due to the respect he is feeling. Example; the other day we were leaving a party at a friend's house & it was raining, well not only did he go out to move the car closer he also brought an umbrella up to the door to get me. He has not done something like that in as long as I can remember & I didn't even know we had an umbrella in the car so he really had to look for it, that was a conscience decision to do that for me. I felt SO LOVED........... hopefully we will have more of these moments in the future.
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