Board meeting and other such things

Well - yes, yesterday was a rough day for me. But I promised to talk about the board meeting and that I shall do. It was actually really great. We were all dressed up and looking dapper (as seeing in the picture) and we saw the other two families from the US there. Pani and her family we'd met previously and I finally got to meet Eric and Monica and their family. It was nice being in a room full of people who'd all been-there-done-that along with us and were all just excited to finally be at this point in the process. There were maybe about 35 families there (which is one reason this process could take so long, although maybe not everyone showed up as early as us) and I heard they called the younger babies first. We were number 3, which didn't actually mean we went third - because there were three meeting rooms holding board meetings and we were not the first family in our room. But anyway - we only waited about 45 minutes before getting escorted to our room. We waited just a few minutes for being called inside.

The moment of truth - the moment we straightened our backs (and Sam's tie) and held out heads up high. I don't know what I was expecting, something more formal (especially with all the pressure to be wearing Sunday best and with Sam's new look and all) but it was just a board room with 3 ladies sitting on the other side of the table. Nothing special about these ladies. The two older ones (probably in their 50's) did all the talking while the younger one (probably 30's) followed along in her book. They were very pleasant, very easy to understand, and very CASUAL! The leader of the meeting was wearing a plain old t-shirt. It put me at ease a little bit - thinking okay, she can't possibly be judging my outfit now, right? The questions began simply out our trip and our stay - then basic stuff about Jesse and how he's adjusting. Did we think he could hear well? Were we enjoying him? How our other son was doing? There was a strange line of questioning about us coming back for a little girl - I assured them I thought I would be happy with my two boys. Everything went very smoothly with the exception of me having to step on Sam's toe a few times to remind him to say "yes" instead of "yup" or "yea"

The final few exchanges were my favorite:
Meeting Leader (ML): Are you happy with him?
US: yes
ML: Have you changed your mind?
US: no
ML: Would you like to keep him?
US: yes
ML: He's yours!

It was just very pleasant and less than 15 minutes, I think. It couldn't have been much longer than that.

The rest of the day went down from there but we are working on those issues. WACAP back home knows all what's going on and our TRC social worker has already been in contact with the INS worker and faxed over a few documents that will hopefully move things along. We will keep you posted as we hear.

Thanks for all your comments and support - it means the world to us. And for your entertainment I've included a little video of my duet with Jesse.