My Family

Saturday, September 29, 2007

PGN

I know I shouldn't get my hopes up. I know this will all be too good to be true...

But we have not been submitted to PGN yet. This means that when they do submit us it will be with a full packet and there is a CHANCE we could be finished with the process in the next 40 days (plus a couple). Again 99% of the time you do not get through PGN on your first attempt. It would be huge for that to happen with us. Once we get through PGN we should be given 4 - 5 weeks notification before we travel.

Even if we are kicked out the first time we should have him home around the middle to end of January.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Pre-Approval!

We finally received pre-approval today. This means that all the necessary paperwork has essentially been completed. We still have to get through PGN, but everything is there and ready to go! Such a great relief!

We had given permission to be submitted to PGN without pre-approval a couple of weeks ago. We had received a notice that the social worker's report was done. Instead of waiting around we decided to go ahead and submit everything to PGN and see what was kicked out and why. Those issues could be corrected so that when we received pre-approval we could resubmit and hopefully everything would go through quickly.

Well, for whatever reason it took these past couple of weeks for our attorney to receive the official, completed social worker's report. They finally got the report on 9/20. I received the update that they had received the report last Friday and emailed our rep. I just had a feeling we would be getting the pre-approval notice soon and maybe we should just wait to get it before being submitted. I talked to our rep today and asked whether or not we had been submitted minus the report. She is here in the US and all of that is happening in Guatemala so she couldn't tell me for sure and said she would check into it.

Even if we were submitted already 99% of the time people are kicked out of PGN on their first submittal. I've been telling myself all day that either way we will probably have to go through twice and it really isn't a big deal if we were already submitted. But I will admit that I will be really mad if we get through the first time and are only rejected because we didn't have pre-approval. Admittedly it would be a miracle if that happened, but I suppose it could. And my instincts were telling me maybe we should wait a couple of days... I just didn't move fast enough.

We will have to wait and see once Kelly finds out if we were submitted already or not. If not... then the full packet will be submitted and it is time for everyone to start praying that the miracle of miracles would happen and we get through on the first try. If we are already submitted... well then, I guess it is time for everyone to start praying we get kicked out for something other than the lack of pre-approval so it was definitely worth our while.

On another note we went to the Bair's and watched the game on Sat. Andy was there with new baby Avery. She is 5 months old and already bigger than Jimmy. It was great to see her. Not only is she super cute, but sometimes in my head it has felt like such a long time that I imagine him to be a lot bigger than he actually is. He is still such a little guy!

Adam and Julian and I played for awhile and I will admit that I was a little happy when Adam said he didn't want to leave. He liked hanging out with Aunt Jenn! Amy and Todd's new baby is coming in just a couple of weeks. Cannot wait to meet the new Thiel. Amy looks great and since they are scheduling a C-section this time I think it will a little (a little...) less stressful than with Adam's birth. Send them good thoughts... And wishes for a girl. We need more girls around.

Thanks for checking in... I know it has been awhile in between posts. Will try to be a little better this next month or so.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007



Remembering better days...


Today I have spent time remembering. To Christi and Tony! Miss you both.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Next steps...

I spoke with our agency rep Kelly yesterday and we are waiting on our embassy to give us preapproval. This is about the DNA test results and usually takes 60 days to get. We're probably around 2 to 3 weeks into the wait. Our new social worker has been moving quickly and should have her report done and to the attorney in Guatemala today.

Because we have all the paperwork -- minus the preapproval -- done, we have decided to submit our stuff to PGN. We know we will not get through this time because we don't have the preapproval. But we're hoping that any other documents that need corrected will be caught this time through. Then when the preapproval does come in everything can be resubmitted minus any errors. 99.9% of the time people are kicked out of PGN on the first try. This can be due to anything - misspellings, crooked copies. But doing it this way we will hopefully have all of that stuff fixed so when the preapproval is in we can be resubmitted and get through quickly.

I really don't think all of this will be done by Christmas, but I do think early January is reasonable. I am disappointed we will miss Christmas with him, but am feeling so much better now that we are getting into the final stretch. Here's hoping everything will go smoothly from this point on. Our new social worker seems to have given new life to this process and things are moving better than I had hoped...