A Breakthrough!

Every since I came back from Haiti last month, I have been trying to get a response from the adoption officer at USCIS. The reason was we were told in Haiti when I was signing our I600 that they did not have our case there and therefore could not continue processing our case until that happened. Sure enough our approval letter did say that our file was being retained at the home office. Why? I don't know.

When I got home 4 weeks ago, I started calling and emailing. Of course with the upcoming holidays, I wasn't really surprised that I wasn't getting any response - other than the automated email response. I decided not to get frustrated and cut them some slack until everyone got back to work after the first of the year. Then after the first of the year came and went, I told myself "Okay, they are backed up so I'll give them some time to get caught up."

My sister said I should cry on my phone messages to solict a response. I told her I didn't want them to think I was unstable. I said in my frustration I preferred to curse but I didn't think that was really a good idea either. :)

Someone asked me if I was really stressing over this. I thought about it and said no. To be honest, I knew had done all I knew to do. I had also prayed and given this situation to God. He is able to do far and beyond what I could ever dream. That is what I am trusting in.

I want N home with us with all my heart, believe me. That's in my thoughts or the back of my mind at all times. This has been an endlessly long, frustrating, disappointing, exciting, incredible, heart-wretching, mindboggling, friendship building, time-eating, faith-stretching journey that I will be SO glad to be on the other side of. The bottom line is that I have given this adoption to my all-knowing God who loves us and N more than we can fathom. If she is supposed to come home to us then He WILL work it out. I CAN NOT make it happen but He CAN.

I woke up yesterday morning with this situation on my mind. I decided to go online and try again to get an appointment to go to our USCIS office ( 2 1/2 hours away). I had tried before and it would just say there are no appointments available.

I decided to try again. I get out of bed and quietly creep through the dark house. I didn't put on my slippers so as to make as little noise as possible across the hardwood floors. You see we have 6 chihuahuas with BIG ears that decide it's time to go out RIGHT NOW if they see me.

I grabbed the laptop off the desk and like a wraith slipped back to my room. After checking my emails, I go to the sight and click on INFOPASS. Lo and behold, I am actually able to make an appointment for 2 weeks out! Hooray! Then it says you have to bring a copy of this appointment with you. Arrggggg!!! I realize I am on the laptop and I've never set it up to use the printer. It's time for the kids to get up and the dogs to go out anyway so off to the living room I go. Remember, I have dial-up so it's slow going. I go on the desktop, cancel my former appointment and remake another one for the same day and print it out. Ahhh! Now we are getting somewhere.

The kids are up and moving so we sit down for our family devotion. We just get started when Caleb says he hears my cell phone in my bedroom. We look at him like he's crazy but sure enough when Lexi got to it there was a missed call. From who you ask - the adoption officer I had been trying to reach for 4 weeks! ( She's in a different time zone so it wasn't quite so early for her.)

I immediately called her back and she was soooo nice. She apologized for taking so long to get back with me. I was so excited to talk to her that I had to keep taking deep breaths so I wouldn't cry. She said she had been working on our case. She had been emailing back and forth to Haiti, the National Visa Center, and somewhere else to figure out what the problem was. The computer says they have retained our file - which she says that is unusual for Haiti adoptions. It also shows that we were approved but they just can't find our file anywhere. Can you believe it?

Her solution is that we send all of our I-600A paperwork over again and she will reconstruct our file. No problem! I pulled out our file, made copies and overnighted it to her. Unfortunately, she said it would take 3 days to get to her once it arrived at the building but she told me to mark URGENT and it might get to her a day sooner.

I don't know how long things will take to get straightened out but I feel positive that it will.

Today, our birth parent interview is scheduled - 11:00. There are several negative possible scenarios going through my mind - what if M, the director forgot, what if her mom doesn't show up, what if they request DNA - equalling more money and time. All of these things have happened to my fellow adoptive families.

Okay, all of this is out of my control. Again. I'm choosing not to worry but it will be hard not to be checking my computer a lot for the next couple of days- as if I don't do that anyway.