Attachment and More Approvals

I have been thinking a lot about attachment lately.  In adoption you hear it everywhere.  So many aspects I never thought about before because it comes pretty naturally with biological children.  You get to snuggle that newborn, look in their eyes, sing and talk to them, hold them so they know they are safe and loved.

Our little boy was abandoned at seven months old.  I cannot even imagine the pain those parents felt as they left him in a very public place so he would be found quickly.  We have very little imformation to go on, but I imagine that mother loving him those seven months.  Then they realized something was not right.  He may have been sick and not getting better.  The only choice was to leave him so he could get the care and medical attention he needed.  I will never understand the whole story, but I am sure he was loved deeply for those seven months.

He has now been in an orphange for close to two years. That is probably all he remembers.  The care of his nannies, and the familiar faces of his friends that live there with him.  Soon, that will all change when we go to bring him to our home.  We are strangers.

Through all his pain, I look forward to teaching him the love of a family - our family, the safety of being in our home, the joy of loving (and often bickering) siblings, along with so many other things.  I pray daily that as his heart will break from being torn from what is his everyday, familiar life, that we can help him heal quickly and not grieve too long.  This will all take time and I am sure it will be difficult at times, but it will be so worth it to see him growing and eventually thriving in our home.

The past week has been very busy in our adoption journey.  We recently found out our I800 was approved.  According to the USCIS, the I800 is the "Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relativ."   That is another big step.    They send all our approval to the National Visa Center who then forwards it to the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China.  When our I800 approval came, it had an error in our son's name.  A simple typo.  It was a Saturday, so on Monday I was able to call and they saw the error and corrected it.  I found out later from my case manager that I also needed to follow up with the NVC, so I sent off an email with all of the information needed.  Tuesday morning I received and email from the NVC that everything was corrected and forward to the consulate. This allowed us to fill out the next form to apply for his Visa.  Yay!  I also received a corrected copy of our I800.  (another yay!)

For those of you reading this that may not understand all the "adoption lingo"...this is a lot to happen in a week!  And it is so exciting for our family.  Now we await consulate approval which will hopefully take only two weeks and then travel approval.  We are getting very close...not only to our son, but close to being able to teach him about love and family.