Packet 3

What a week! I called the U.S. Embassy today to ask if our Packet 3 (all of the paperwork from immigration and the U.S. visa center) had been sent to the agency in Korea yet. Yup. It was sent out yesterday, on February 26. I'm impressed.

So, now the agency will receive this packet and match it to Andrew's paperwork at the agency, then send the even bigger packet back to the U.S. Embassy. After the U.S. Embassy has the stack of papers they can schedule the visa interview and issue the visa. Once Andrew has his visa we will be outta here!

One more step complete

We can check off one more step now. Yesterday I called the National Visa Center to see if our immigration (I-600) approval had been sent on to Korea. Good news! It was sent off to Korea on Thursday, Feb. 19.

I asked a woman at our agency if that meant we might get to travel before the sacred 4-5 month wait, but she swore up and down it didn't mean a thing and to still plan on traveling sometime over the summer. But, being the optimist I am going to hold out hope and believe it does mean something, even that we are one tiny, little step closer to meeting our son.

Andrew's living arrangements

Here is a view of Andrew's room. The little chair is Shawna's - her maternal grandfather gave it to her when she was a little girl. Eric's mom made the curtains. The dresser was left in the house (formerly Eric's maternal grandparent's) by the original owners.

What you can't see here are the child-sized rocking chair made by Shawna's maternal grandfather and the chiffarobe made by Shawna's paternal great-grandfather for her father when he was a baby.

What you also won't see here (yet) are the dirty diapers, paints or crayon marks on the walls, and toys or books strewn about. We are waiting for Andrew to help out with those tasks.

Preparations

Knowing that we may have less than a month before we go pick up our little guy, we have been busy preparing for Andrew's arrival. Over the past few weeks we have put safety thingies on every cabinet and outlet in our house and are now crawling around on all fours trying to see what is at eye level for an 8-month-old that might look tasty or extra fun, but probably shouldn't be, and moving things accordingly.

This past weekend we helped one of Eric's friends unload some of his son's clothes. Colby and Sharon's 3-year-old son, Colin, generously let us take many of his baby clothes to use with Andrew. Above is a photo of Shawna sorting through the many clothes. We have also been lucky enough to receive toys from our neighbors and Shawna's skating coach. We are sure thankful for friends with surplus toys and clothes!

Speedy Delivery

Well, gee. It's only been five weeks since we signed the papers accepting our referral and we have motored through step after step. Our legals took only a few days, the state approval came whipping back, then we received the letter to have our immigration fingerprints done only a few days later and went right away the next day.

We received the I-600 approval today! If everything goes smoothly in Korea we should be meeting our son for the first time about 4-6 weeks from now.

We are so excited to meet Andrew! Stay tuned here for updates as we get closer to our travel date and when we return. We will be posting updates and photos here.