get set.....GO!!!!!

We made it here to Vietnam! We are in Ho Chi Minh City, checked into the Rex Hotel. We made the little jumps between Little Rock, Dallas, LA, Hong Kong and HCM without any real problems...plus our luggage made it, which is nice! Zoe and Ben needed extra exercise at the airports (30-plus hours just wasn't enough to wear them down)..so those moving sidewalks provided that little bit of fun!)
We'll check in soon...just wanted everyone to know that WE MADE IT!
We head out in the morning for the journey to Sam's province!

On your mark...

We're finalizing our packing--well, actually, squooshing things into side pockets, rooting around checking to see if we remembered to pack that "whatever" we meant to pack, and trying to remember all of those things that we said, "Hey, don't let us forget to take (blank)."

These last few days have been a happy blur. We have had two wonderful "surprise" showers that have got us stocked up with all things "boy." Our friends, who have been such a sustaining force through all of this, continue to amaze us with their generosity and support.

Pictured here is one of the thoughtful gestures of my wonderful friends, the Vietmoms. It is a "boy box," assembled by donations from all of them to help prepare me for the challenges of raising, from what I've been told, a totally different creature from our Zoe. Boy, oh boy! I must admit we were woefully under-prepared. Not a Barbie or a fairy or a pink plastic anything in that whole box...but many other strange and wonderful things. We are armed and ready now! Spiderman underwear, balls to sports I'm not even sure I can name, and even a genuine bug jar (thanks, Seth, for your donation!)

We have been overwhelmed and humbled by the kind gestures of our friends. Sam is truly blessed to come home to a community who is so warmly welcoming him. His life thusfar may have been less than stellar, but sunny skies are ahead, buddy.

We're flying out tomorrow early evening. We'll meet my parents and the O'Connors at the airport, and off we'll go. Vietnam won't know what's hit it! Thank you for your prayers, and Zoe would like to add her request for anyone who has traveled before: where are some restaurants with french fries? ha

Spaz mode

We are bouncing around like jumping beans, getting everything ready!
Our flights are scheduled..and amazingly, our dear friends Tricia and her family received the SAME G&R date, although their son Liam is in a different orphanage. SO, we'll all leave out of Little Rock on the same flight, and travel together! She and hubby Rob, her 2 year old son Ben, my parents, Zoe, Brian and I will all get to enjoy the 30+ hour journey together! There may be moments, I expect, that "enjoy" may be a little too strong a word...some moments of the 15 hour LA to Hong Kong flight, perhaps...

We'll leave LR next Saturday evening (June 14th) and arrive in HCM City on Monday the 16th. We'll drive to the orphanage at Ninh Thuan (about an 8 hour trip east)the next morning and meet Sam that afternoon. (WOW!) We'll get a chance to spend time with him and the other dear children all the next day (Ninh Thuan mommies: I've got my list to keep my head straight--I'll take lots of pics and make lots of deliveries!)

Our G&R is Thursday, the 19th, and we'll head back to HCM right after that. Appointments and obligations there for a couple of days (and meeting Liam, who will be returning with his parents) and we'll all fly to Hanoi, for our visa interview. Hopefully we'll all head home on the 1st of July, arriving home to LR the morning of Wednesday, July 2nd.

This is all under the category of "best case scenario", of course. Any one of those steps could hit a snag and such, but...did I MENTION WE'RE LEAVING NEXT SATURDAY?

Hard to take it all in, but happy we're finally moving. Now: Lori, Nadra, other waiting moms...let's get you guys going, too!

Hallelujah!!!

We got it!!! Our I-600 approval arrived last night--we have permission from our government to travel and bring Sam home! We are just elated...more to follow, but just wanted to let everyone know. There aren't enough exclamation points on this keyboard to let you all know how we feel right now--but all of you who have followed with us thus far or journeyed a similar path totally understand or know this feeling. Wow. Just wow.

233 days and counting...

Wow. I didn't realize how long Sam has been waiting for us. Yesterday on our Dillon forum there was a discussion on length of time from referral to travel. I hadn't sat down and counted--at the time of our referral, the estimated waiting time was 3-6 months...we anticipated January travel, then we found out February didn't "count", then we found out our paperwork had sat on the USCIS's desk for several months due to a "communication problem" with unclaimed responsibility. Last week I got an auto-reply to another pleading email I sent to the head of the US consulate in HoChiMinh City (who grants the holy grail we're awaiting, the I600 preapproval telling us we can GO). The auto-reply informed me that she would be out of the office from May 5-27...and well...here we are.

Certainly not what we anticipated when we felt the calling to pursue adoption. I guess that can be said about many of life's adventures...not what was "anticipated". There can be blessings that can be difficult to see in those unanticipated events. It is difficult to see God's intent in these long delays, but we can only hang on for the ride. Why? Because he's our Sam. From the day of our referral in September, he became our son, and when your son is a long way away, you keep trying to get him home.

Perhaps day 233 is near the end of our wait. We hope it is. But when it comes down to it, what number do you reach that you give up? Sam is counting on us not to reach that number, so we won't.

Deep breath...regroup....

OK. Well, as many of you know, we had a tough night Monday that involved a couple of very frustrating phonecalls and emails with the US consulate in Vietnam. The email we were hoping to receive announcing our preapproval and OK to travel was actually a notice that we should hear the determination within the next 60 working days. With the date they put on that notice, that's mid June. I bottomed out and felt crushed. That finish line just keeps getting moved!

So, Brian and I decided we needed to approach things differently. Obviously our nightly emailing/phonecalling were not productive; the congressional inquiries from Vic Snyder's and Mark Pryor's offices at least thusfar haven't brought them any results either, at least not yet. And our constant obsessing definitely has taken its toll on me. So I decided to step back and take a breather for a few days, and take a less "involved" (i.e. obsessive) approach... These last few months have been frustrating, and this lack of control is infuriating!(I hear the laughs from all of you who have been or are currently on this Vietnam adoption journey.)

In any case, Sam is there and waiting on us. We believe God wants him to be part of our family. We feel as if we've done what we can to make that happen, and we've gotta pass the details and timeline off to God. (I hear God saying, "Well, FINALLY.")
Many, MANY thanks for all the prayers and support and phonecalls--many of you are in at least the same quagmire of frustration, if not worse. I pray for all of you as well.

Note the wonderful picture we got of Sam this week. He's wearing the same little overalls that he had on at his referral in September. Strangely those little pants don't seem quite as long anymore...

We're at Step 12!

That's the end of the Vietnam government approval process. Historically, when you hit Step 12 (and as a result got assigned a G&R date), you packed your bags and WENT.
On the US government side of the equation, we're still waiting on I600 pre-approval to travel. Last night was yet another round of email from USCIS requesting more paperwork. Without boring you to death with the details (too late for that) one of the things I had already sent them last week, and Jynger confirmed today that the other two items were re-delivered yesterday to them. SO....we wait.

There's that DNA-testing issue sitting there like the elephant in the room. Apparently our government hasn't hammered out the details yet, so we're hoping if we get pre-approval and travel before they do work them out, maybe it won't apply to us. We have nothing else to do except hope that is the case. Are we scared that this rule may hold us up for another 2 or 3 months? Heck, yes. We just hope it won't.

Two of our fellow adoptive families in this process, Lori and Nadra, are just as weary as we are...if not more so, because both of their little one's paperwork is stuck in bureaucratic paralysis at an earlier stage than ours. I'm hoping their paperwork will zoom ahead in the next week or so. It's time for Sadie, Drew, and Sam to come home.