Tuesday, April 1, 2014

January, February, and March 2014 Update

As I'm sitting here determined to get this update typed and posted, even though I should be doing my bible study homework, for some reason it's hard to believe it's April 1, already. It happens, to me anyway, every year. January rolls around and I brace myself, knowing the next 3 months at least are going to be cold, we may have a few days of warmer weather, but for the most part it's cold, cold, and a little more cold. This year however, has been bitter cold, and a lot of it. Our fall was cut short as the cold temperatures moved in sooner then "normal". And the cold temperatures have stayed, the kids had 3 (some school districts around here had 4) days off not because of snow, but because of how cold it was. This has been a long, long winter, and while we've had a couple of teaser days of warmer weather, it still goes back to being cold. And even though it's April, I've learned that the state we live in doesn't have a predictable "normal" when it comes to spring. Some years we have spring, like you normally would have spring, but most years we have, almost-spring, sort of spring, maybe spring, boom, summer's here (and summer sometimes doesn't arrive until the end of June). However, regardless of what our spring holds, we know there's hope that what is now brown and dead looking outside, will within the next month become green and alive again...that is one "normal" we can count on. :)

I meant to post updates each month, however, the past 3 months have been a lot more waiting then anything paperwork related. In January, we were in the middle of basketball season, we had a tournament the last weekend of January, out of town, and honestly, there was so little to post about, my extreme tiredness won out, and I chose sleep instead of updating. February we wrapped up basketball, but again, not much to post about, I don't really have a good excuse as to why I didn't type out an update, so we move on to March. And even though not a lot happened, a few big things happened, and we are officially finished with dossier paperwork! Our dossier has not shipped to China, yet, we're hoping, maybe that will happen before Easter, but it's so good to have what seemed like endless paperwork done...for now. :)

December 31st- Finally picked up my ear tube letter from my doctor's office. Taking the kids to see Frozen and the first theater we went to being sold out, ended up not being so bad after all. Went to a theater 5 minutes from my doctor's office, and we were early so I was able to pick up my letter before seeing Frozen. :)

January 13th- Receive letter from the Department of Homeland Security regarding our appointments that had been scheduled for us at our local Homeland Security office to give our biometrics (be fingerprinted again).

January 14th- Find out that my in-laws will no longer be back in town (they were out of the state visiting family) in time to make it to the appointment (yes, all 4 of us needed to be fingerprinted). My step-mom-in-law's brother passed away, and the funeral was the weekend of the 24th.

January 16th- I mail (you can't call and reschedule, I tried calling to reschedule) requests to have my in-laws fingerprinting appointments rescheduled.

January 23rd- My husband and I go in for our biometrics appointment. It was short and sweet. Not at all as spy-movie like as I thought it might be.

January 24th- Receive new appointment dates for my in-laws in the mail.

February 14th- My in-laws drive out bright and early to our local Department of Homeland Security building for their biometrics appointment.

February 22nd- Come home from a 2-night family get-away to a letter from the Department of Homeland Security. Our USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) agent sent us a letter stating that there was specific information missing from our home study and without that information our Immigration Approval request could not be processed or approved.
-I may have had a mini freak out. It's fuzzy at this point. I was very sleep deprived and it was over a month ago, but I'm pretty sure some kind of small-ish freak out happened, whether out loud or in my head, I don't exactly remember.-

February 23rd- Scan the letter from the Department of Homeland Security and email it to our social worker, since there was nothing we could do.

February 24th- Thankfully hear from our social worker that she got my email, had typed up a home study addendum, sent it to her supervisor for approval. Once approved she would mail us copies and also get copies to our agency.

March 5th- Receive home study addendum in the mail.

March 6th- Mail home study addendum to our Immigration Services Officer.

March 14th- Emailed our Immigration Services Officer to make sure she received our addendum.

March 15h- I got an email early (on a Saturday) that our immigration application had been approved, was mailed out (March 13th) and that we should be receiving it soon. That afternoon when we checked the mailbox, our Immigration Approval letter was there. We were so excited! We'd waited 2 1/2 months for that letter and it was finally here!

March 17th- After I drop the older kids off at school and stop at the UPS store for a pre-paid, self-addressed envelope, we meet with a friend who happens to be a notary to have our Immigration Approval letter notarized.
Then, I and my 2 little ones drive to the Secretary of Sate's office in the capitol to drop off the last few documents we needed state certified before we can send the last papers of our dossier to our case worker.
E and I both go to separate Walgreens to have passport pictures printed to include with our dossier papers.

March 19th- Receive our documents back from the Secretary of State. I make lots of copies. Also make sure our family pictures we need to include in our dossier are ready to go, along with copies of our passports.

March 20th- After double checking all of the papers I mail the last of what our case worker needs to complete our dossier! :)

March 22nd- My husband gets and email from our case worker (was sent to all of the families adopting from China, for some reason I didn't get it). It was a reminder email letting everyone know they had recently moved their office, and again just a reminder this is the new address...

In Anna from Frozen's voice, "Wait, what?"
-insert me having, not a panic attack, but, it wasn't pretty-

**Side note, I did get the original email with the mention of the address change. It came in a newsletter a few weeks earlier. I'm pretty sure I started reading the email while in the pick-up line at school, kids got in the truck, I put my phone down, never finished reading the newsletter, and the rest is history...

March 22-24- We are in contact with our case worker, letting her know I didn't get the reminder email, I sent everything (original documents, important, original documents) to the old address. She says not to worry that it'll be forwarded to the new address. Ok, crisis averted...for now...

March 27- Email our case worker to see if she's gotten our documents yet, you know since I mailed them a week ago, and I know the need to be forwarded and all that, but it's been a week, and I just really want to make sure they're not lost.
Nope, has not received them. Oh really? But do I have a tracking number I could check? Sure. (Just keep breathing)

Plug the tracking number in on the Post Office's website. Find out our envelope has bounced from the state I mailed it to, to the state it needs to be in, back to the state I originally mailed it to...deep breaths.

Email our case worker with the latest I've found out. She asks if I can call and see if I can get it sent to the right address...
Let me just say, I absolutely love our case worker! When she asked if I could call around, my first thought was, "this is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack." Call who? The post office(s) I'm calling are across the country. I'm pretty sure this is not going to work.
I start googling, get the phone number for one post office in the city our documents, according to the tracking information, are in. After going through the pre-recorded menu, and making selections that were dead ends, I talked to a live person, who told me they couldn't help me (my heart sank) but, here's the number for Consumer Affairs.
Asked a couple people to pray for me, as I was praying before making my next call.
Called Consumer Affairs, the man who answered the phone was wonderful, he went out of his way to check on things, and was able to tell me that if our envelope of documents was not delivered that day, they would be the next day. Also, if for some reason our envelope wasn't delivered he gave me another number to call or said to just call him back. Made. my. day.

March 28th- Got an email from our case worker. She received everything, and would be sending documents out that day to Washington DC that needed to be authenticated.

Once she gets those documents back, she can mail everything to China!

We are getting so much closer. We've still got a 2-3 month window before we'll know who our little girl is, but we are getting closer.

If you have been praying for us, thank you, so much!! We cannot begin to tell you how much we appreciate your prayers! Please keep praying!!