Blog has moved

For my birthday, Jayson set up a really cool blog for me and had it designed specifically for me. Which I think was pretty sweet :) So anyway, from now on I will be blogging from my new blog....you can find it here: onelessbroken.com Please check it out-it is way cooler than this and will soon be full of all of our Uganda trip pics and posts :)

Can't wait to go get Kai!

It seems very unreal that we are leaving here so SOON to go get Kai. This whole process has gone so fast and has been quite the contrast from our Taiwan adoption experience. Taiwan is pretty much at a standstill and I wonder if it will ever happen, and here we are going to Uganda Dec. 1st to get our baby girl :) My heart for Uganda and Africa, in general, is overflowing with love and also a lot of pain. The suffering, all the orphans and poverty, sickness, all of their history. It is unbelievable and I know that going will be life-changing. We are so ready to go get our baby and see her/hold her for the first time! The plan is to go meet her and take her into our care Dec. 3rd. We are also very nervous and anxious about going. We are leaving behind our boys (although we know that they will be in great care with my parents) and leaving the month of Christmas. We have been "Promised" to be back before Christmas, but TIA (This is Africa!) so really there are no guarantees and nobody know what will exactly happen and how the whole process will unfold once we get there. Our biggest concern right now is getting an appointment with the Embassy and hoping that they will get all of the paperwork processed in a timely manner. Hopefully they will be anxious to process our file before Christmas and it will be done quickly. We should have Kai's passport ready before we even get there and as long as everything goes well in court, our only real concern is getting the visa! So please pray for us, but specifically for the visa process. We have a lot of packing and planning to do, and we will be having a very busy week getting ready for Taylor and Molly's wedding on Nov. 26 (not to mention having all family, guests, and Thanksgiving dinner, reahearsal dinner, work and school next week too!) I probably will not be writing again, unless something drastically changes, so please keep us in your prayers! Thanks!!!! Taryn

Preparing for Kai

A lot has been going on the last few weeks in preparation for our new little one. We have moved Beckhem into Jayce's room. We bought better bunk beds (smaller ones, so that there is more room in the bedroom) and a new bigger dresser so that we could hold both of the boys' clothes. We also got Kai's room ready. I love it! It is pink (of course) and many other colors too, and it has cute owls :) I think she will love it. Then, today, we went and bought a van! I am soooo happy to have a nice "mom" car. I am definitely not one of those anti-van people, and I have been wanting one for a while. There is soooo much more room in it, which is exactly what we need for all the kiddos and their things :)

Since I last wrote, we found out that Kai is healthy and that there are no medical concerns. The doctor did say that she is b/w 5-6 mths and we needed to pick a birthday for her to reflect that. So, we made her birthday June 1st, 2010. She is doing really well and all the reports that we get say that she is happy, sleeps through the night, and is gaining weight. So even though we hate not being able to hop on a plane and go get her immediately, it is nice to know that she is being well taken care of until we can go.

We are still waiting for our paperwork. It is very frustrating because we should have had it by now. We were told that there is still a possibility of going before Christmas (for a Dec. 1st court date) but that cannot happen unless we have that paperwork. Hopefully, I will hear back from our officer this week about it and if not we are going to look into other options of trying to get it back ASAP. As of now, it is looking like January, but it would be awesome to have her here for Christmas. So, PRAY for that :)

The great thing about this time of year is there is sooo much going on to keep us busy and our minds occupied. We are busy getting ready for our Thanksgiving program on Wednesday at the preschool. We also are starting to plan for Thanksgiving, all our guests, the wedding, Christmas, and packing for Uganda. Jayce is playing soccer, which keeps us busy with practices and games every week. I have not been very good about updating this and am pretty sure that I will continue to be slacking with everything going on.

Btw, we got new pics of Kai and she is seriously the cutest! We cannot wait to go and scoop her up in our arms and bring her home!

Waiting, waiting, waiting..

So, everything was going really well, almost too well as far as international adoptions are concerned, and we hit a little bump in the road. Nothing major and we are still very happy with this process, but the paperwork we have been waiting on is still not in our hands! We just need our I171h form (we had one for Taiwan but need it to be changed to Uganda instead) and we can go get Kai. I have done everything I can to try and expedite the process and others have tried to help as well but there is nothing we can do but wait. Most likely this extra waiting means we will not get to travel to Uganda until January. In December, everything pretty much shuts down and the judges all go on a month long break. So, it is looking like we will not be leaving until January. We also are still waiting on Kai's medical reports. Her caretaker has tried several times to get the info from the doctor and it is very frustrating. But she was promised to have Kai's reports (along with the other children in her care) by Monday. So, hopefully we will have more info. tomorrow. Also, when Kai was taken to the doctor, the doctor said there is no way she is eight months old and thinks she is really more like six months. We are hoping to find out more about that so we can change her birthday if need be to be more accurate. We just have to wait and see what info. we get and what we should do. Right now we are just waiting on a lot of things, but we are confident that God has a plan and His timing is best!

Kai Shiela is so cute and doing well :)

I haven't posted in a while, but things are proceeding really well. Our dossier did in fact make it to Uganda and Kai has been picked up from the baby home and is being well cared for until we can go and get her. We even got to see a picture of her, and she is so adorable. We are hoping to get more pics and the full medical this week. She goes for a complete medical exam on Tuesday and we are hoping and praying that everything is well and she is healthy (besides the fact that she is under weight-she only weighs about 11 pounds right now.) We also found out her birthday is February 8. She has been eating and sleeping well and we will continue to get regular reports on how she is doing. We are waiting on our I600 form to be processed and to get the I171h form back in the mail. Once we have that form we are set with everything and can have a court date. Once we know when the court date will be, we will book everything. We want to bring her home as soon as possible (obviously.) So, please pray for that form to come back to us ASAP. We will most likely be traveling to Uganda right after Nov.26 (Taylor and Molly's wedding) and should be home in plenty of time for Christmas, which would be awesome :) I will try and keep this updated as I find out more info about Kai and our travels. Thanks everyone for your support and prayers!

Dossier is done and on its way!

So, last week was very busy finishing up everything for the dossier. But it is done and was shipped on Friday. So, hopefully it will be safely in Uganda soon enough. Now there is just a few pieces of the puzzle left, and we can go get our little one :) We need to get our I600 back, which I think is called the I171h or something...not really sure. We had the approval for Taiwan already, but need to have the country switched (obviously) to Uganda. Our social worker though that it may take up to a month, but hopefully it will get done faster because we cannot get a court date or proceed with anything else until we have that approval form. I am calling tomorrow to make sure they received our info. and will hopefully have a better idea of how long we are going to have to wait on that. I am hoping and praying that I will speak to someone who is very kind and helpful and we will be able to expedite the process.

In Uganda, our precious one will be moved into the care of a social worker. We are hoping that this will happen Tuesday (in Uganda time) and then we will also be able to find out more info. and have more updates on her. The main thing that we are very excited about is to get our first picture!!! It will be so fun to finally see what she looks like :) Please pray for the dossier to make it safely to Uganda, for the paperwork to come back super quick, and for the safe transportation of our daughter from the orphanage she is at now to the social worker who will care for her until we can go get her.

There is so much to worry about and think about with this whole process, but I am confident that it will all work out since it is not in my hands anyway. We know that God is in control of everything and have seen Him working all along. My biggest worry is when we will actually get to travel and how long we will have to stay in the country (worried about leaving our two precious boys and Jayson leaving his job.) So, even though, I know God is in control and trust that His plan is best, I still am a little anxious. Please, please keep these things in your prayers. Knowing that friends and family are praying for our family and this whole process really does make us feel so much better :)

Dossier is coming along!

So, we are pretty much done with dossier stuff. Still waiting on a few forms (one from the IRS, one from our bank, doctors notes) but all of the major stuff is done or about to be done. The updated homestudy should be ready to go in two weeks, or maybe even earlier. Please pray that we can have a completed dossier ASAP. There is a little girl in Uganda who we are trying to be matched with. She is only seven months old and we would love for her to become a part of our family. Unfortunately, the orphanage she is at does not have much to offer her in terms of nutrition and protection (not even screens or anything on windows, doors.) So, pray for her safety and well being. Once we have our paperwork in, we can have her moved into safer care until we can go over to get her. There is also the chance that another family may be trying to adopt her as well. So, just pray for us in this process and this little girl. We also know that it may be God's will for us to have another child and are open to that as well (even if it means three boys, aaaaahhhhhhhhh :) I will definitely try and update this with new info. as I know what is going on. Oh, and Friday we are supposed to go to the Health Dept. in Gainesville to get a ton of shots! I am still afraid of doing this even though I am adult now, so pray for that too :) Thanks, Taryn