The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In light of our last-minute ICPC crisis, here's the good news: FEC (For Every Child, the new name of our agency formerly known as FFC) has all of the paperwork needed to send to Harrisburg. The only document they don't have, the Final Decree paper, is not mandatory. James at FEC tells me he will send out the paperwork by the end of this week. Our homestudy agency has already sent a copy of our homestudy to Harrisburg.

Here's the bad news: We were reassigned to another ICPC case worker, who immediately emailed me to inform us that our Pennsylvania Criminal Background Clearance and Child Abuse History Clearance were expired - by one week!!! Apparently, they're only good for one year. If we did not have to satisfy ICPC regulations, we would not have needed to renew them.

Here's the ugly: We've now got to scramble to fill out the relevant applications, purchase the concomitant money orders, write cover letters begging for expedited processing, and overnight all of these things to the two offices. In the best case scenario, they'll process our forms quickly and get them to our contact in Harrisburg, who will then promptly issue a compliance letter on our behalves and send said letter to us prior to our travel in 15 days. I don't even want to think about the worst case scenario.

To top all that off, we just learned today that Craig's distant uncle, Walter, suffered several seizures last night and passed away in a hospital in New Mexico. Our thoughts are with his dear wife, Fran, and their children.

All in all, it has not been the best of Valentine's Days. Still, God is faithful to remind me of his goodness through the kindness of others: my Prince Charming, Craig, sent me two dozen roses to celebrate the day. After almost 10 years of marriage, he's still got it.

In addition, my eldest sister, Even/Diane, continues to be relentless in her gift-giving. Today, we received a box full of gifts including Mustela baby products, an Avent steam sterilizer for bottles, a bottle warmer, and a Taggies soft-cover baby book. She also sent us a Phil and Ted's Metro backpack baby carrier, which is by far the coolest and most comfortable thing I've ever come across. I can't wait to pop William in it and go for a walk, chuckling in retrospect at all the silly flaming hoops we had to jump through just to bring him home.