The Little Couple Adopts A Little Boy from China

If you have a TV, tune in to TLC tonight at 10 (9 central) to see Bill and Jen, aka the Little Couple, become parents!  I don't follow the show but I've seen a few episodes which I really enjoyed.  I do know that they've waited a long time to be parents, so I imagine it's going to be fun to watch!  

Another Bump In the Road

Just when we thought we were about to be back on track, we hit another bump. If you are an adoptive parent, or even if you're not but have ever trusted FedEx with important documents, make sure you are sitting down before you continue reading. This is like a bad dream and you hope it never happens to you.

FedEx has lost the envelope with our immigration approval. They say that it was delivered to our house last week but it never showed up. After many phone calls back and forth with FedEx and even talking to the regional and national offices, the best they could do is offer an apology and tell us to contact the person who sent the package so that we can get a replacement. UGH!

Our immigration officer was nice enough to send us a new one but "warned" us that if this one gets lost we will have to file more paperwork and pay $360. for another replacement! Seriously?! Does she not understand that *we* didn't lose it?! It never got to us!

I spoke with a courier (who has some of our other documents) and he said that he's heard of FedEx messing up like this only three times before in twenty years of being in the courier business. One time he said the documents were found two weeks after FedEx delivered an empty box to a very irate adoptive family. Their documents were floating around the FedEx sorting facility for two weeks before they were returned to the family. So, on the bright side, I guess they still might find the envelope with our approval inside.

We are feeling frustrated. We hope that there is still time to get our dossier to China before the end of May, when the Chinese agency that processes adoptions takes a two week break in receiving dossiers to do a software update on their computer system. We've been trying to avoid getting stuck in the backlog of work that will be piling up while they update their systems.

Please send us prayer, good energy or whatever you believe in! We could use a little bit right about now.

He knows we're coming!

We recently got an update on our little guy!  He knows we're coming for him and he likes to look at our family picture (the one we had to send when requesting pre-approval), point to each of us and call us by name, mother, father and brothers! How sweet.  Knowing that he knows we are his family makes it that much harder to wait! 

We hope to have some more information and maybe a few pictures of our daughter in the next week or so.  

In other news, our home study addendum, which approved us to bring home our daughter in addition to our son, was sent to USCIS last week.  (Just getting the addendum was like pulling teeth...and probably not a story I can tell here.)  I called USCIS to speak with our immigration officer to let him know the addendum was on the way.  Remember the kind and helpful man who was ready to approve us and then was going to move our file to the top after he got the revisions?  Well, he's not our officer anymore.  It turns out that we were assigned another officer while waiting for our home study agency to wrap up the revisions.  I've corresponded a few times with the new officer and she is not nearly as efficient or kind as the last one, and definitely not helpful.  She seems not to care that the bulk of our paperwork has been waiting since the beginning of February!  Seriously, how long does it take to read an additional two pages and issue the approval?!  

According to the most recent email from our immigration officer, our paperwork is "in line to be reviewed".  Not, "let's get this going", "I know your kids have been waiting two extra months already" or even a hint of kindness.  I am trying to breathe deeply and be as zen as possible.  Obviously there is nothing we can do but wait.  And wait some more...and try not to have a pity party for myself.  Haha.  We just want to go get our kids!  

I'm pretty sure that any parent going through this process is going to be impatient, but this woman is just really unsympathetic about the sense of urgency.  Yes, I realize that she deals with other impatient parents every day and maybe she's jaded but these are kids and they are waiting to come home!  I wanted so badly to tell her how to do her job and hurry up while she's at it, but I was on my best behavior!  Nothing but a grateful heart and gentle words, I promise.