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.