Our new daughter! :)

Hi, everyone! Things have been crazy-busy lately - lots to share with you! We have wonderful news - the court date for our adoption was held on April 30th, and the judge in Ghana issued a final adoption decree, meaning that we are now legally the parents of our lovely, sweet new daughter Akos! Her full name is now Jemima Akosua Emefa Hertz. I don't know whether she will want to keep so many names, but she's old enough that we can discuss it with her and find out how she would like her name to appear on her new birth certificate when we do the US re-adoption.

Now that we are her parents, I can finally post photos of her - these are the only ones we have seen so far. The first picture is from her original photolisting, and the second picture is the one that brought tears to my eyes and made my kids jump for joy - it shows her looking at the family photo album we sent her.

A couple of days ago, we finally received word that our immigration petition was approved. The I-600a, the approval of which is the I171-H, and the notification of the I171-H is a Visa 37 - in Ghana I will file the I-600. Is that some serious "alphabet soup" or what??? Thank goodness I have our adoption agency, Hopscotch Adoptions, to help me keep track of what is what!

The immigration approval was the last thing standing in the way of traveling to bring Akos home - so we hope to hear what our travel dates will be by Monday or so.

Additionally, I have become aware of dire need for medical supplies at the children's ward of Korle-Bu Hospital in Accra, Ghana - I am planning to bring as much as I can to them when I travel. They need pulse oximeters, nasal cannulas for oxygen (currently all they can use to give oxygen is a feeding tube!), linens, mattress protectors (now having to use bare foam, urine-soaked mattresses), and much more. If any of you are interesting in helping with this project, please e-mail me, as that would allow me to purchase more to bring them.

Other big news for us is that we now have a used RV, which we LOVE! It's a Class C, with slide-outs for extra space, so fits our family comfortably (including extra room for Akos, of course.) We are having such great family time at our local campground - it's nice to get away and spend time together with no distractions. I even went fishing with Don and the girls (my first time fishing in 30 years or more!) - I caught 4 fish, and Elena caught 15! She was so excited. One of the fish I caught peed on me - naughty fishie!

We're actually at the campground right now - Don took the girls to a secluded pond that reportedly has lots of bluegill, and I took the chance to get online and look for good deals on pediatric hospital supplies, check e-mail for any news about our Ghana travel dates, and also to finally write this post! :)

Hugs,

Jeanie