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.