Good news but still waiting.

Still nothing on the USCIS. I spoke with their operator who said as of yet no caseworker. I asked about the medical letter that I faxed and if they received it and she said she had no idea and that I would have to talk to a supervisor which handles those. She then transferred me to an officer who verified I had the correct fax number and then asked the "medical" need that my letter referred to. So I explained it more in detail and he said he was going in search of the letter and look into it and took my phone number to call me back. As of yet he has not called me and if he does I will edit this post to reflect it.

One bit of good news on our end is our letter of intent to adopt Joshua was submitted to his country's authority department. Basically up to this point no one knew of our intention as far as his government is concerned. So at any point he could have been basically adopted out before we could get our dossier and letter submitted. It does not happen often especially in the case of special needs adoptions but it has in the past happened. Normally you would not find out that happened until your letter was given to the authority and they pulled the child's file and would say if he was available yet. They give a letter- positive or negative at that time. We got a positive letter stating Joshua was available and due to his special needs status we could submit asap. This will be put with our dossier when submitted and must accompany dossiers. So while we still must wait for our USCIS approval for full submission we do know that he is available and his file is just waiting for our dossier to get submitted.... !!! So we still need prayers for the USCIS to move faster to grant our petition but as soon as it happens we get submitted.

It is looking more positive that our submission will happen within a couple of weeks.. God willing and with some USCIS cooperation. This means a very good chance at a date in June to travel to meet him and have court. We are still short the needed funds and still have our fundraiser going on. Any tax deductible donations or purchases of Jacob's artwork will be entered into our giftaway for an opportunity at some cool prizes. The current giftaway ends on the 7th so please if you can donate or share we would really be grateful. I remember starting this journey in the middle of January and expecting it to take approximately 6-8 months with about 8 months seeming to be the most likely and here it is almost 4 months later and we are so close that I can almost see a light at the end. My good friend Amanda who is also adopting had mentioned trying to see if a family in Joshua's orphange had managed a picture of Joshua- she said even if it was just his hand it would mean the world to me and she is right. It would mean the world to me.. but I told her that I just couldn't wait to be able to kiss his hand and hold him tight. Today I feel him moving ever so close to that.