Today we got the long awaited actual fingerprint notices. We are to appear at the fingerprinting office in Charlotte at 2:30pm on July 28th. The notice stated that we could expect our USCIS approval (I 171 H) by late August or September, which is much sooner than either of us expected based on recent info. The USCIS website currently states that they are processing I 600 A applications dated March 26, 2007 (ours was dated May 11, 2007). We are very excited.
Today I took the first round of our dossier paperwork (our FBI clearance packets, our letter to the Ethiopian government, two letters of recommendation, our physicals, letters from our physicians, our dossier financial form, Sean's employment letter, a letter confirming our health and life insurance, our birth certificates, and our marriage certificate) to the NC Secretary of State to be authenticated. I am supposed to be able to pick it up tomorrow after 11 am. I also mailed off my employment letter and our "precious" bank letter (5 rounds before we got it approved) to the Virginia Secretary of State. We anticipate that our home study will be completed soon. We have completed all of the paperwork that we can at this point and will just have to wait for our home study, passports, and I 171 H to complete our dossier. After that, we send everything to our agency, it then goes to the US State Department, and then it is off to Ethiopia. Then, the real wait begins.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Fingerprinting Appointments :)
Great news! We finally have fingerprinting appointments. We have been excitedly checking the mail for about a week and a half now with nothing from USCIS. Today, I finally decided to email the public email account, since I have known a family who had their notice from USCIS lost in the mail, only to arrive right after they left for vacation. The family missed their appointments and had to have them rescheduled. I was careful to explain that we were not asking for any special consideration, but that we just wanted to be sure that we were not going to miss appointments while on vacation. The USCIS representative emailed me back quickly and told me. "We have far more applications than we have available fingerprinting appointments.However, today you both were scheduled for fingerprinting on Sat., July 28th at the Application Support Center in Charlotte. Those appointment notices are going out in today's regular outgoing mail. Kindly watch your mail for these important appointments." I was so happy. The date could not be more perfect. We will be leaving the beach early on the 28th to go to the NC mountains, so we will be traveling right through Charlotte. It will perfect timing, and Sean will not have to take any additional vacation time off later for the appointments. God worked this one out beautifully. I am thankful that I emailed the USCIS Charlotte office. We are hoping that everything arrives by Friday, so that we will have all of the necessary paperwork and can leave early on Saturday as planned.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Slowly, but surely!
Well, I do have some exciting news to report. I emailed our home study social worker on Tuesday to make sure that she had everything she needed from us. With all that is going on, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't overlooking anything. She emailed me today and said that she is finished writing the report and has sent it to the main office for review. She said that she would notify me when she received an "OK" from Gladney. So, it isn't officially finalized, but it hopefully should not be too much longer before it is finished. Once it has been finalized, Gladney will send it to USCIS. Once we receive our fingerprinting appointments and are fingerprinted, USCIS will review our home study and fingerprints and will then issue us a highly valuable piece of paper called an I 171 H, which approves us to enter this country with a child from Ethiopia between a certain age range. We must receive our I 171 H before we can submit our dossier to the US State Department and then to Ethiopia.
The other valuable documents that we are waiting on is our passports. We heard this morning on the news that the State Department is sending a number of people to New Hampshire and New Orleans to try to catch them up on the backlog of passport requests. All that I can tell from their website is that ours is being processed. We must receive our passports in order to complete our Power of Attorney for the representative in Ethiopia who will go to court on our behalf to finalize the adoption before we travel to Ethiopia.
I received our new bank letter on Saturday. I wanted to cry. In my excitement over the fact that it appeared it would be rather quick and easy to obtain a new letter which was notarized, I neglected to tell the bank that the notary's commission must be valid for at least one year from the date the document is notarized. This is important to carry us through the documents being authenticated at the Secretary of State and then the US State Department. So, on Tuesday I called Wachovia and actually reached the woman who notarized our new (second) letter. I explained everything to her, and she said that they would work on issuing us a new one. Due to the holiday, it will probably be Saturday or Monday before we receive it. I'm just so thankful that they have been so pleasant to work with. On Saturday, we also received the second of three letters of recommendation for Sean and I that must be submitted to the Ethiopian government.
I'm staying pretty calm during this whole journey, but I am getting a little more emotional about our child being half way across the world. I think it is really starting to hit me for two reasons. One, every baby toy, food, swing, seat, etc. that Ciara sees she is interested in for her "baby sister." Two, Sean and I realize that our child really could have already been born and is waiting for us. Sean and I both are relishing this time alone with Ciara. In 2 1/2 weeks, we leave for a week at the beach, followed by a long weekend in the mountains. We are so thankful that we will have some free time with Ciara on probably our last vacation before our new addition joins our family. At the same time, my heart is longing to get to know this child God has created for us and to get to see him/her. Please lift this little child up in your prayers. Please also pray that if it is possible that we will get to meet our child's birth parents and/or family. Our agency has never worked anything like this out, but that is because they have never had anyone request it. Gladney apparently has a number of birth parents who actually relinquish their rights to their child to the agency, similar to a domestic adoption here in the US. It is our deep desire that they will encounter a birth mother/father who will have a desire to meet the adoptive family and that this experience will work out. It would be so very special for our child to know something about his/her birth family, what they looked like, etc.
The other valuable documents that we are waiting on is our passports. We heard this morning on the news that the State Department is sending a number of people to New Hampshire and New Orleans to try to catch them up on the backlog of passport requests. All that I can tell from their website is that ours is being processed. We must receive our passports in order to complete our Power of Attorney for the representative in Ethiopia who will go to court on our behalf to finalize the adoption before we travel to Ethiopia.
I received our new bank letter on Saturday. I wanted to cry. In my excitement over the fact that it appeared it would be rather quick and easy to obtain a new letter which was notarized, I neglected to tell the bank that the notary's commission must be valid for at least one year from the date the document is notarized. This is important to carry us through the documents being authenticated at the Secretary of State and then the US State Department. So, on Tuesday I called Wachovia and actually reached the woman who notarized our new (second) letter. I explained everything to her, and she said that they would work on issuing us a new one. Due to the holiday, it will probably be Saturday or Monday before we receive it. I'm just so thankful that they have been so pleasant to work with. On Saturday, we also received the second of three letters of recommendation for Sean and I that must be submitted to the Ethiopian government.
I'm staying pretty calm during this whole journey, but I am getting a little more emotional about our child being half way across the world. I think it is really starting to hit me for two reasons. One, every baby toy, food, swing, seat, etc. that Ciara sees she is interested in for her "baby sister." Two, Sean and I realize that our child really could have already been born and is waiting for us. Sean and I both are relishing this time alone with Ciara. In 2 1/2 weeks, we leave for a week at the beach, followed by a long weekend in the mountains. We are so thankful that we will have some free time with Ciara on probably our last vacation before our new addition joins our family. At the same time, my heart is longing to get to know this child God has created for us and to get to see him/her. Please lift this little child up in your prayers. Please also pray that if it is possible that we will get to meet our child's birth parents and/or family. Our agency has never worked anything like this out, but that is because they have never had anyone request it. Gladney apparently has a number of birth parents who actually relinquish their rights to their child to the agency, similar to a domestic adoption here in the US. It is our deep desire that they will encounter a birth mother/father who will have a desire to meet the adoptive family and that this experience will work out. It would be so very special for our child to know something about his/her birth family, what they looked like, etc.
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