Fingerprints Do-Over and New WBC

Yesterday we ventured to beautiful, scenic Elizabeth, NJ to have our fingerprints re-done at the Immigration offices. We originally had these done in June '09 (because I just looked that up), but our ever-diligent immigration officer assigned to our case made us go again because they were going to expire. I think they may be good for 18 months, I'm not even sure. If they are good for 18 months, then we just went 5 months early. I don't know, that seems.... Maybe they are only good for 14 months or something. I want to look this up. She's been holding up Sean's paperwork though for our fingerprint do-over. Hopefully things will start to move again now. Because while we're sitting here twiddling our thumbs, wondering if our immigration officer has just chosen our paperwork to take out some latent aggression and bust some balls, Sean is growing and learning new things in Korea.

I know this for a fact, because we finally received this month's well baby check! It was dated July 5, but why it took so long to be emailed to us is the same sort of mystery along the lines of why this is taking so long, and why our immigration officer is being over-zealous with our paperwork. Sean grew a centimeter from last month (they use the metric system over there) and is now 30.4 inches tall. His weight stayed the same though, at 21.3 lbs. It says he is walking by holding on to furniture and now waves bye-bye. Hopefully, with a little luck, we will travel to go get him and he will soon by waving bye-bye to Korea. 

New Picture of Sean! He Got the Gifts We Sent!!!!!

Ok, ok, I am freaking the fuck out right now!! We just, just JUST got a new picture of our adorable son, Sean, in Korea with the items we sent in the care package last month. He's holding the photo book we made for him, open to the page with our picture. Look! It's almost our first picture together as a family!!! But let's cut to the chase people-- HOW FREAKING CUTE IS MY KID!!!!?????????  I am losing my effing mind here.

E.P. Phone Home

Yesterday we received the surprising news that Sean had received his EP, or Emigration Permit. This came as a surprise to us, even though when I looked at our potential timeline of steps in the adoption process, it turned out to be about right, timing-wise. I think what is throwing us off is that we were anticipating some things to be more chronological than they are turning out to be. For instance, we thought USCIS would have approved our I600 form by now (Petition to Classify a Foreign Orphan as An Immediate Relative). This form establishes Sean as an orphan being adopted by U.S. citizens and also is required to apply for his visa. But that's been delayed by a request for more information about the birth mother's relinquishment and also a missing copy of our updated home study. (You can read more about that in a previous post.)

I was completely sent into a tailspin by the receipt of the EP. Guidelines say that you can expect to travel within 3 weeks to two months of receipt of EP. Three weeks? Three weeks!? It really started hitting home how soon this was happening. I suppose most normal people would be overwhelmed with excitement about this, but I just completely started to panic and freak out about all the stuff I still wanted to get done before Sean came home. I didn't think there would be any possibility we'd be traveling in late July/early August.

But today, we heard again from our officer at USCIS. My husband had sent an email asking about fingerprints-- we were told our fingerprints from two years ago were going to expire, and we were scheduled to have them redone. But, we were also led to believe that if our I600 was approved before they expired, we wouldn't need to get them re-done. Today we're hearing that because our fingerprints are going to expire, we now need to get them re-done before our I600 is approved. Huh? This is the complete opposite of what we were told previously, but I guess why would I think anything would go smoothly or make sense when dealing with the US Government and its bureaucracy and red tape? So, my immediate panic from yesterday has quelled slightly, since our fingerprints aren't scheduled until July 23. And as of today, our I600 won't be approved until our new fingerprints are done. This bought me two weeks. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. I want a little more time.

Sean's Furniture Arrived!

The delivery men just left, and the furniture looks great!

Unfortunately, the delivery guys, as per company policy (which I found out about after I called to complain), left all the packing materials in two giant boxes on our driveway. We spent about half an hour sorting out the giant, squeaky pieces of Styrofoam from the cardboard, and breaking both down into contractor bags and a single box. We were furious over this. We only get to throw out as much will fit in our lone garbage can in this township, and one bag of bulky, non-flexible Styrofoam pretty much takes up the whole thing. And, of course, with the holiday this weekend we're missing garbage. Compound that with the fact that our recycling just went out and now we have to wait another nearly two weeks with these big giant box full of smaller boxes on the side of our house... we're just livid about this. We've gotten furniture before, and never have we been left with the detritus. I will think twice before ever shopping at this place again. This is bad, bad customer service. Think twice about ordering from Bedroom Galleries! You may want to think about garbage in your town and the level of inconvenience you want to deal with.

 Grrrr...

Minor Annoyances, Potential Delays

I'm going to try to explain this in the most un-convoluted way possible, but I may not succeed. We have a Case Officer at USCIS (Immigration) who has to make sure everything is in order with all the forms and paperwork we've done so far. I believe this includes everything from our fingerprints to our homestudy to all the adoption acceptance paperwork.

A few weeks ago our USCIS Officer contacted us and requested additional proof of relinquishment from the birth mother. This was no big deal, as our agency had already contacted us and said basically, look, if you're asked to supply more information about the birth mother's relinquishment, don't worry, just let us know, and we'll send it. They have it, they just view it as a privacy issue, and don't give it up unless they are asked. What bugs me is that if they know that adoptive families have been getting routinely asked for this information, why not just supply it outright as part of the packet? Anyway, we took care of that (and in less time than originally projected) but there still seems to be a lingering issue of our missing home study addendum.

Our Officer had also mentioned that she couldn't find our home study addendum (which we had to have done when we moved). I had sent it myself in February, and have proof of delivery and all that. Because the Officer said she didn't have it, we requested last week that our agency send another copy of the addendum, which they said they would take care of for us.

But now, the letter we received yesterday seems to imply that our Officer needs a whole home study, not with a separate addendum. Huh? I'm confused. She needs them combined into a single document? Why? Since when? I mean, obviously our agency didn't think it was a problem to send the original home study and then an addendum when we moved. But now it is? Wade is going to get in touch with Holt today and see if he can clarify what needs to be sent to our USCIS Officer. All I know is that we bounded through the potential delay the relinquishment paperwork posed, only to get potentially stalled again by our home study, which was originally completed in January 2008!

I've heard people in the international adoption process complain about the paperwork. We haven't had a problem with the paperwork, it has been straightforward and relatively simple. What we do have a problem with is the bullshit red tape and bureaucracy that is making it difficult to comply with changes to procedures or whatever is going on here. All I know is that this is delaying the approval of our I-600 form and the issuing of our I-171. Which is then holding up our travel call to go and bring Sean home.