We have found ourselves once again awestruck by God’s goodness this week in removing a potential hurdle from our adoption journey, and though I hadn’t even had a chance to share the prayer request yet, I just have to share how amazingly it was already answered.

The day we dropped off our last four bits of stage-two dossier to our agency, it was very casually mentioned that we would have to update our home study when the baby arrived.  I very casually said back, “Yeah, and our I800A (immigration form)… right?”

As I left there, my wheels began to turn, and so I did the only natural thing and called Trevor at work so that his wheels could turn, too.  We had both been aware that these updates might be on the horizon, but it hadn’t occurred to either of us to wonder how the timeline of baby’s arrival might affect  the timeline of Little Man’s court process.  We just couldn’t have known how close together these two events would be happening.

As we researched, we became more and more fearful that baby’s arrival would mean stopping our process in its tracks, possibly for months, in order to jump through all the necessary hoops to update everything: first the home study, then the I800A… then what?  A new I800 as well?  A new Article 5 letter?  Wait for a court date all over again?

We processed together and prayed for a couple of days, and then, with a bit of trepidation (at least on my part… I don’t believe my dear husband ever trepidates about such things), sent an email to USCIS to clarify what would be needed upon adding a new baby to our family.

The answer came yesterday morning (five days after we sent our initial email!) saying that because of how far in the process we have already come (all the way through it, basically), there is no longer any need to notify USCIS of changes to our household.  As we understand it now, any updates our agency wants to do will be for their purposes only, and should not have any bearing on what’s happening in LM’s country.  Hallelujah!

I don’t like to think of myself as a worrier, but I have to admit, my heart was heavy for a few days there.  I didn’t know whether to pray the baby would come early so that we could get the paperwork started to update everything, or pray that I would go past my due date in hopes that LM’s adoption would clear court first.  I do know that God can still work with prayer requests like that, but it did unsettle me, not knowing which would make for a smoother path for us.

The day that we received this good news from USCIS, we also received an email from our agency saying they hope to receive word of a court date for our family soon.  Now, I feel free to also hope that this baby will come soon, knowing that those two joyous events should not interfere with each other in any way. Which is good, because there was no way I was convincing myself to pray for baby to come late!