In Process

First, I must say that this morning we were blessed to see a beautiful rainbow!  I know, that doesn't sound like something so special because they happen "all the time", right?  Well, for some reason, not in Germany.  I often joke that God doesn't love Germany because despite the perfect weather conditions for rainbows, they just don't happen.  This morning was the second one we've seen while living here.  It's been 2 and a half years!  2 rainbows!  That's just not right.  But, the 2 we have seen have been the biggest, brightest rainbows imaginable so I guess that kind of makes up for their rarity.  The one this morning also had the distinction of being the closest rainbow I have ever seen.  From our house, we could see both ends.  One end landed on the Autobahn visible from our house.  The other end landed over the city.  There are some trees that block the exact place it "landed", but it was the closest part of the city just past those trees.  I always thought rainbows made complete circles far away and they only looked like the landed on the horizon, but today's rainbow proved that wrong.  It clearly landed in specific places!  I took plenty of pictures to prove I wasn't just bleary-eyed!  Anyways, all that to say that the day started off on an amazing note, but it was about to get even better!!

When I got back from dropping D & L off at their respective schools, I checked my email for a bit.  I was expecting mostly the usual - facebook notifications, pinterest notifications, and a few of the emails I subscribe to.  Those never fail to disappoint me.  However, I found an unexpected surprise.  Our agency had sent us an email.  The first words were "Great news!"  Sweet!!  Crescent Moon changed our status from "To Be Processed" to "In Process".  Now, I'm not exactly sure what that really means.  But, it's obviously "great news", so I'll take it!!  The email went on to say that we should go ahead and start filling out our I800 and email a copy for the agency to review before we actually send it in.  That's our next step, so we're moving very quickly now!!  She also said we should be seeing our Letter of Acceptance within the next 30 days.  We were told that could take 3 months, so something is actually going QUICKER than expected!  With everything I had read on blogs and various sites, it looked like Crescent Moon was about as efficient as a penguin trying to run a marathon, but maybe we have found a special grace with them.  God is good!!

Hopefully once we receive our actual LOA, the agency will be able to give us a better estimate of when we will be able to travel.  I will continue to keep you posted.  :-)

LID

I just got an email from our agency.  Our LID is September 7th!  I'm not sure what happened that they weren't told that before, but at least we have it now.  According to my checklist, the next thing is that we receive a "Letter of Acceptance".  I'm not sure if that comes to us or goes to our agency or both.  The list I have says that can take anywhere from 1-2 months to get.  After that, we file our I-800 with the US government.  That is the application for Z to be found eligible to be adopted.  I *think* that's the last major thing that we have to do.  All of the other steps are between governments and don't directly involve us.  Well, at the very end of the process, we will have to go about applying for a travel visa to travel to Crescent Moon, but by that point the excitement will override any hassle.  :-)

-V

Waiting...

It's been a while since I've posted, so I figured I would update you.  Unfortunately, there isn't as much to update as I would like, but that just seems to be the case with every step in this process so I'm starting to get used to it.  :-\

Our Dossier was signed for and accepted on September 4th in Crescent Moon.  I'm not exactly sure what's been happening since then.  I know at some point, they needed to translate it, so maybe that's what's causing the delay.  At any rate, they were supposed to review it and give us a "Log-in Date" (LID).  This date is supremely important to those doing a standard adoption because it's basically your number in line and lets you know about how much longer you need to wait.  Since we're doing everything backwards, it really isn't that important to us.  Well, that isn't true.  It will still be important and will probably be their way to find our paperwork or something, but it has no other meaning to us.  We have already been matched with our child, so there's no wondering when that will happen, etc.

I was getting freaked out because we hadn't heard anything from our agency and I had emailed them over a week ago and gotten no response.  I was worried something bad had happened and they were afraid to tell me.  It had been a long, stressful day and I had a headache so I had D call the agency to see what was going on.  That's when he learned about it being signed for on the 4th.  Our agency also told him that it was the point when we should've gotten our LID, so they were going to call their contact in Crescent Moon, Uncle Z, to have him follow up on that if they didn't hear anything by that night.  Well, that was 2 nights ago.  I'm guessing they are thrown off by half of the documents being authenticated in the US and the other half being authenticated in Germany.  I am hoping that Uncle Z finds out something soon because I'm anxious to know that our Dossier is approved!

As always, I will keep you posted!

-V