Happy Dance!!!

Happy DANCE!!!

The boys received visa approval on Friday, January 31^st!!!! I woke up at exactly 7:26 am and laid in bed trying to plan the conversation I would have when I called the embassy. I was terrified. We hadn’t received a rejection notice of any sort, but there was still room for error. And when I got up a few minutes later, filled with a bit more nerve, and driven by conviction, I heard the familiar “ding!” that I’ve been addicted to for the past four years. DING! Hmmm…..I thought perhaps I should check my email (really I was just using this as an acceptable stall tactic to delay the phone call a few more minutes and let my nauseated stomach settle a little more), and yet when I opened my email there it was.

USCIS APPROVAL

The words I scrolled through became increasingly blurry and the tears that flooded down my cheeks hit my chest and my hand and the phone. We received approval! The boys were coming home!!!

I felt my knees start to give. And yet I didn’t want to sit on the stairs. I’ve spent too much time crying on those stairs. I’ve also had a cockroach run up my skirt while sitting on those stairs. And yet I couldn’t go downstairs and sit because I would lose the wifi signal. So I leaned on the dirty plaster covered concrete wall and tried to gain some semblance of composure. And then I called J. I kept trying to say that we were approved, but I was crying so hard I could barely get the words out of my mouth, “APPROVED!” I tried to yell but not so loudly that I would wake the boys up. I knew they would be happy, but I also wanted them to have their rest. We were all up pretty late the night prior unpacking and discovering the few new gems I brought back with them from my week at home in the states for my remicade infusion. “APPROVED?!!!!!” He said, “Just send me an email! I can’t understand you!” And so I sent it. And then I cried some more. We are going home. The boys are FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY GOING HOME!!!!

I noticed the time stamp on the email when I sent it to J. It read 7:26. ;-)

I spent the day filling out documentation and fielding emails from the embassy. We initially received a visa date of Feb. 18^th, but they very generously received my request and honored an earlier appointment. The boys are now scheduled for a visa appointment for Friday, February 7^th! We are in “go time” speed now. Everything is like a time warp. I have scheduled for rides for doctor’s appointments, and I have been feverishly planning, packing, and purging. It is time to go home!!!

This next week will be a furious bur of activity; but we are so very ready to go home! I cannot wait for the day we leave. We are expected to come home on February 13^th. We will likely be arriving at 11 pm in Pittsburgh. I have landed in Pittsburgh 16 times without the boys; and now I will finally leave on a plane with them and watch as they experience a whole new world and a whole new beginning to their whole new lives. So many times I’ve left Haiti and thought about how the outside world will hit them. How they will take it all in. How they will feel. What they will smell. What they will hear. What they will see. And it is finally going to happen.

WE ARE GOING HOME!!!!