I'm ready to go home

I'm homesick and so ready to go home. I'm hoping we're only going to be here another week. It looks like that may be the case based on conversations with others working with our agency and same orphanage. Since our 1st embassy appointment yesterday, we are now waiting to hear from USCIS, whether they approved or denied Ava's visa. The other people heard from them in 1 week, so we're hoping to hear from them by the end of next week. But Monday is a holiday, so it could be the following Monday. When we hear that her visa has been approved, we go to sign the necessary papers and then the next day pick up her visa. Then we're free to go home. So we will only have a couple days notice that we are leaving. That's OK, I'll be ready. On Tuesday, Mark will go to pick up Ava's passport. Then we just wait to hear from the embassy. There are families who have been here for 5 weeks and still don't have approval from USCIS. But they are with a different agency and orphanage, so I'm confident that won't be the case for us. We're planning on being home by Thanksgiving.

Ava was up most of the night last night, so I am exhausted. Her congestion seems to be better today. We've been alternating Tylenol with ibuprofen to keep her comfortable. We have a crib in our room, but she hasn't used it much. Even though she hasn't been feeling good, she is still eating well. Hopefully she'll sleep better tonight.

Today we walked a couple of blocks to the Temple of Literature, to meet the woman who was our tour guide last Saturday. She works there and wanted us to come visit her with Ava. But she wasn't there today. So we stood around observing and taking pictures, then stopped at the store to buy more bottled water, then went back to our room.