three weeks of bumps...and a bruised heart

Hi blog families. Just a little warning, but my heart is really aching tonight.

I received our biweekly update from AGCI. Since they put into effect the new wait list stuff, there are now
31 families waiting for a little girl
25 families waiting for a little boy
10 families waiting for a sibling set

There have been zero referrals in the last four weeks.

We're not even waiting yet. It's been three weeks with no word about what to do to fix our issue.
I am totally bummed.
: (

bigger bump...ugh!

Well. Today was a day of weird news. So we've been waiting for our social worker to get the paperwork from our agency for a while now. She got it. And read it. And realized that she can't fill it out because she's not a 501c3 (non-profit).

I called AGCI and they said to forward it on to Little Flower Adoption Agency. (Backstory: our SW can operate as a satellite SW of that agency, even though they are based four hours away and she is like ten minutes. She did all of our visits and such, we just filled out extra paperwork, etc. for the other agency, too. Sounds more confusing than it is.)

We notified our SW of the plan and asked her if she would go ahead and forward it to Little Flower. Turns out they are not a 501c3 either, according to her, because in the state of Texas, placing agencies do not have to be.

AGCI says this is not good.

I tried to get ahold of Little Flower today without luck.

An interesting opportunity presented itself yesterday to work with The Arrow Project. They are one of the main agencies dealing with the Eldorado Mess. I am starting to wonder if all of our adoption stuff is not working out because I should take this opportunity with The Arrow to work with those kids. I'm feeling a little lost and confused lately, so am praying for some answers from either our adoption front or The Arrow front so that I can move in the direction that is actually going to take us somewhere!

Thanks for all the encouragement. Lately I just don't know how to feel about much of anything.

did you hear the good news?!

Yay! So things are feeling better today. I got this amazing email today from our case manager at AGCI. From now on, families do not have to wait for their FDL to get on the list. That's right. I know, there's hope for us yet!

Someone reminded me just the other day that while this is all in God's hands and His perfect timing, there is no reason that I can't (or shouldn't!) tell the Lord how I feel and ask for a miracle. Then again, isn't it already a miracle that He's located our missing family all the way in Africa? Wow. God is so good. And today, so is AGCI.

Dear Wait List,
Hi. We'd really like to meet you and be part of what you're doing. We've been having some issues lately but are working to resolve all of that. We are excited to learn that your club is not as exclusive as it once was...so we're hoping to rush right out and pledge as soon as we can. Get ready and make some room for us, please!

moving on...with or without it

Well, I'm tired of being down in the dumps about this, so I've decided to move on. Just for factual coverage, our SW has still not received the paperwork she's supposed to fill out and mail back. Thechanges to our HS will not be sent to her until they have the other papers all worked out. I'm just accepting that this is (obviously) out of my hands, but in total control of the Lord. Is is He who planted this idea in our hearts and He who will bring fruit from it. Can I get an amen?

So, to pass the time, I'm going to have an extreme blog make over. Well, without all the commercial breaks. And probably tears. I mean, I've cried over blogs before, but I don't think it's going to be the same. Man, I just had a fantastic idea. More on that later. (I love suspense! Maybe adoption was made just for me afterall...)

Also, here are a few of my favorite shots from my cruise. I know, that was like a month ago. But, better late than never. I just realized it's been forever since I've posted any pics. Sorry!! How lame of me. Remedying that now.

This was our cruise ship. On fruit. Yeah. Please also notice the funny lady posing behind the ship.

Here we are all gussied up for the Captain's Dinner, but he didn't even eat with us. This is the date we shared instead. His name is Stanley...loads of fun, but a little crazy to keep up with.

This is Marc, Ethan, Me, Christina. These are the crazy margaritas we tried. I will not be posting our reaction pictures. Christina's reaction was definatley the best. Trust me.

I think we were dancing in this picture. This might have had something to do with the crazy margaritas. Or the inherent crazyness that is inside me. You pick.

This is a little trouble we caused. Luckily, it did not sabotage our return home. (This had nothing to do with our margaritas, believe it or not.)

You get free sushi on a cruise trip! I'm saving Christina the embarrassment of showing her sushi picture. It looks like the sushi is trying to crawl out of her mouth. It wasn't. As far as I know.

This is some really late night shuffle board on the top deck. I'm pretty sure it was about 2am here. We just weren't ready to go home yet.

There you go. Some cruise trip highlights...a month late. I promise to be better about posting pictures from now on. Of course, I'll have to be better about taking pictures that anyone wants to look at.

P.S. I'd like to shout out to Jackie-- Jackie, I know you're stalking. It's ok. We're friends. And I don't think you're a weirdo. Now comment already so we can set up a lunch date! : )

really frustrated

Well, it's been over a week since our little bump. Here's the update. Our SW has not yet received the documents that were supposed to be sent to her, therefore, she definately hasn't mailed them back yet. Our agency can't send the revisions back to our SW because they are not "cooperating agencies" yet (has to do with the Hague Treaty) and so that will still take some more time.

Silly me, I was hoping to have all the homestudy stuff done by March 1.

I know this means, in the greater scheme of things, that the Lord is still working things out to unite our little one with us, but this has been pretty hard so far. Also, because we're waiting to share the news until we have wait list numbers, there are only a handful of friends who know that we've actually begun the process at all. Those of you who know, please pray for the settling of my spirit; that I would have peace about the time this is taking.

I also realized this week that as of Sunday, I will very officially be closer to 35 than to 15. Wow. Birthdays are becoming less fun and more and more cruel. Boo.

Ok, off to write a huge paper from the DSM IV TR. Yay again.

another little bump

Martha at AGCI called to say that she had our homestudy in hand for review. We have a speedbump though because there was some paperwork between our homestudy agency and adoption agency that wasn't processed, but everyone has been notified and they are taking care of things now. Martha said she'd go ahead and review it while they are working on those other contracts, so at least this won't push us back.

This is a great time to be reminded that adoption is about waiting. I had a conversation with a friend/relative today about waiting. In the last year, my husband and I have done our fair share of waiting. We were waiting for the city to start a new academy class, to start the adoption process, to get health insurance, to see an answer to prayer, to see direction in finding a new church home...I mean, the list goes on! But I was explaining in that conversation today that waiting is the perfect time to learn from the Lord. While we've been waiting I've really been learning about fulfillment from the Lord instead of the zillion other places we're constantly trying to find it. While this season of waiting has sometimes seemed woefully long and painful, it has been graciously full of growth and insight into the mind and heart of Christ. I know that our wait for adoption is only starting. And I know that in essence, we spend our entire Christian lives waiting for our spirit to catch up to it's potential or for Jesus to come back, but I am so glad that we can have these teaching seasons.

So, even though we had a little bummer today, I could not stop grinning because I received two pictures in the mail today. My grandmother has been busily working away at our baby bedding -- just worried to no end that we're not going to like it when it's finished and "we'll have to throw the whole thing out!" Well, I called her and put that to rest because I L-O-V-E it!!! It is so fun! Justin even said it was cool, "cool enough even for not the baby...like for other stuff" -- which is good because we have so much material that it's going to be everywhere! Anyone need a bib or blankie that matches our bedding? : )

check check check

Hip hip hooray! Our home study was sent to All God's Children for review today (5-7 business days) and a completed, signed, and notarized copy of our home study should be mailed to us anyday to send to USCIS.

I'll mail the rest of our dossier this week (still having issues with pics) and then I'll be done.
Just waiting for CIS.
And then waiting for the wait list.
And then waiting for our baby.

At the Galindo house, we love The Office. I especially love Dwight's Beet Farm (and Bed and Breakfast). Today at Wal-Mart there was this little bright green onesie with a big red beet. It reads "and the beet goes on". I know it doesn't really represent The Office, but I feel like it's close enough for me to giggle at. And, I mean, come on! It's a cute onesie. I bought it in size 3-6 months. I realize that was really optimistic...but here's hoping. That's not the first onesie I've purchased, but there are definately not even a week's worth in the baby's closet, ranging in size from 3-6 months to 18 months. My dorky hubband makes jokes that our kid can "wear something once and just throw it away" implying that at my purchasing rate combined with our families'...that kid will have more clothes than Mariah Carey. And I pose the question, "what's so wrong with that?"

Update on bedding: it's coming along. My grandfather says "well, it looks like something alright". And my grandmother has made several comments about how dizzy she feels from looking at the fabric all the time. I can't help it. I like things a little modern, a little edgy, a little funky. Well, my kid does anyway. I'm still working on myself. (I've always had the soccer mom/kindergarten teacher issue.)

Thanks everyone for all your well-wishing and encouragement. It's meant more than you know!

It's looking up!

Again, I apologize for my previous downer-of-a-post. But now, things are looking up! We received our homestudy draft yesterday via email and I combed through it at lightening speed. We emailed today the necessary changes and are crossing our fingers for that to be done quickly and emailed to AGCI for approval. Then we can get some notarized copies and finally send off to CIS. Yay!!! This is some good news. I am super excited.

I want to say a big shout out to those of you who've been sending me bits of encouragement and laughter. It helped so much! Now I am even more committed to commenting on other blog pages...even though I'm often fearful that people will think I'm a weirdo. (I haven't come to grips yet that it may possibly be the truth.) So, look out blogworld, here come my comments!

So. This is goooooood news. I feel totally refreshed, both spiritually and emotionally.

Another fun thing that happened is (drumroll) that all the material and supplies were purchased to start making baby bedding! Yay! When you're the last girl (of everyone you know) to set up nursery, you're not left with a lot of options that aren't taken by your cousin, your friend, your neighbor, etc...and I couldn't find anything that I was totally in love with. So, I combed the fabric stores with my wonderfully amazing grandmother and finally found something. Yay! So we purchased all of it. No joke, we took every last inch of two of the fabrics. This baby is going to have one rockin room. Can you tell that I am excited? Well, I am.

And I promise, cruise pics are coming. In the ship's library, there was a giant globe. That's all I'm telling you for now. It's the coolest picture. It's so cool that Justin even made it his background pic. That's serious real estate.

The weather is tooo perfect here so I'm going to enjoy it!

already waiting forever

Well, the cruise was great. Maybe I'll post some pictures of that in a bit. Right now (and for the last few days) I have just been overwhelmed with not-so-good-feelingness. We were expecting our homestudy report to be done a while back. It's still not done. This wouldn't be such a big deal if we were told it would take this long...but we weren't. We were assured we'd have it the following weekend. And then when we didn't have it a few days after that and hadn't heard anything I was nervous. Maybe I forgot something important and didn't realize it and she was just waiting for me. So when I contacted our social worker...after waiting a few days for a response we were given another deadline. But that was last Friday and it's already Monday and this just stinks.

I need the homestudy report so that I can mail in our CIS so we can get fingerprinted and approved so we can start the real waiting. Ha. The real waiting. We've been waiting forever. We waited to start the process until the job thing worked out. We waited to start again for the insurance thing to work out. We waited again for the money thing to work out. Now we're waiting for our social worker to work out. We're nowhere near the actual waiting list and I'm just feeling really whiny and complainy...as you can see.

Sorry to be such a fusspot. I just needed to get it out to someone who would understand. In the words of Eeyore, "thanks for noticing."

forget the waiting...

Well, in a few hours I will no longer be thinking about homestudies or paperchasing or anything other than the glorious sun and my best traveling buddy.

That's right. Tomorrow begins my last spring fling! Christina and I board the Ecstacy ship tomorrow and head for a "Girls Gone Silly" Spring Break. We're taking along a surprise guest. More on him later. (I love surprises...that includes pushing them on others.) Then when I return I get one night with dear hubband and then I'm taking a little road trip with my mother and grandparents. This is going to be something. Yay for traveling! Yay for being busy thinking of other things!

I was hoping to have our HS back so it could go to Portland and be accepted and then I could mail our USCIS stuff and know that I was done with all the stuff that depended on me. But alas, God has different plans and so I leave with all that up in the air. I emailed my SW and asked that she please send the HS straight to AGCI while I'm gone so that I can mail everything off when I get back, fingers crossed.

Please pray for a safe journey for us Girls Gone Silly, speedy HS acceptance, and my sweet hubband who can't vacation because he has to work. He's going to miss me a lot and the pups will also be mighty lonely. He has plenty of clean laundry but he doesn't eat at home when I'm gone. That means he'll be having meals out at lunch and dinner (since I'm not here to make his lunch...or breakfast) which includes a lot of Lenny's Sub Sandwhiches. We keep that place in business.

Enough. Until I return...this is me! Yay!