New Pictures and an Update

New pictures of Merveille! I love the first one. So far it is the only picture we have of him kind of smiling. :)

I am not sure what they are feeding him, but he seems to be enjoying it and from the looks of his pudgy cheeks he can really eat!

Adoption update: We have been waiting for the last two documents from the court and the other day we received them. We have been waiting for those two things for just over four months. The great thing about that is that as of now is he ours. The problem is that there was an error on the paperwork that needs to be fixed in order to file the papers in the United States. Hopefully we will have the corrected papers back very soon. When we file the papers with USCIS we have to send in a form called the I600. A few months ago it was taking about one month to get a clearance letter back from them and now it is taking between 2.5 and 3 months. So, it will still be a few more months until Merveille is home with us, but in the eyes of the DRC Merveille is now my son. That's right, I am officially a mother of three. I have one daughter and now I have TWO sons . I love saying that :) Now I just have to get Merveille home and in my arms.

New Pics :)

We received two new pictures of Merveille. Yay!!

We received a report that he is doing well, he is healthy, and chubby :) I cannot wait until he comes home!

Waiting is hard...

I hate waiting. There, I've said it. This has been a hard week for me. A few months ago we really thought that Merveille would be coming home right about now. We still have no idea when he will be home. Last week we received one piece of paperwork that we need, but we are still waiting for two more very important things from the courts. We can get those papers tomorrow or three months from now. Nobody knows when they will come. After we get those, then we have to file the I600 in the US. That takes 6-8 weeks to be processed. Finally after all of that waiting, we will have an idea of when Merveille can come home. I hate waiting....

Our case worker is wonderful and keeps us up to date with everything, but she has no way of knowing when this paperwork will come in either. We are at the mercy of a court system that is nothing like ours and that does not seem to be sympathetic to all of the children and families that are waiting to be united. I hate waiting...

I think part of the problem I had this week was that we had told a lot of people we thought he would be coming home in March. Sometimes I just need to put the adoption out of my mind for a little while but everytime I go somewhere someone asks if he is home yet. The other day Damen had people stopping by his work to ask if Merveille had come home. These people did not have appointments and they went out of their way, just to check if our son was home. I really appreciate everyone's thoughtfulnes, I really do, but having to keep saying we have no idea when our baby will be home is getting really hard. I hate waiting....

This month will mark seven months since we first received Merveille's referral and picture. He will be 14 months old this month. That means we have known about him for half of his life already, but have not been able to touch him yet. A couple of my friends are pregnant and it is so hard to be completely happy for them. I am jealous. I'm not jealous that they are pregnant, but that they know how much longer it will be until they get to kiss their baby.
I hate waiting...