Not Today

Arggggg. We are still waiting for the 171H. I was sure it would be to us no later than Monday, and now it is Tuesday and still not in the mail today. As my husband so nicely put it, everything will happen in God's timing and so there is no use in stressing over when it will come. I truly want everything to happen according to God's perfect plan, but I am having a very hard time accepting that God's timing doesn't use the same calculations I have been using to tell us when things will happen. I am learning a good lesson in patience and trust. God has a child already chosen for us. It is by His timing alone that we will be matched with this child at the right time. Now if only I could internalize this and not be upset when things don't go my way. In the mean time, I look forward to checking the mail tomorrow and for the Ethiopia conference call. This will be our 1st conference call while in the Ethiopia program and I hope to learn lots.

conversation with USCIS officer

I spoke with our very nice USCIS officer yesterday and she said that she would be getting to our file yesterday or today and then mailing us our I 171H. This means we will be sending AWAA our dossier this Monday. YIPPEE!!!!!!

The List

Ok, so those of you who know me, know that I tend to be obsessive about things. Ok, so that's an understatement. Well, I have come across a spreadsheet from our agency that lists the families who are DTE (dossier to Ethiopia), when they were DTE, and the age and gender of the children they are requesting. Each family is given a number associated with their place in line for either an infant boy, infant girl, twins, siblings, toddler boy, etc. We are not DTE yet, but expect to be in 2 weeks. Also, I am not pretending to know everything, but I have been following lots of blogs and don't know of any other family requesting a toddler boy that would be DTE before us. With this being said, there were only 8 families on the list for a toddler boy. I am assuming we would be #9. Today #1 on the list got their referral, leaving only 7 families before us. I am very optimistic that we will have a referral sooner rather than later. I'm hoping within a couple of months. The other thing I am excited about is that only 2 of these families are requesting a child over 24 months. We have requested a boy 12-30 months, but have been approved up 36 months. So..... we should be #3 in line for a boy between 25-36 months. To get even more detailed, the families on the upper part of our range are now #1 +#5. If #1 got a referral for a younger boy, that would make us #2 in line for a 2-3yr old. Ok, I'm done. Do you see what I mean about those obsessive tendencies? I might be a little excited over here.

Driving

Today I spent driving to Tallahassee to get two papers from our dossier authenticated at the Secretary of State office. I left the house at 7am and arrived at 11:30am. I spent 5 minutes from the time I parked to the time I got back in the car with my 2 papers, and then treated myself to a quick lunch and headed back home. I arrived home at 4:30, miraculously without a speeding ticket, and within 30 minutes received a call from the home study director saying our final home study is in the mail and will be to us by tomorrow afternoon. Yippee!!!! My hopes are that it gets to us before the fed ex office closes so that I can immediately overnight it to our immigration officer. With our two papers authenticated, we will be able to send our dossier to AWAA the second we get our 171 H from USCIS. Now I know there are couriers that could have saved me a day of driving, but I am cheap and I am scared to death of something happening to these very important papers (like my son spilling water all over the opened dossier folder. Thank goodness for page protectors. Whew.) Anyways, staying on subject, I also realize how important every day is in this process. One of the things I am pretty certain of is that our son has been born. I could have mailed these docs, but it would have taken more time. Each day that is lost in the process, is a day that we are not home with our son, a day our son is without the love of a mom and dad, and another day that our son is living in poverty, fighting for survival. My love for my son and anxiousness to hold him is what made me so happy to spend 9 hrs. driving for 2 very special pieces of paper. So long for now. Going to take a short nap before heading to church.

Hugely Exciting News!!!!!!

The Lord is moving mountains today!!!!! At the end of last week, I had left a message for our USCIS (Immigration Services) officer to see how we should handle the switch from Rwanda to Ethiopia. When we initially submitted our I 600a form, we were still with the Rwanda program and thus submitted our application and home study for Rwanda. When we switched programs, we kept our biometrics appointment as though we were still with Rwanda even though we had switched. We were hoping this would pay off and save us the time waiting for another fingerprint appointment, possibly setting us back a month or two. It payed off. Friday, I spoke with our social worker telling her our urgency for submitting an amended home study. At that point I had not been able to reach anyone at USCIS and feared our paperwork would be processed incorrectly, causing us some problems. Today, our VERY nice officer, who insisted I call her by her first name, told me that there are only 7 people ahead of us and that she would take care of us. Not only do we not need to submit any more fees, but she told us not even to submit a new I600a. All we have to do is Fedex her an amended home study and she would have our 171H (approval) to us in a week. A WEEK!!!!!! I thought that would take at least one month. How incredibly exciting. As I sat there jumping up and down screaming and not knowing what to do with myself, I decided to email the Home Study agency to pass along the good news. The lady in charge immediately emailed me back saying she would do the amended home study for us and call us tonight to finish up. It sounds like we will have the revised home study in a few days and the 171H a week later. I just can't believe how close we are. Oh yea, after I read the email from the home study director, our accountant called to tell us he was finished with the employment verification letter (one of our last papers to collect). GOD IS SOOOO GOOD! I think I will drive to the capitol Monday morning to get our papers authenticated and thus ready to send to the agency in our COMPLETED Dossier once the 171H comes in. Bye for now....I think I'll jump up an down some more and send some more Hallelujah's to the Lord.