Moe's Southwest Grill "Dine to Donate" a Success!!!

A friend of mine suggested this past weekend, that we look into doing a "dine to donate" at our local Moe's Southwest Grill. And so Monday morning I called our local restaurant and set up an event to occur a mere 72 hours later. We were given a three hour window, and anyone who came in and said they were there to support our adoption, we would be given 20% of their bill.

We were overwhelmed to see the huge turnout. The manager warned me that we may only get $50 or so towards our fund. Well my friends, we more than tripled that amount. Moe's Southwest Grill of Mentor, Ohio will be donating $155.64 to our FSP.

BLOWN.AWAY!!!!

Thanks to all who came out!!

Our countdown is in the single digits!

NINE SLEEPS. That's all that stands between us and an airplane headed for India.

So many loose ends need to be tied up before we leave. So many loads of laundry to be washed. So many things to try and not forget to pack. So many arrangements need to be made to make sure Cecelia is taken care of while we are gone.

It's enough to exhaust anyone. But me, I lay awake at night. Trying to tell myself all the things I still need to do. All the things I want to ask the orphanage about him when we pick him up. All the little moments I want to soak in.

We are still a little over $4,000 short on travel funds as well. Any and all donations to our FSP are 100% tax deductible and greatly appreciated!!

http://reecesrainbow.org/79495/sponsorobrien

Leaving on a jet plane....... Don't know when we'll be back again!

Yes, seriously. We are getting on a plane July 1st!! And yes, we don't know when we'll be back again. We are taking yet another huge leap of faith - the judge signed the written court order earlier this week. Once the orphanage gets their copy, they will use it to file for his passport. It could take days, or weeks to be issued. We plan to take custody of him on July 6th. If his passport is not ready by then, we cannot leave his city until it is. Scary? Yes. But we cannot allow him to sleep on the concrete floor with his untreated scoliosis any longer!!!

Please join us in prayer that his passport is issued in a timely manner. Please also pray for our finances. Of course this all had to come together during peak summer travel airfare prices. Our roundtrip flights from Cleveland to Delhi are more than double what we had budgeted!!!!

Thirteen sleeps and we are getting on a plane!!!!!

Our next fundraiser while we wait for a signature.

It's now been over a month since our court case was disposed. We are technically, legally his parents. But because the courts there closed for vacation days after our case, the judge went on vacation before he could sign the written order. That is the document needed to move forward. We are optimistic that it will be signed soon and that we can possibly travel by the end of the month.

In the meantime, we are still about halfway to our fundraising goal. So I am launching our next item - glass tile necklaces. For a $15 donation to our FSP, I can make a necklace for you with the country of your choice as the flag.

http://reecesrainbow.org/79495/sponsorobrien

Calling all sweet tooths!

I'm here again with another step out of my comfort zone, to prove there's not much I won't do to get us to fully funded. 

A dear friend of mine gave me a crash course in molded chocolate making. And now I'm here to sell it. 

smile emotic

The elephants are 3.5 ounces of gourmet white chocolate. The starfish are 3 ounces of your choice of either peanut butter or salted caramel favors. 

We are asking for a donation to our FSP of $15, and in return we will mail you your choice of 4 pieces. 

http://reecesrainbow.org/79495/sponsorobrien

Update

It's come to my attention that if I do my very best to keep our blog up to date, it will increase our chances of being successful with our fundraising efforts. And since there's not much I won't do to get little A home, here I am stepping out of my comfort zone. I vow to be better about this from here on out. Even when there's nothing to really talk about, I'll come up with something. :)

So here's my update........

On March 24th, the world stopped spinning for a moment. After stalking the court website for a while, it finally produced what I THOUGHT I had wanted to see. We had been registered and given a court date. But it wasn't until JUNE 9th. I was heartbroken. I was furious. Basically, I was a mess. Due to all the delays in getting the corrected NOC issued, we were pushed back to June due to the courts closing for most of the month of May for summer vacation. It was horrible, but we tried to make peace with it.

Soon after, we learned that a fellow adoptive family had completed their journey, and would be traveling to the SAME CITY that little A lives in. Their daughter resided in another orphanage, in the same city. On a whim, I asked her if she'd be willing to stop by and give little A some drawings from Cece and a note letting him know we hadn't forgotten about him. Well this dear friend did so much more than that. Turns out that her agency's in-country representative is friends with people at little A's orphanage, so the visit was approved. Mere hours after taking custody of their daughter, she went and spent over an hour with little A. She showered him with love. She told him that mommy, daddy and didi (big sister in hindi) are coming just as soon as possible. She did something for him and for us that I can never properly thank her for. And if that wasn't enough, she sent us many photos and some much-treasured videos of little A.

Again, while we aren't permitted to share them publicly, there's one video in particular that's become my favorite to watch. Little A watches as the photos and drawings are handed over. He looks at them with some interest. They then tell him they are from didi (big sister). He appears to understand. But when they say her name, he gets it and gets THE BIGGEST smile on his face. I'm eager to watch their love bloom.

But with that visit came news of just how severe his scoliosis is, among other things. This new info fueled our urges to get him home sooner. We reached out to our pediatrician and a specialist in the treatment of scoliosis. Both wrote letters on our behalf. They were presented to the judge on April 17 when he was hearing the cases of two domestic families adopting from the same orphanage. They pleaded with the judge to move up our hearing due to his condition.

That day a miracle happened. While he could not squeeze in our case on April 17, our June 9th hearing was moved up to April 24th. This was HUGE!!!! As far as we know, this has NEVER happened before. We basked in the glow of our victory.

I was a nervous wreck last Friday, refreshing the court website more often than was logical. I equated it to a woman checking every movement to determine if it was the beginning of labor. At 11:52 am, it finally updated. 

We have another court date, tomorrow, Saturday May 2nd. The orphanage people involved with our court case are rather confident that this will be our last hearing. They are also very optimistic that the judge will sign the written order before the summer vacation starts. That part is key, as if he does, we can move onto the final steps (getting his new birth certificate issued as well as a passport for his flight home). AND with that, we could possibly travel to get him as early as June!!! If this does not happen, we will be stuck waiting out the summer vacation.

So PLEASE join us in prayer that tomorrow our judge will find in our favor and sign the written decree before leaving for summer vacation. Truly hoping I can be back really soon with happy news!

So much time has passed, so little progress........

I find myself thinking I need to update the blog on an almost weekly basis. But when there's little happy news to talk of, it's hard to find the motivation.

We received our Article 5 waaay back on August 21, 2014. That was the last step we had control over, the ball has been in Indi@'s court ever since. As time went by, we learned of 4 other families that were waiting for the first approval from Indi@ (ARC approval) in the same state as us (Maharashtra). We had been waiting the longest. Months went by and nothing happened. Our agency kept checking with our orphanage, who in turn kept checking with the committee that issued the ARC approval. We kept hearing to be patient. :( On December 2nd, the family that had been waiting the shortest amount of time for ARC announced in our Facebook group that they had received ARC. I told myself that if they got it, surely we did too if we had been waiting 3 months more than them. But alas, no. Over the course of the next few weeks, 3 of the four families had not only ARC, but received NOC too (the last approval needed) and were moving on to court. We still waited....... To say that I was devastated was an understatement. I came up with a theory that the ARC committee started a pile with our info. Then as the other families got their Article 5 approvals, their paperwork was put on top of ours. So when they finally sat down to issue approvals, they started with the paperwork on the top of the pile - the family that had been waiting the shortest amount of time. And then they "ran out of steam" before getting to ours at the bottom of the pile.

On December 26, as Cece and I sat around playing with her new Christmas toys, I received an email. We FINALLY had ARC. While I was breathing a sigh of relief, I was frustrated. The others had moved on to court and we were now 2 steps behind them. About a week and a half later, when I was expecting to receive our NOC (the others had gotten theirs days after ARC) the first family to pass us had passed court and was talking about gotcha. I wanted to crawl in a hole and not come out. But for the sake of my family, I put on my big girl panties and made the best of every passing day.

A month went by and no news of NOC. I was becoming downright bitter. Our agency called CAR@ to ask why there was a delay in the issuing of our NOC. Turns out that half our paperwork was placed on one person's desk.  The other half, along with our ARC (NOC cannot be issued until ARC is received) was on another desk. Apparently neither person thought to ask around to see if anyone else had the other necessary paperwork. So even though it was their mistake, they told us to be patient and they would issue our NOC in the 15 business day timeframe. Indi@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I left a meeting on Thursday, February 12th, my phone rang. It was our agency with another episode of "good news/bad news". The good news was that our NOC had been issued. The bad news was that it had spelling mistakes galore. So this meant that until a new NOC was issued with everything correct on it, we can not be filed in court.

Here we are ushering in March, and we still have not been filed in court (I have become quite good at navigating/stalking the court's website). The family that passed court in January is now home with their little girl. On Friday, another family passed court and is talking of travel soon. And the last 2 families have court dates soon.

I just want our boy home. At this point he will most likely celebrate his half birthday before we can go get him. I fear that his scoliosis is progressing in irreversible ways. And what must he think of us? He's known since July that we're coming for him. Yet we haven't come yet. Does he think we don't care for him or want him?

Hopefully the next time you hear from me it's a case of good news only.