Not the best news

The USCIS refused to expedite our immigration approval onto the National Visa Center however they did go ahead and finish it at their office today. They will be mailing their approval via snail mail to us and the NVC on the east coast (hopefully, they mailed it out today). The NVC will take up to a week to get everything set for J to get his visa in Ethiopia so he can come home. Once we have that approval letter in our hand we need to fax it onto the national BCS office and it's up to them whether or not they will proceed to get us an embassy appointment set without knowing for sure the National Visa Center is done. The risk is that we could end up in Ethiopia waiting on them to approve us and get J his visa home. At this point, Dave and I are willing to take that risk knowing that they only need about a week and if we get a embassy date set it may not be for two weeks. Anyway, now we wait for this letter to come in the mail. If they sent it today from the other side of the mountains there's a chance we could get it tomorrow but then with the holiday on Monday, BCS won't touch it until Tuesday. Please say a prayer that things will move quickly after the weekend. We're ready to go. . .

Another update

Just talked to Dave and he said that the woman at a congressman's office said that USCIS is waiting on a new copy of the home study that shows we can adopt an older child. Bonnie with our agency said she over-nighted it over a week ago. Yet, They don't have it. So, Bonnie emailed them a copy of it today but it's not a signed copy. So, to cover our bases Dave called the CO branch of BCS to get them to fax a signed copy. I am hopeful that things could be moving along quickly by tomorrow. This is exciting and nerve wracking and overwhelming. I think the Lord's really been in this because I wonder how long USCIS would have waited for the home study copy that BCS supposedly sent. It's a good thing Dave called the congressman's office!

our congressman and travel prep

So, Dave made the call to our Congressman and they are ON IT! I don't know what the status is as Dave's busy at work and we haven't communitated a ton today. I hope they call him back to let him know what they found out. Like I said before, I hope the letter's in the mail today and that this was merely over-kill. I think it's neat that they're sensitive about adoption and wanted to take the time to help us. It's all we can do now so we conintue to wait.

I spend a good portion of my day making a chart of departures and arrivals and prices of tickets. After all was done I realized I hadn't checked those many flights for how many stops they made. Many of them, looking back, made up to two stops just from Washing DC to Addis Ababa. Ugh! That's 4 layovers total. Insane! So, I gave up. We need to just wait until we know for sure when we're going and then let a travel agent do their job. I got excited about some cheaper tickets then very disappointed with all the layovers. So, I quit.

Overview and Update

In April of last year we got our letter of approval from US Citizen and Immigration services to adopt a child up to two years old. In Oct. we accepted a referral for an older boy. We had a court date in Ethiopia in Dec. and were approved to adopt him. After that our agency was going to send in a new request to USCIS to get approved for a child up to 5. After the court date there was a lot of things they needed to get done in Ethiopia as well, like getting our son's medical tests done, getting his Birth certificate etc. Well, 3 weeks after the court date had passed our agency emailed appoligizing that there had been a misscommunication within two of their branches and the USCIS request hadn't been sent.

As of today, everything is ready in Ethiopia and we're merely waiting on the USCIS approval. So, our agency's mistake is what is holding us up. :-( We got an email from an agency worker suggesting that we contact our Colorado State Representative asking them to contact USCIS on our behalf. Dave is working on this now. They said they will contact USCIS for us but are looking for our case number which we do not have. So, once Dave can track down that number the congressman's office will get in touch with USCIS.

Our prayer is that this is all unnecessary and that the letter of approval will be in our mail box today. As soon as we have that letter our agency will contact the embassy in Ethiopia and set up an appointment for us. We're praying it will be Feb. 2nd as another Colorado family just got an ebassy appointment on that date and it would be wonderful to be there the same time as a CO. family.

If we get the Feb. 2nd embassy date then we will most likely be leaving on Jan. 30th. Please pray!

the delay update

As you know, our adoption agency submitted our request with USCIS later then they should have. We just got this email from our contact with our agency.

I did everything I could last week - and you did your part. They (US Citizen Immigration Services)do not process Orphan Cases every day. They have certain days set aside for Orphan Processing. They also do not usually notify me when a they complete something for a family. I did request that they do notify me. You will probably know of your approval first. You will receive it in the mail. Your I-171H is current, it just does not show approval for an older child.
You will receive a revised I-171H showing the extended age.

Reason for delay

It's our agency's fault and I am trying not to be angry. We had to get re-approved by USCIS to adopt an older child then we originally requested. We just got an email today from our agency asking us to write a letter to USCIS begging them to expedite our approval so we can still travel this month. There was a lack of communication within the CO and IA branches of our agency and it sounds like we've been waiting for 3 weeks for nothing. UGH!