I-600 Approval

We just found out today that our Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative was approved. That's one very important step toward getting Ella a visa to the US so we can finalize her adoption there. Yay!

We actually filed the paper work at the US Embassy in Manila in October and were told we should have an approval and visa medical appointment set up before the end of the year. We never heard anything so we followed up in December. USCIS just got back to us and said the approval was actually issued on November 12th. We're hoping this won't set back our plans to finalize Ella's adoption in April-May this year. We are required to have three, post-placement home studies within six months before we can travel to the US to finalize. Our first post-placement study was done in November. We were hoping to get the second one done in January when we travel to Manila for our visa medical appointment. The third is tentatively planned for mid-March so we can have a report done by the end of the month and we can travel to the US by April 1st.

We plan to be based in Alabama where my parents live for as long as it takes to finalize. We were told 2-3 months but we're hoping for closer to 2 since it will be difficult for Andrey to be away from the office in Cebu for that long. 

So there's the latest on the paperwork end of things. And just for fun, here are a few recent photos of Andrey and Ella singing into mock microphones. It's a jump rope that Ella regularly picks up and sings into (and sucks on the end a bit). Just imagine loud but muffled sounds coming out of her mouth, something like "Lay Laaahh Looooooohh". She's so cute!