Waiting for our First Ruling....

It's been a week since our hearing, and no news of a ruling. This would normally be too soon to expect a ruling, but since a few other families who waited as long as we did for their hearing received immediate or very quick rulings, we were hoping we might too. (Our hearing was 3 months after submission of our paperwork, whereas many other families received their hearings within 4-6 weeks.) The time since the hearing has really seemed to drag -- this has definitely been the most difficult part of the wait so far. But we know we have no control over the speed of the process, so we're trying to be patient and not to obsess. As long as we are bringing Ryan home at the end of it, all the waiting will be worth it.

We expect that the wait between the first and final rulings will also be hard, but we're hoping the time will seem to pass more quickly after we receive our final ruling since we'll have SO much to do at that point to get ready to travel -- we reviewed our agency's travel packet the other day and were surprised at how much paperwork we need to gather to take with us (3 years of tax returns, affidavits from our employers, notarized pay stubs, bank statements, etc.) We thought after we finished our homestudy, got our I-171H, and submitted our dossier to Taiwan we were done with all the red tape and scrutiny, but not so!

We should be receiving new photos of Ryan the first week of June, and our two little nephews are coming to visit us this weekend, so that gives us something to look forward as we continue the wait.