Dossier Almost completed

Well, it's been quite a while since I have posted anything, and a LOT has happened since then. Life has been too busy to get on here much. Let me go back to where I left off last, waiting to hear if our application would be approved. It was! Actually, it was approved and in the same e-mail, the agency asked us to take a look at a little boy who has several very serious heart defects. We immediately knew that we could not turn him down. However, another family, one further along in the process than us, came forward and said they would take him. So, we figured that God's will would be done no matter what, and this must not be the baby for us. Well, fast forward several months.....it is now August, and about a month ago, we received an e-mail from the agency saying that this same little boy, who's name is Omkar, is available for us again. The other family decided not to take him.....we aren't sure what took them so long to come to that decision, but we'll take it as a sign from God and run with it! We immediately filled out our i800a paperwork and sent it in, and then started the tedious journey that one must go on to complete a dossier. I have NEVER in my life had to provide that much paperwork for anything! It's been a hectic month of paper-gathering and letter-writing, but as of today, we are waiting for the finalized home study to be sent our way (hopefully next week) and then we will be done! Last week, we sent copies of everything that we have to our adoption agency so they could forward it all to the orphanage in India....the orphanage was requiring some "proof" that we are really serious about this baby. We couldn't be more serious! We have named him Will, bought a dresser for his room, and he has a closet full of clothes. How much more serious would they like us to be?! Once the orphanage found out that Will really has parents, they called in a doctor to take a look at him. Our cardiologist told me after reviewing his medical record, and I quote, "they are letting this baby die." He has severe heart defects and is essentially withering away, and there was nothing being done about it. I was furious, scared, sad, and determined all at the same time. No way would we let that happen! Well, our God is amazing, and the orphanage took that information from our cardiologist and got a doc to look at him in India. They are flying him from Pune to Bangalore next week, and giving his heart a "temporary fix". He will receive a shunt, which will act as a straw to allow extra blood to flow through his heart/body. Right now, his oxygen sats are in the low 70's.....people can't live like that for long without having a stroke. The goal is to get him at least into the upper 80's, so he has a fighting chance while we push through all of this paperwork and red tape that we need to get done to get him home. Here is what's wrong with his heart, in the easiest terms I can tell you: He has a double outlet right ventricle, transposition of the great arteries, a large VSD, and pulmonary stenosis. All of this is very similar to a condition called Tetrology of Fallot. In a nutshell, his aorta and pulmonary valve are backwards, so the blood that is flowing to his body is not oxygenated. In addition to that, his pulmonary valve has been so damaged because of this defect that it is closing off, not allowing as much blood flow as normal. The VSD is simply a big hole in his heart, at the bottom between the left and right ventricles. Essentially, the VSD is keeping him alive, by allowing the oxygenated blood and unoxygenated blood to mingle, so that his body is at least getting some oxygen. We don't know his current weight, but we are guessing that he is also suffering from Failure to Thrive. A lot of cardiac babies have this problem, as do a lot of babies adopted from third world countries. So Will has a double whammy going against him, poor thing! This shunt that they are placing does require open heart surgery, but they will not need to put him on bypass (stop his heart) to do it. So, in terms of open heart surgeries, it is relatively uncomplicated. This should buy him anywhere from 6-12 months before he HAS to have his major heart repair, which we will get done here in Florida. He will be treated by the same doctors and at the same hospital that Juliette was treated at. We completely trust them, and appreciate all of their honesty over the past year and a half, both with Juliette and now with Will. At this point in the process, we are waiting for our Department of Homeland Security Immigration approval to come back, and we have to submit the completed dossier to India. The dossier is not a problem since we have the 30-something documents together (finally!) that are required. However, we have to wait on the government to do our big background check, and you know how government stuff goes sometimes! From there, when we get our approval, we will be given a travel time. (Probably about 4 months after our approval.) We are hoping that we can speed things up due to his health concerns, but we aren't sure yet how that will all work. We are just trusting God to do this in His timing.....we have to do that, or we will go crazy knowing that we have a baby out there who needs us, even more so than a "healthy" baby. So, at this point, we will consider it a real miracle if we are able to bring him home around New Year's, but our God is in the business of working miracles, so I don't think we would be surprised! We will keep everyone posted. Thanks for taking this journey with us!