KatieJoy Updates

Hi all...

Just wanted to give you a quick update (yeah, you know no update is "quick" for me! hehe) on KatieJoy and our current adoption process status :-)

We have gotten a few updates on our little miss since Thanksgiving and one of them is a HUGE praise! The day before Thanksgiving we learned that KatieJoy had her MRI done and that it came back totally normal! Yay! This is good news but doesn't rule out all of her "possibilities"... since she was a preemie she will have some medical "possiblitlies" for a while that only time will reveal or NOT reveal. Again, we are praying like crazy that she will lead a totally normal life and all indicators seem to be pointing that way... In early December we got a WBC (Well Baby Check) on her and she is still growing and gaining her milestones- see?!? Good signs! :-) As of mid November she is 17 pounds and 27 inches tall- our little preemie is definitly gaining her weight! She was also rolling over and pushing herself up... she is still 1 month behind (she is 7 months old but is a 6 month old in her abilities)- but for being 2 months preemie this is just fine!

Right after we got all these updates, Holt called me to say that they had her "Legals". Legals are the babies release paperwork from Korea. This is a big thing because we couldn't apply for her immigration paperwork from the US until we had these papers in hand. We got these sent off as quickly as we could as they added a step to send them to Texas before we could send them to Fresno. I thought this would add some time to the step but it really hasn't! Texas quickly processed everything and Fresno has it all as of a week later... However, now we've hit the longest part of our wait for KatieJoy- or at least what I think will be the longest part of the wait based on how this part of the wait went for Calen's process- it took fresno 2.5 months to get us our Immigration paperwork (what I will now call the I600). Not to mention that there is a prestep to the I600 called the I600a that we never had the chance to do (because our wait for KatieJoy's referral was so short) and we have to file the I600a with the I600- the I600a is what gets us fingerprinted (this took 5 months last time we were in process)!!! I have some friends that went thru the adoption process after Calen came home and Fresno had gotten it's act together- but I'm not holding my breath that things will go smoothly here for us. So, if you could storm the Heavens with prayers for this part of our process (specifically that we can get fingerprinted within the next month or so), we would be very grateful!

I have one more praise to tell you... last friday I had a quick meeting with my HR department and was told AmAzInG news! Since I am finally tenured (after last school year that finally happened) I get to take a FULL 6 weeks off after KatieJoy is home and I only have to pay for my sub- when Calen came home I had to take complete unpaid leave... :-/ I also will get to use all my personal days for our travel to Korea- so I'll get a full 7 weeks off- that is IF she gets home during the school year... Also, this means we now only have to find the funds for Travel to Korea- everything else we have $ for! YAY- and HUGE PRAISE to GOD for this! He truly is SO GOOD! :-) We still might do a fundraiser or so- and don't forget all photography $ is going to our adoption fund-I just haven't made up my mind on the fundraiser yet...

Thank you for your continued prayers and love! We are so amazed daily by our God!

~Mandy~