Great News!

I was so excited yesterday when the UPS truck pulled up. I ran outside and all but tackled the poor delivery man. I told him thank you like 1,000 times and told him that he had made my day. Then I walked inside and opened the packet. There it was, sitting on top of all of our documents- a rejection letter. They had rejected 3 of our documents :( The easiest way to explain it is that they just needed some more documentation. I was off for spring break and Brian had a wonderfully supportive sergeant on duty who told him to take the day off and drive up to Raleigh. So, that is what we did today. We drove up to Raliegh (left the house at 5:30 am) and had them redo our 3 rejected papers. Then we went straight to the Fedex store and sent them on their way. They were picked up today and should arrive at the unmentionable country next Thursday. Our stateside helper, Brigitte, who has been amazing told me that we should be fine with getting in before the SDA dismantles as long as we are submitted before the June 12th date. So now we wait. There is nothing left to do. It is out of our hands. I can still, however obsessively track my papers every half hour from now until Thursday though ;) Most likely, we are looking at about 6 weeks before we travel! That is not long at all and it could be even earlier. We will just have to see. Thanks for all of your donations and prayers!

Time Crunch-Please Pray!

Well, the president of Quinton's country signed a decree to dismantle the SDA (the ministry that processes adoptions). They will continue to hear cases until at least June 12th. We were hoping to have our dossier (mound of official paperwork) sent to his country this week, but we had several hold-ups. We faxed our papers to our parent liaison, fully anticipating for her to say that they were all approved and we could send them as soon as they came back from Raleigh. Let's just say it was not that simple. Her response lead to me nearly having an emotional meltdown in the middle of the grocery store. An email popped up on my phone and stupidly, in the middle of the grocery store, I read it. It was our liaison and she wanted our homestudy changed! This would take time and money to update our homestudy. I was devastated because it was vital that we get our papers shipped right away. There is about a 6 week timeline from the time we send our dossier to the time we get and SDA appointment. As of today that puts us at June 3rd! Waaaayyy to close for comfort :( Brian took the day off work and had some of our documents redone instead of having our homestudy updated and we overnighted them to Raleigh. The changes were so stupid! We had to have our home ownership papers changed from saying "2 story home" to 1 and a half story home" and we had to have a medical document changed from "atopic dermatitis to eczema-they are the same condition! Ugh) Unfortunately we won't get them back until next week, and that will put us right up to that June deadline. This is where you all come in. Please, please, please pray that our documents will be accepted and that they will arrive in time for us to get a court date with the SDA. We want our baby home! If we don't get in with the SDA it could significantly delay our process. We are talking about redoing paperwork that will likely expire as they rebuild a new adoption ministry from the ground up, more money to have the papers re-apostilled, and worst of all, more time Quinton has to be without a mommy and daddy :( We love him so much and my heart absolutely aches to get him here. God has provided for us every step of the way and we know He is with us now. He can make this happen. Thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated.

Fundraising Success :)

Ok, so I have not blogged in a really long time. Life has been crazy, but we have been making slow and steady progress with the adoption. We have completed all of our paperwork with the exception of one doctor's form that has to be redone and our taxes, which we are waiting to get back. We have USCIS approval and should be traveling within the next 2 months.

Now, on to the fundraiser-Our church hosted a BBQ/bake sale/yard sale today. We sold tons of stuff including 100 pounds of BBQ. The total is somewhere in the ballpark of $2300, as more continues to slowly trickle in.

We have had several very generous donations including several $50 gift certificates and some really nice gift baskets. I will be putting them up on facebook and my blog soon to try and raise a little more money. Gift cards include Target, Lowes, The Little Gym (Huntersville), and Best Buy, oh and we have 3 certificates for 15 minute chair massages and 6 coupons for free personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut. I am hoping to get this up and running in the next day or 2. Take a look at the fundraising thermometer. We passed the half way mark today! While this is awesome news, we only have 2 months or less to raise the remaining funds. Remember, all donations made through our Reece's Rainbow account are tax deductible. If you know anyone who is interested in contributing to a good cause (and a tax write off :) please let me know.

Thank you all so much for helping us get this far. We couldn't do it without you!