Our fingerprints are done! We did them one week early. I don't know if that will really affect our waiting time, but they are DONE. If I didn't hate calling people so much, I would have already called to find out where our case stands. My goal is to call on Monday. :)  We are chasing down our last few documents and then we will be ready! I'm really hoping to get everything over to Ukraine ASAP so we can be one of the first families submitted. I feel kind of like I am racing against other families. I'm VERY happy for every family who gets submitted, gets their SDA appt, etc. but it's a weird kind of feeling, hoping they get submitted but also wanting it to be MY turn! If that makes any sense.

It's crazy to think that we could be meeting our son in just three months! It seems so far away, and yet so close. I have to start getting the boys' room ready! He already has boxes of clothes waiting for him! What he doesn't have is a NAME. We like Joshua and Charlie, and we can't pick one! They are equally good, and they have the same amount of pros and cons! I had pretty much settled on Charlie, but now I am back to Joshua. It means "Jehovah saves" - how can I NOT name him that? BUT, I don't want him to be "Josh". Sigh. We may not decide until we meet him! I told Ken this means we need to get more children, so we can use all the names we like :).

A few updates

My estimate of mailing our dossier on Jan. 1 was waaaay off. At this point, we won't even have our fingerprints done until Dec. 30th!! Then it's usually a few weeks until we get our immigration approval, and we can't send our dossier until we get that. On top of that, Ken needs to redo his employment letter, but he's not going back to work until after Christmas; I still haven't gotten my letter yet but it should be here after Christmas. I put dossier paperwork aside while I worked on our fundraiser, and the entire week afterwards I was ex.haus.ted. I think I was probably fighting off the flu or a cold, because both were barreling through work. But I couldn't DO ANYTHING. The Saturday after our fundraiser, I took two naps, and I hate naps! This week was better, but I am still pretty tired, mostly due to not sleeping more than 5-6 hours a night. Yuck. All this to say, I suddenly realized I was behind on paperwork! But I am catching up, and it will help that Ken is off of work all week. AND, I quit my job. I am now a stay-at-home mom full time! It was very hard to leave work, but I'm going to try and go back once a month and be the "craft lady". It's hard to leave direct care, because you get involved in your clients lives, of course. I've known all the residents for two years, when everyone moved in, and I will miss them and my wonderful coworkers! They sent me off with rice crispie treats and sang a song to me!

December 16th was supposed to be the date of the 2nd vote in Ukraine, but it got moved to next week sometime. That's good because it allowed time for a few more kids to get out of the country, but on some level I just want to KNOW what's going to happen. Even if Ukraine does close (and obviously we hope it won't!) we will still stay committed to LittleKid. Ukraine will most likely reopen in a few months, and then we can go get him. It would be really bad for him to wait that long, though, because of his pulmonary hypertension. His lungs and heart are damaged more and more as time goes on, and I hate to think of the ridiculously pointless suffering he would go through due to politics. Hopefully, the vote won't go through, and Littlekid will be in our arms soon.