The close of another month

Wow can you believe January is almost over? I feel like the months just flash by. Good news is that my crib is suppose to arrive in February. I am now working on the bedding. This is what I want (for today at least)

Now alls we need is a baby to put in this room.
We did get an email today from our agency. Nothing new on travel at all. Seems they are working on getting new orphanages but somehow that does not make this any easier as we approach 8 months from referral. What surprised me though is the email of travel expenses. I thought this was illegal in Vietnam. Our orphanage donation goes to the agency not the orphanage, we pay for a car and driver (wasn't that our international fee's?) and told to give $150-200 to the orphanage director $100 to the assistant director and $20 to each nanny being 5-10. This does not include the donations I made already of brand new clothes, formula (23 cans) toys, T.V they asked for.
The family that traveled with me in December said it was over $5000 by the time they were done WOW.

Long W. eekends

We had a wonderful weekend painting and building a shelf for the babies room. I thought I would just do the basic and not buy a new crib and bedding until we got home with no baby.. I bought a new crib and think I found the bedding I want. Here is the crib (not our room though)

I painted the room green and yellow. Now for the problem.

We got an email today from the agency. Now remember its 7 1/2 months from referral and we hear little to nothing from them but be patient. Today they said they wanted a check for $140 sent to them so they could make an appointment to update our fingerprints. Hello they do not expire till May 15, 2007 are they kidding? That is 11 months from referral and they do not expect us to have our baby home? No reason given just send the money, only we do not live in their state and they did not do our home study. So will we ever get this little one home to use her crib.....

They said it never rains in California.. How about snow?

What a week we have had here. We go from hot and windy to rain and then the unbelievable SNOW. Yep it snowed at the beach amazing. At least it was not enough to cause total havoc but enough to say California got snow.
This is when I am so grateful that I have a fireplace in my room too. You cannot turn it on when its hot outside and you have the air conditioner on it really is silly but on chilly nights its so nice to just have a fire in your room and your relaxing and the kids are asleep.
It has been an interesting month and I decided after my return from Vietnam that I did not like my job anymore. No I still like being a mom I just didn't like working at the store anymore. So I quit and boy the manager was not happy. So two weeks later I decided to apply at a store I walked by in the mall and filled out the paper. The manager took it spoke to me for a few minutes and asked me to call this number to answer questions. She said as long as you pass you have a job. Ok now the question I have is who would not pass. Would you steal? No Would you take drugs while at work? No Would you let someone who stole have a second chance? No More drug questions more questions about stealing. Does anyone actually say yeis I am a drug addict and I steal?
Still no news on the baby. She is getting older and missing out on so much. Not one email from the agency but we did get an email from the US Embassy in Hanoi. Tet is coming up and if we do not hear soon we will not go before march. My baby will be one in March.

Did I miss thatEMail?

Ok so our little girl is 10 months old today. We are ok with the fact we wanted an infant as young as possible but not ok with 7 months of waiting. Did you know that most of the staff at our agency seems to be gone.
I am searching for the email that says the program director from Vietnam is gone. I guess its lost did you get it? I did get another email today that says they have new pictures of her. This time only 2 and I cannot open any of them. Odd was we have a new program director she signed it as if I knew. Said she is cute here are the pictures.
I so hoped it was the call to get her :(.
Oh tried to reply to a comment but I cant, is this even possible? My daughter is in Can Tho, do you have a referral?

I held off for so long too....

So I didnt write about our 3 weeks in Vietnam and I wrote little when we got home. Today I just felt it was time to write. Can you believe that I got pictures within an hour of my post. Ok yep I cried but she is smiling which she learned in the 3 weeks we had her. Her hands are open not in a fist also something that changed in the 3 weeks. Only thing wrong is the agency said nothing other then here are pictures we took. No news? No date? Ok more tears. My baby needs me..

THE PICTURE HAS BEEN REMOVED SINCE IT HAS BEEN COPIED FROM MY PAGE AS WELL AS ANOTHER. SORRY

One thing I learned in this process is DON'T ASK who is in the picture with her. That is how we fell in love with the 11 year old. So anyone looking for an older child? They are all so beautiful....

Time moves so slow

We are now 2 days away from the 7th month of knowing about a little girl who lives so far away but is such a big piece of my heart. Why we cannot hold or touch her we do not know. We do know we had the most wonderful 3 weeks with her but now we just cry. Our agency as you can guess has nothing to say. No phone calls no emails nothing. Business as usual except for us. They have cashed our check taken our hearts and say patience? Our baby is 10 months old tomorrow and will not be with us.
My heart is broken and another family plugs away telling others how great this agency is and how they side with them. How do you side with anyone when you do not know the facts. It is our intent to heal these broken hearts and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.