Our Homestudy is Approved!

I don't have it in my possession yet, but we are officially approved! We are Certified Good Parents! That means we can move foward another inch. I'll be sending in our I600-A application (immigration) tomorrow, if my little chat with the social worker goes well! The application fee is increasing next week, so we want to send it in ASAP. The rest of our dossier is coming together too. My goal is to have it in the mail before Jan. 1! Of course, that depends on getting our 171-H (immigration, the I600-A) form quickly.
It also depends on Country not closing to international adoptions. They recently had a vote to place a moratorium on int'l adoptions, and it went through. There will be a 2nd vote, but we don't know when that will be. If that vote goes through then the president has to sign off on it. It wouldn't be permanent, but we don't know if, when, or how long. We don't know if special needs adoptions will stay open even if the moratorium is put in place, but there are people working to make this happen. These kids are at such risk. While Country is closed, special needs kids would be aging out of the baby houses and transferred to institutions, where they have little chance of survival. Unless Joshua's heart condition is better than we think it is (which it may be - you just never know), than there is no way he would survive an institution for long. So we are praying that we can get to him, no matter what happens in Country! I'll be working hard to get our dossier together quickly!

Meanwhile, on the home front, Brennan is adorable. :-) His new word is "gotchu" for "I got you!". He LOVES it when we chase him, and he's getting really fast! He walks like a little boy now, instead of a baby. Often he walks around the living room picking up his "treasures", and he'll just speed back and forth waving his arms around making happy noises! I am so blessed to be his mom :).