Although my blog is mostly about the princess Emma these days, I decided to dedicate THIS entry to our daughter Sophie tonight. It does not matter that she is half way around the world at the moment, she is already our daughter in our hearts and she had been on our minds EVERY second of every day lately.
It has been almost eight months since I saw her little black eyes and spiky hair staring back at me from her little red chair. It was November 8, 2007 and we were so certain that we would be traveling by this summer or fall to bring Sophie home. Now it is appearing that the end of 2008 will come and go with out boarding a plane to China. Unless of course God grants us a miracle.
Although Greg and I have completed all of our paperwork on time and stayed one step ahead of the adoption process, in the end we simply could not control others incompetence or lack of compassion for our beautiful daughter. It started with our Illinois Social Worker, Erika cancelling our Home Study appointment in October (Yep-I had scheduled it before I even found Sophie!!), apparently she was too busy to make it and we did not even meet with her until mid November. Then to add to that she waited a full month after her visit before she even wrote our home study, it turns out she had a full time job at UPS and Social Work was a side gig for her! She continued to make mistakes that cost us a lot of time. FINALLY by the later part of December our Home Study was done and DCFS had approved it. We received a filing date from USCIS in January and were fingerprinted in February. So we waited and stalked the mailman for our I171H approvals that never came, in April we received a notice from USCIS that they needed additional information and we promptly complied. And, then we waited and waited some more....still not I171H approvals. I obtained an email address for the orphan unit and to make a long story short I got no where emailing them.
My next plan of attack was to contact the media...a Chicago TV station and Chicago Newspapers...I received a few responses but nobody willing to go out of their way to help. I am currently working with TWO Senator's offices, one back in Illinois and another right here in Kansas. We are running into an issue now-our move might delay things more.
Greg and I will NEVER stop advocating to bring Sophie home. We will no longer accept any more delays, we simply can not afford to. Sophie is sick and needs to begin her medical treatment plan. She also needs to eat ice cream with her big sister Emma, play silly games with her Daddy, and fall asleep at night in my arms. We are her family and it is up to us to find a way to get her home.
So, for all of you that were too nervous to ask what how Sophie's adoption is progressing-now you know.
Below are two pictures that I'd like to share. The first is of Sophie (in the red pants) with her friend and crib mate Ella. Ella's parents shared this picture with me when they traveled to China to bring her home in April, so I am assuming that the SWI staff took this picture of our daughters sometime in March or April of 2008? The second picture is of Ella with her AYI ("Auntie"). I'm pretty sure that this woman is Sophie's AYI too!
Sophie (on the right) with her friend, Ella.
Presumably Sophie's Ayi (holding Ella).Please keep Sophie in your prayers as she waits to come home.
