SUBMITTED!!!!!!!

After checking email 100 times today - maybe a few more - I got word about 9PM tonight from my most wonderful state side paperwork helper, Nancy, that all of our paperwork was successfully translated, no errors were found, and our dossier has been submitted by the RR facilitation team to the State Dept of Adoptions (SDA) in Elijah's country!!!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!

So, for all you non-RR folks, you may be wondering what exactly this means and what all the exclamation points are about. :-) It means the government in Elijah's country knows we exist and that we are requesting an appointment with them to officially get his referral. See, right now, we are not officially "matched" to Elijah. His file has been pulled from the international adoption "pool" (I think, but I'm not 100% sure about that), but a family from his country could still adopt him. Chances of that happening are slim to none. No worries there. So, once we get his "referral", that gives us the legal authority to go to his orphanage and meet him and start the process to legally make him our son. Oh what joy! :-)  It also means that we won't have to redo any paperwork for our dossier. Our dossier is 100% done and 100% correct and 100% submitted! That is a huge relief as well!

So, now what? We wait. Many wise adoptive parents have said this process is a game of hurry up and wait, over and over again. Oh, how true.

We wait to hear from the SDA about when our SDA referral appt will be. Lately, families have been receiving their travel date about 2 to 2 1/2 weeks after submission.  The travel date has been about 2-4 weeks after that - sometimes even less than 2 weeks! So, we could be traveling as early as the week of Thanksgiving, or as late as mid-December! Holy cow! The thought is so exciting and honestly, a little frightening too. There is so much I want to get done before I leave. I'd better get on it, huh?  But the reality is that we cannot wait to wrap our arms around Elijah. This is the REAL DEAL, folks! :-)

Hang on, dear Elijah, Daddy and Mommy will be there soon...very, very soon...

WHAT A GREAT DAY!!!

Our package with our dossier paperwork in it was DELIVERED AND SIGNED for today! A whole business day early!  YAY!  Praise God!  Please pray all will be ok with the documents and our dossier will be submitted to Elijah's gov't very soon. :-)

AND.....even better news!!  TORI HAS A FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!

PRAISE GOD!!!  I am so, so, so happy!!!  God has answered many prayers said for her around the country. I haven't found out who it is yet, but I'll let you know when they have a blog up and running in case you want to follow along. :-) Andrea, the Executive Director of RR, also posted today they received some information about her. Here's what she said: "She is alive. Her lower body part is paralyzed. She cannot walk and probably never will. Upper body part is functioning normally. She has deep cognitive delay.


Can't wait to see her blossom!!!"

I can't wait either. :-) "Deep cognitive delay" - really, who wouldn't have deep cognitive delay after being in a poor orphanage for the first 4 years of her life w/o proper nutrition and stimulation and no love, and then another year stuck in a crib in MUCH worse circumstances.  But, please, please, please be in prayer for this family. The evil one is not going to be happy when someone comes to take away some of his long held territory. This really is a spiritual battle folks.  I'm SO very thankful that we have so many prayer warriors storming Heaven for us. I pray this family does too, in addition to all of you.

Be blessed today!  God is Good and He does answer prayers! 

Dossier in Paris!

Yep, our dossier is in Paris, France already!  Yahoo!!! After "watching" it sit in Indianapolis all day yesterday and not leaving until 2AM this morning, I'm very surprised it's there already! The expected delivery date is Monday, the 25th, but maybe it will be early.  We'll watch and see!

Beast Photos

A few photos from yesterday and today...

All of the documents of the Beast before Pat left for Indiana! Isn't it pretty???

State capitol of Indiana - you know, just because we are collecting state capitol photos this past last week... Next capitol building I hope to see is the one in Elijah's country!  Do they even have a "capitol" building? No matter, we'll be in the capital city to get his referral. That's all I need. :-)

The "Beast with the employment verification letter with the IN state apostille. What do you say? Do you like the IN or WI one better?  I'm not sure, but I do know the IN one is much cheaper and quicker! :-)



Just think - the person that opens this will be in Elijah's country and will be part of the facilitation team that will begin translating it!!!!



What does this have to do with our adoption???  Absolutely NOTHING!  But it was on the camera as we took this tonight and I couldn't resist. It's a mongo HUUUUGE watermelon from our garden. That's a regular sized apple next to it.  We haven't cut into it yet...not sure how it will taste! Oh, and by the way, this watermelon has real black seeds in it, unlike the "fake" ones you buy at the store. LOL



We have a tracking number!!!

Thanks to the willingness of my awesome husband to drive down to the middle of Indiana, our dossier is on it's way to EE!!!!  That's right - the "Beast" has been slain. :-) YAHOOOOOO!!!!!!  Thank you all SO much for praying!!!!!!  But please don't stop. Please pray it gets over there ok and quickly, and that all the documents pass inspection so we can be submitted to the gov't in Elijah's country.

I can't believe it is done.  Countless phone calls (mostly to gov't entities), 2 trips to Milwaukee, 2 trips to Madison, a loooong trip to Valparaiso and Indianapolis (he waited only 2 minutes to get the document apostilled!), a trip to my home town for marriage licenses, a couple trips for birth certificates, visit to the sheriff's dept for fingerprinting, a trip to the town hall, a couple trips to the doctor's office (Hi Debbie!), lots of trips to the bank to visit the notary, a 10-pk of blue pens :-), lots of paper, lots of tears, and a whole lotta PRAYER!  It's done! THANK YOU LORD!!! To HIM be the GLORY!!! Is Elijah worth it??? Oh, most definitely YES!  Would I do it all over again? YES, in a heart beat. (I definitely have learned from my mistakes.) Are we excited we could be meeting Elijah in less than 2 months?  Most definitely!!!  

It's an emotional day for sure. And I'm not the only that gets emotional around here. :-)  Pat even took pictures for me today, which I'll post later.  He even had the camera packed yesterday before I asked about it. Whatta guy! Love you Honey!

The "Beast" has left the state...

and no, I don't mean my husband either!!! :-) Pat left for Indiana before supper with the "beast", a.k.a. our dossier paperwork, in hand. Well, actually it was in an envelope and double bagged in case a soda exploded in the car or something. LOL

And we have a new employment verification letter!!! Praise God!!!  Of course, as usual, the process has to have some drama to it to keep me on my toes (or I should say, on my knees). After leaving a message with Pat's boss's secretary before 8AM, I finally called the "operator" on the general number at about 11AM after not hearing anything.  Come to find out, both his boss AND his secretary are out of the office - all week! (Deep breathing...stay calm...) But a HUGE kudos to Melissa who came through for us. She typed the new letter (I sent her the scanned copy of the first one), had the one boss that was there (thankfully, Pat's company has 3 owners - only one was in the office today) take it to a notary at a bank, and the notary's name verified on the Indiana Sec of State website.  Melissa emailed me the scanned copy of the new letter, I forwarded it to my most wonderful state side paperwork helper, Nancy, and she ok'ed it almost immediately! Nancy rocks! Melissa rocks! Praise the Lord!!!  (Exhaling now...whew...) I think we should be good to go now - Lord willing.

Pat will pick up the letter in the morning bright and early from his place of employment and then head down to Indiana Secretary of State's office. I posted a question on the RR yahoo board about how Indiana was about apostilling documents while you wait. A nice lady responded that she was there the day before and had 5 done while she waited. Yay for the Hoosiers!  So, please pray all goes well with that. A FedEx location is right in the same building as the Sec of State, so Pat won't have to go out of his way to send it off to EE. 

I can't believe it is so close! It's still all so surreal to me...like this is someone else's blog, someone else's story.  There is still a chance we could be submitted to the SDA (State Dept of Adoptions) in Elijah's country in early November!  Then we wait 2-3 weeks to receive our travel date, which could be 2-4 weeks out from that (or more). It's all up in the air. The Lord's timing is perfect. I will rest in that. Dear sweet, Elijah, your mommy and daddy are coming soon!

You are NOT going to believe this!!!

After sleeping in this morning, I was doing the happy dance when I checked the tracking # of Pat's employment letter coming back from being apostilled in Indiana. It was "out for delivery"! Yippee!!! I got all the other documents for our dossier in order - tripled checked everything - and was waiting for the announcement that the mailman had come. I went on-line to find FedEx places that ship on Saturdays. The kids ran down to get the mail and I eagerly ripped open the envelope...That's when I saw it. The letter had NO apostille!!! Instead it had a sheet of paper with it that said the notary was not found in their system. WHAT?!?! Evidentally, the notary that signed Pat's employment letter is inactive. SIGH...of course, as you read the other day, my usual first response is to panic (and cry!) and think about the worse thing that can happen (we would be delayed long enough to not get submitted before they close the end of Nov., etc). I thought the EARLIEST we could get the dossier out would be next Friday, if we overnighted everything and the processing time in Indiana was quick - once we got a new letter. And then the evil one is whispering in my ear..."this is all your fault...you could have had this taken care of 3 weeks ago...this is all your fault." Get thee behind me!

But my husband to the rescue!  I thank God the Lord gave me a man who isn't controlled by his emotions (like me!) and one that can think rationally and analytically (unlike me!).  So, after he processed this and had time to think, he came up with a tentative plan.  We call his office (secretary/boss) on Monday morning and explain the situation. Hopefully she can draft a new letter with all the exact same salary numbers (which is in our homestudy - they MUST match!). Maybe they can get it notarized on Monday with a new notary. I'll have her scan a copy and email to me to verify it's correct. Pat will drive down to Valpo Monday night (3 hrs) and stay overnight. He will then get the letter Monday night or early Tues morning. He'll drive it down to Indianapolis (another 3-4 hrs from Valpo) and pray they will process the letter while he waits. (I'll call on Monday to ask and beg.)  He'll bring the whole dossier with him, add this letter, and ship it via FedEx from Indianapolis and drives home safely Tues night ....LORD WILLING!  So, once again, I ask for your prayers for our paperwork and this process. Please pray that all goes smoothly with the new letter and notary, the Sec of State in Indianapolis is willing to process right away, and everything goes well with getting it shipped over on Tuesday. IF this all works, I guess we will only lose ONE day, as FedEx didn't pick up around here on Saturday anyway. So, once again, the Lord is faithful. Once again, he knew all of this was going to happen. He knew Pat would be able to take Tuesday off of work in between the projects he's working on. Oh, I pray that someday I'll be mature enough in my faith that my first reaction is not panic and tears and thinking worst case, but instead it will be a calmness knowing the Lord knows and that He has gone before us to prepare a way. Someday...

P.S. If there is any adoptive parents reading this that will be getting documents apostilled in Indiana, there is a link on the Sec of State page to check to "Verify your notary information". Please use it. Wish I would have.

SUCCESS!!!

Thank you to everyone that was praying for us today regarding the apostilling "hiccup" we needed to resolve today. We are good to go! Well, good to ship our dossier over to Ukraine as soon as the other document gets here from Indiana, which should be Monday. (Wait, I just checked the tracking and it left Oak Creek - south side of Milw - at 6pm tonight! Maybe it will be here tomorrow?!? Is Fed Ex open tomorrow? I'll find out!) Anyway, today went very, very well! For how panicked I was last night, the Lord smoothed the bumps and took care of everything for me.

Just in case you need a little story to put you to sleep, here you go...Sweet Nancy (my most wonderful state side paperwork helper) answered my panic email from last night right away this morning. She has such a good way of calming me down. :-)  She recommended calling the Sec of State (SoS) office right away. They needed to be redone. I called right away and the regular lady (the one that goofed up) is out of the office today (ack!), but the person who answered said bring them down and she would fix them - today. Great!  But how do the fix them? She said they put a big X through the first certificate and write "void" on it, then attach a new certificate. Hmmm...not sure that is going to fly w/ this country. She said it's up to me whether or not I want to bring new documents or not. So, I email Nancy and she's never seen it done like that before. I'm NOT taking a chance, this is WAY too important. New documents it is then. I start printing the 14 documents we need redone that I have here. Pat agrees to drive back to our bank over his early lunch hour and sign them with me. GREAT! We can do this!

Now, the other document that was wrong was the notarized state police clearance/background check. This is the one we needed to send in ink fingerprints for, pay $20, wait a week, etc. I called down to the number on the letter, and explained my story. And wouldn't you know it - just as the Lord would have it - the person I was talking to was the one that notarized the letter! She pulled it up on her computer but said the man that signed it was out of the office today, but the other person that could sign it was leaving at noon. (It was 10:20am. Not going to make it.) I asked if she could do it for me ahead of time and I could stop by and pick it up later in the afternoon. Sure! No problem! Oh, everyone was SO nice today!

So, we meet at the bank, get our documents signed and notarized, stop for lunch quick as I feed the baby, and off to Mad-town we go!  Everything is so much easier the second time. We knew exactly what corner to park in at the ramp. The kids wanted to park on the very top floor. Sure, why not? :-)  We dropped off the first 14 documents and took a nice leisurely 2 block stroll alongside the beautiful capital to the Justice Dept. We got the letter in less than 2 minutes and went back to the SoS office. They were almost done and did the last one quick. I gave her a prayer card with Elijah's sweet face on it and she added it to their "wall of fame" of many other adoptive babies that have come home. Then we were out of there in 5 minutes!!! Praise the Lord! It couldn't have gone any better!  Of course, it would have been better to not have gone at all. But as I posted quick this morning, this could have been SOOO much worse.  The documents we could have needed redone could have been our medical forms - yikes!, mortgage/home ownership letter, homestudy license, etc. Any of those would have been much more difficult to get redone. Even worse, our whole dossier could have been over in EE before the errors were found. Or, I could have waited until Monday when I got the last piece before I checked them. I'm so amazed at the Lord's goodness and faithfulness!  What Satan meant for harm and delay and disruption, the Lord used for good to bring Himself glory! Amen!

Another little bit of "good" that came from this, the kids have had the first several lessons on elevator "manners". Don't stand right in front of the door while we are waiting to get on, step to the side so others can get on, get on before the door closes on you, etc. They also saw a bit how a parking ramp works, a little how our gov't works, and most importantly, how good God is. While I'll fully admit no 3 R's were taught at our school today, some good life lessons were learned. Learning isn't just academics.

I'll leave you with a photo in front of the building that we visited 4x in the last 4 days - taking the elevator up to the 10th floor each time. It's hard to see, but it says Secretary of State on the glass right about the kids' heads. You can see Sarah in the blue in the reflection. :-) And yes, I know this isn't quite how you are supposed to wear this Ergo baby carrier, but she was antsy upstairs so I took her out for a bit. She went right back in after this. Ok, good night now!!!

P.S. I found out how to pronounce "apostille" today. It's "AP-uh-steel". Who knew? Not me...my kids aren't the only ones learning things!



We have a plan...

The Secretary of State's office will redo the documents - today. They need to be redone. The way they redo them is to put an X on the form and write void and attach a new one. Nancy says she's never seen it done that way and this is WAY too important to have them reject the documents over there.

So, we are redoing the documents - meeting Pat at the bank to resign the 14 documents and then heading down to Madison. The State police should have a new letter waiting for us. Printing as I type this. This could have been SOOOO much worse. God is FAITHFUL! I'll share more about that and update when I get back. Please pray for no more hiccups! :-)  The document from Indiana is finally in the tracking system, so it could be here tomorrow or most likely, Monday. YAY!

Breathing, breathing...

I was going to title this "PANIC", but decided I really need to take a breath and pray and ask you do to do the same. Breath in - breath out.

I pulled out all of my dossier documents and started comparing the notary's name on the documents to the notary's name on the apostille sheet - you know, the one with the shiny gold star. FIFTEEN of them are wrong!!!  The notary's name is spelled wrong on FIFTEEN of them!!!  14 of them are the same notary - the one at the bank. An extra "s" was added to her name. Then on a different one, the notary's first name is wrong. Listed as "Terri" when it should be "Teresa". Oh my!!!!

I have an email into my most wonderful stateside paperwork helper, Nancy, to ask her if the documents are going to be ok. Do you think that for a country that demands signatures in blue ink, notary stamps not touching any words, no white-out, etc, and requires an extra document that says Pat and Patrick are the same person is going to think this is ok? Nope. I don't either.  And in order for these documents to be official, an ink stamp is applied to both the 3/4 sheet of the apostille and the document itself. So, I have a hunch that all of these documents will need to be redone too. Maybe I shouldn't speculate, but I need to think out my plan for tomorrow - which includes asking for prayer support! So, that's why I'm here typing at you.



These are my first set of documents. You can see the stamp in the upper right hand corner.

The good news is that all but one of these documents are the easy "print and sign" type. The bad news is that the other one is my state police clearance. It was notarized at the state level. But hey, the State Dept of Justice is in Madison too.  So, here's my plan if they all need to be redone. Call the Secretary of State office that does the apostilling to tell her I'm coming down today to get them redone and ask nicely that she do them while I wait. Call the State Dept of Justice and ask if I can get a new letter. If it's another $20, so be it. Hopefully it will be close to the SoState's office. Somehow figure out how to get Pat out of work to get those 14 documents resigned with a notary close to his work. Go down to Madison, drop off of the documents to get re-apostilled, get my state police letter, go get it apostilled, and come home with ALL of my documents. (Wouldn't it be fun if the Indiana envelope was in the mailbox when I got back?) This is all great as long as everyone is in the office and feeling cooperative. :-)

The most wonderful news is that none of this is a surprise to God. He knew I needed my calendar completely clear tomorrow. Please pray that IF I have to travel back down, that everyone will be cooperative, in the office, and we get done what we need to. Prayers for safe travels too! Patience for the kids would be a good idea too. THANK YOU!

Almost there...

In the mail today, I received all of the documents that were in Madison to get apostilled. They all look so official and fancy! (I'll post a picture soon.) So, that's the good news!

The not-so-good news is that the document from Indiana is not here yet, so we can't send off our dossier yet until we get it. And I'm kicking myself for that. Since it is only one document and Indiana is FREE for apostilling, I could have sent this weeks ago. I intended to, but just didn't get to it. :-( UGH! Live and learn I guess. Next time I'll know better. Did you catch that Mom? Next time. :-)  Ah, we will see how the Lord leads. One just never knows...

APPROVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did not expect to post this today. (Oh me of little faith!) But I was shocked when I got the mail today!

 OUR GOLDEN TICKET HAS ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  OUR I-171H IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe it?!?!?!  I can't either!  I was completely shocked. When my USCIS officer did not call back yesterday, I thought for sure there was no news. She must have approved us shortly after I talked to her on Monday.  Oh, the Lord's Faithfulness never ceases to amaze me!!!! To God be ALL the GLORY!!!! THANK YOU to everyone who has been praying! Please don't stop!

So, what exactly does this mean?  It means that once we get a cover sheet notarized to go with the I-171H, we need to have it apostilled. So, my plan is to drive it down to Madison on Tuesday AM. I plan to call first, so she will hang onto my documents already there. Hopefully, she will be able to do this one "while we wait", even though they don't offer that service. Please pray that all works out ok.  IF the apostilled document from Indiana comes on Tuesday (pesky gov't holiday on Monday, so no mail and no apostilling going on), we will send our whole dossier over to Elijah's country!!!  I can't believe we are SO close. It all seems so surreal.

VERY tentative timeline from here once our dossier is in country:

• 2-4 weeks for translation and submission of our dossier to the EE gov't
• About 2 weeks after submission we receive a travel date
• Travel date will be 2-4 weeks out from when we receive the date

But keep in mind, EE closes down the first 2 weeks in January. New Year's is a BIG holiday over there, as well as they celebrate Christmas on January 6th or 7th.  A few years ago, someone was submitted on Nov. 7th and didn't travel until Jan 20th or so.  So, there are A LOT of variables here.  "Best case" in my mind would be to have our travel/court the 2nd or 3rd week in December (or earlier!), have our 10-day waiting period over their holidays and bring Elijah HOME the 3rd week in January.  Although, it is very possible we will have to wait to travel until mid-January. :-( I probably shouldn't have even speculated this much. But the Lord knows!  His timing is PERFECT.  Proverbs 3:5-6 - "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."

And wouldn't you know, this precious piece of paper that we've been praying for and waiting so long for is just a plain sheet of white paper. The letters "I-171H" are only printed on the very, very bottom in like pt. 2 font. I had been warned about this on the RR yahoo board, so I knew what to expect. But poor Pat...he was a little disappointed...no golden star (not yet!). Very anti-climatic. So, I thought I would share a little video with you. This is the song that plays in my head whenever I hear the words "Golden Ticket".



(It wouldn't let me embed the video where you can actually see Grandpa Joe dancing, but here's the link if you want to watch it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29_uSlEEPSk&feature=related .

So, off to church in the morning and then Elijah's benefit!  We helped set up tonight and can't wait until tomorrow! It will be so much fun seeing people, and I know the food will be wonderful. Please pray that God gets all the glory tomorrow!

Sometimes I wonder...

...about myself and my ability to function with my "mommy brain".  If Rachel is 11 1/2 months old, is that too old to blame it on post-partum hormones??? Yep, I thought so too. Anyway, yesterday I sent all of our dossier (30 documents!) to Mad-town to get apostilled at the Secretary of State's office. I've mentioned before that they charge $10/document.  Do you suppose they would want the check for $300 BEFORE they start processing the documents?  Yep, I suppose so. Last night, I realized I forgot to include the check for processing fees!!! Ugh!!!!  So, I called this morning and she said she would set it aside and wait for the check. I sent it out via priority today. Hopefully, we will only lose a day or two of time and we should be okay. I also asked her if they have a "process while you wait" service. (When we get our "Golden Ticket", I was going to drive it down to get apostilled and then send the whole dossier over to EE!) But, they don't do that.  She said I could take a chance and bring it in, but it all depends on how many they get in the mail that day. We'll see how it all works out.  I sent Pat's employer letter to Indianapolis to get apostilled since his company is in Indiana. That was free. Maybe that's what got me goofed up...ya, that's it. :-)

In the saga to get our "Golden Ticket", I called again today and left a message with my USCIS officer at the suggestion of my most wonderful state-side paperwork helper, Nancy. My officer returns calls between 1pm and 2pm only and if she doesn't call back, that means there is no status change.  I would LOVE to hear from her tomorrow afternoon! Wouldn't that be a fun way to start the weekend!?!

Fingerprints - Check!

Our biometric fingerprints are done!  YAY!  Our appointment wasn't until 3 this afternoon, but they worked us in early thankfully when we arrived at 8:30. We waited about an hour and a half, so not a big delay. I'm just so thankful they are done! I talked to my USCIS officer this afternoon, and she said she would try to get our case reviewed this week - hopefully. I'll have to wait until next Monday to check back with her. She is still willing to help us, which is great! Please pray she DOES get it done this week and that Monday will bring good news (if we don't get it in the mail first)!

Fingerprints tomorrow!

We'll be driving down to Milwaukee tomorrow to get our biometric fingerprints done. Please pray all goes well!  I'll be calling my USCIS officer when we get home to let her know they are done and when she thinks we can expect our I-171H approval - the last piece needed for our dossier before we can send it over. YAY!

GREAT NEWS!!!

As part of my morning routine, I called USCIS this morning to find out if I had an officer assigned yet to process my I-600A application. To my shock, she said YES and transferred me! Oh my - what was I going to say??? I explained to my officer that we are adopting a boy with special needs from EE (I told her the country) and that I need to have my dossier over to them by Nov. 1st before they shut down for 3 months. I asked if she could give me an idea about how long it might take for approval. So, she looked for my file...for a long time...I was starting to get a bit nervous. :-)  But as I was on the phone, someone stopped by her office and handed her a pile of applications. Ours was in there! Whew! She said she had 35-40 applications in front of ours, but she would move ours up to the pile she was hoping to get to this week!!!!  Can you believe it?!?!  What an answer to prayer!!!! Thank you Lord!!!!  (I didn't even have to beg. :-))

After discussing when our fingerprint appts are (a week from today), she said she would look at our file on Monday since she can't approve it before then anyway. Fair enough. :-) So, hopefully, we will be approved within a few days after our fingerprints. That still gives us a few days of breathing room to get our dossier over to Elijah's country! Thank you to all of you that have prayed for this. Please don't stop!

Thank you God for the favor you granted us with this officer. Glory to your Name!

The Beast is Done...almost...

We are officially DONE with our dossier a.k.a. "The Beast"!  YAY! Well, almost done.  We are still waiting on the elusive I-171H immigration approval (our Golden Ticket). But on Friday, we got our last 2 "easy" documents redone, notarized, and approved. So, our official status is "Dossier Complete - Awaiting USCIS Approval". The documents still need to be apostilled at the state level, but we will wait on that until we know when about we will be getting our Golden Ticket.

Back here in this post about completing our home study paperwork, I made this comment it: "But as I worked through it little by little, it wasn't bad at all. I'm hoping I can say that for the dossier paperwork when I'm done." (Man, that seems like ages ago!) The dossier list was overwhelming, and it was a lot of work, but again, when I worked through it bit by bit, it was manageable and not as horribly difficult as I thought it might be. The Lord granted us much favor in compiling it as I've posted about...no cranky, uncooperative local gov't officials, no uncooperative employees in our doctor's office, etc that so many others have had problems with. It was all just the opposite of that. Everyone has been so willing to help and to get the paperwork correct. The Lord has truly blessed us through these people we worked with locally. 

Now...to the best of my knowledge, we have not been assigned an officer at USCIS. I will call again tomorrow and check of course. Please pray that we are assigned SOON and to someone that has a heart for special needs children and is willing to help us get Elijah ASAP. Thank you!

USCIS Update

Well, I wish I had some news to share, but I don't. I've called 3x this week to ask if we have an officer assigned yet to process our I-600A application, but I don't. (Remember we need our I-600A application approval as the last piece of our dossier to send over to EE before they close at the end of Nov.) They aren't giving any estimates on when we will get an officer assigned, but she told me today they are working as fast as they can. Everyone I've talked to has been very nice, but still can't tell me anything...just that we are "in queue". So, we pray and we wait and pray some more...(She did know that I've called before though. :-) I'm going for that "squeaky wheel gets the grease" thing!)

I'm so very thankful that a very nice lady that works with Congressman Petri's office has also called on our behalf. They told her the same thing. Imagine that!?! :-)

Our fingerprint appt is October 4th in Milwaukee. I asked today if I could be issued an earlier one and they can't do that. She didn't think it would help anyway. She said I could try going to the office itself and ask to be printed early. Been there - done that. :-) She said it was good for her to know that Milw does not allow early fingerprints. Hopefully, that little tidbit of info will save another family an extra trip there.

"Do you trust me?"

This is a personal, spiritual post. If you don't feel like reading it, I won't be offended. Just being vulnerable and sharing my heart...

"Do you trust me?" the Lord asked me.

"Yes, of course," I said.

"DO you trust me?" the Lord asked again.

"Yes, I do," I said.

"Do you TRUST me?" the Lord asked the third time.

"Umm...umm...yes, I do Lord," I said, although somewhat hesitantly, not sure why we were having this conversation.  I found out later.

I had this "conversation" with the Lord yesterday afternoon when I laid down for a rare nap on the couch. The baby was still asleep in her carseat from our field trip and the other kids were outside playing. It was short lived, but long enough for me to clear my mind and pray and listen to the gentle whispers of my loving Father in my heart. (I did get about 10 minutes of sleep in too.)

Not long after this, I received a call back from USCIS. I had called and left a message in the morning asking who my officer handling my I-600A application was. (Remember the I-600A leads to the I-171H approval, which is the last piece of paperwork we need to get submitted before Elijah's country shuts down for 3 months over the winter.) I wanted to find out what we were looking at for processing times and see if I could get an earlier fingerprinting appt. Well...as it turns out, we don't have an officer assigned to our case yet! To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I was so choked up on the phone I could hardly say thank you and good-bye. So, I let myself have a good cry...in fact, it was so good my eyelids are still puffy tonight. LOL You see, when we get our fingerprints done on the 4th, if no one has even looked at our file yet, we are looking at weeks for approval. The nice USCIS lady on the phone was very apologetic and explained they are still backlogged from bringing in the files from the field offices. (This change was supposed to "streamline" the process and it happened in April...need I say more.) In order to expedite for medical reasons, they need documentation from the doctor in country. She said I should call back in a few weeks as we are still "in queue" to be assigned. We don't have weeks if we are going to try and get submitted by the end of November. Our dossier needs to be in the mail by the first week in Nov to allow time for translation and the I-171H takes about 7-10 days to arrive AFTER approval.

Over and over last night (and today) I was thinking about this conversation. It has brought me a tremendous amount of comfort.

"Do you trust me?" Yes, Lord, I do. Lord, I fully admit that is a struggle for me. I want Elijah home ASAP, but I know YOU have a plan. Your timing is perfect. You know what the future holds for us and for Elijah. You have ordained and called us to this adoption and you love us so much that you want nothing but the best for us. Help us to trust in that. Lord, you know every detail about Elijah and this adoption. We ask that you to continue to protect him with your mighty hand. Please give us peace and the ability to rest in You. We turn it all over to you. Lord, we do ask in the powerful name of Jesus that you expedite this paperwork.  We know and believe you can move paper mountains!  Thank you, Jesus!

By the way, I will continue to do everything humanly possible to get this approval in time so we can be submitted by the end of November. I've contacted our congressman's office for help in expediting our case. Still waiting for a response...Please pray they will be favorable to helping us.

Fingerprints are a no-go in Milwaukee

Yep. It didn't work out as I had hoped. The lady we talked to at the Dept of Homeland Security was very sweet and nice. After we explained our situation, she felt bad she could do nothing for us. But their policy is to not allow any early fingerprint appointments. They weren't busy, it just isn't done. Fair enough. I understand. We had to try though, otherwise I would have always wondered. I knew it was a long shot. The only way we can get in earlier is if we contact USCIS and have them issue a new, earlier date. I'm not sure how that will work, but I will try tomorrow! I'm going to keep fighting to bring Elijah home - the sooner the better.

A big thank you to my mother-in-law who rearranged several appointments to ride down with us to sit with the kids in the van while we went into our appointment. I guess the bright side of the day is that I got a chance to show the kids where I lived for 4 years of my life! The office is just a block away from the dorms and apartment that I lived in while I attended college. :-) They were a little overwhelmed with the busyness of the city and campus. A far cry from our quiet 5 acres in the country! (I was a little overwhelmed when I started school there too after growing up on a farm near a small town...)

ANYWAY...that's the update for tonight. God is Good! God's ways are the best! God is sovereign!

P.S. Pat is getting very excited to run his marathon on Sunday. See the details here.