Shots and process changes...

We got shots! It was not fun but a few shots are worth it and seem like a small price to pay for Norah. On the 31st, we went for our travel vaccines, Hep A, Hep B and DTaP plus the oral Typhoid vaccine and a few rounds of Cipro for our time in Vietnam. I, of course, had a nasty reaction to the Tetnus shot as evident in the pic below taken on the 3rd. I still have a lump today but most of the color is gone. I recommend to anyone out there to never get shots on Halloween. There was a doctor at the travel clinic dressed as the Scream killer. That was the last thing I wanted to see coming at me with a needle. Thankfully, our doctor was a nice, normal looking woman! We were a few of the unlucky ones whose insurance does not cover preventative travel vaccines. Total cost $650 and Barnabas still has to return for his second and third HBV shots. The summary of adoption fees really needs to have disclaimers for all of these "extras".

As some of you may know, there are some changes going on with the filing of the I-600 form, which is the form that petitions to classify an orphan as an immediate relative. The U.S. Government would now like this form mailed to the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam and they will be processing the form prior to travel. This processing could take up to 60 days if they choose to review our file in depth. The change is eliminating our I-600 interview that used to take place while we were in country so it seems that the length of our stay will be several days shorter. I am not really happy about either of these changes or the fact that they made them the day we signed Norah's acceptance. It is just another hill on the adoption rollercoaster. We were up and a few short hours later, down again. We are not entirely sure at this point what it will mean for us. The agency has the first batch of I-600s starting the new process now. We are not in that batch and do not know when they will request us to send the I-600 to them. If this causes a travel delay that is more than a week or two it might possibly push us into the Tet holiday in February and if that happens we would most likely not travel until March since the Vietnamese government is closed during Tet. I know a lot of families are probably happy about the shortened trip time, especially the ones that have to be away from their kids or need to rush back to work but we are really really looking forward to it. I hate to think that we might miss out on some of the awesome trips that the families get to take during their down time. We really want to see the Mekong Delta and go to Ha Long Bay. We also want to have plenty of time to shop for gifts to give to Norah as she grows and of course, time to bond with her before a stressful trip home and the surgery that looms ahead. We will just have to hope that we can squeeze all of it in while we are over there somehow or plan a trip to go back someday to show her where she entered this world.

Here we are on October 24th, happily signing away at our agency while changes were afoot...