The Anchor Leg of the Paperwork Chase

When we met our adoption consultant and handed over our paperwork last Monday, she went over everything again while we sat there (this was the umpteenth time our papers had been reviewed, so we weren’t too worried).  And, she doubled checked that she had received everything else she needed for our file.  She had.

Although it’s out of our hands now, our paperwork has a couple final destinations to visit.  The adoption agency sends dossiers to their courier in Washington, D. C. every Thursday.  The courier takes our dossier around to the US Department of State and the Ethiopian Embassy (so that’s where our paperwork has been these past two days).  Usually the courier sends the documents back to the adoption agency the next week (which would be this coming week, for us).  This is all well ahead of that drop-dead date of 07/23/11 when a letter from one of our medical doctors will “expire” due to an outdated notary stamp.  Wheww!!

And at that point, after these last two offices have signed off on our stuff, we are considered by our agency as a “waiting family” for a child from Ethiopia.  Right now, there are about 40 families in front of us (though not all of those families are waiting for the same children…some want older children, some want younger, some are seeking sibling sets, etc).  When we go on the list this week, we will be told our exact position in the queue and we will be able to mentally “track” our progress as we read of families receiving referrals in the weekly updates that we get from our agency.  Yeah!!

We’ll let you know what we hear.

Sarah

You’re not even going to believe this one…

We had a busy weekend.  Sarah’s parents traveled from IA and met us over in St. Louis for a long weekend, which included Grant’s Farm, the St. Louis Zoo, and Magic House Children’s Museum.  In a year when we are working to conserve money and Ryan’s vacation days from work (in hopeful anticipation of overseas travel next year), it was a wonderful little vacation for us. 

So, on Saturday morning, we were busily finishing our last minute packing, with the intention of dropping the dog off when the kennel opened at 8am and getting on the road.  Ryan providentially opened the front door “to let in a little of the cool morning air,” he said (which was so refreshing after a week of 95 degrees!!!). 

Upon doing so, he found a little slip of paper tucked in our door.  It was a form indicating that the postman had tried to deliver a piece of certified mail to us on Friday (at a time when I wasn’t home apparently), which was now being held for us at the post office.  I got a little nauseous because I was pretty sure it had something to do with our adoption dossier, which I had sent via certified mail to the KS Secretary of State three days previously.  Had I stupidly misaddressed it?  Had they not accepted it for some reason?  Had they seen some fatal error immediately upon opening it?  Have I mentioned how hard I worked on this mailing…it was certified, it was express, it included a self-addressed stamped envelope (also certified and express, and with extra postage thoughtfully added to account for the 19+ sheets the Secretary of State would add to the existing weight of the package).  I nearly collapsed in an exhausted heap in front of the postal counter when it was all finished.  And since then, I had been feeling such relief at having that thing mailed off exactly as requested.  But now, we decided to delay our departure time by 30 minutes so that we could stop at the post office when it opened at 8:30am and retrieve our mail. 

Then Ryan, ever the optimist, said, “I think it’s done.  I think the Secretary of State did his certifications and is returning our documents to us, ready to go.”  I tried to explain that this would be impossible because I had just mailed the stuff on Tuesday.  It would have arrived on Wednesday, would have had to have been put back in the mail in Topeka on Thursday at least, so that the mailman here could attempt (unsuccessfully) to deliver it to us on Friday.  “And remember, honey, there were 19 documents for him to certify.  It took the IA guy about a week to process three documents,” I said.

Dear reader (if you are out there), let me remind you for a moment, whenever we receive the certified documents back from the KS Secretary of State, the whole dossier gets reassembled (by adding the forms that were previously certified by the IA Secretary of State) and sent to our adoption agency, which happens to be located in…just guess where…St. Louis, MO.

So Ryan, still optimistic, decided that we should take along the IA documents for our dossier, just in case the certified documents were awaiting us at the post office (and remember that we’re stopping at the post office on our way out of town…on vacation…spending extended hours in our van over the next several days).  That way, we could potentially hand-deliver the completed dossier to our adoption agency during our trip to St. Louis.  I, slightly more pessimistic realistic, said that it sounded like a good way to lose, wrinkle, or otherwise damage two perfectly certified IA birth certificates and a marriage license.  That said, I rounded up the documents.

We dropped off the dog, filled up with gas, and stopped at the post office right when it opened.  When I went in and presented my form, the mailman went into the back and returned with an envelope.  I could see that it was the one I had self-addressed and wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad.  I didn’t rip it open until I got back in the van, and the first thing I saw was a certification sheet from the office of the KS Secretary of State!!  I couldn’t believe it.  I pulled out the packet and found all 19 certifications stapled to the original documents (no explanation, no cover letter, no receipt for our payment…no time for that stuff, I guess, if you’re turning packets around in 6 hours).

So, I spent the next 10 miles reassembling our completed dossier, listening to Ryan say, “I told you so,” and leaving a message for our adoption consultant, explaining that we were on our way to St. Louis with a complete dossier in hand.  And, then I spent the next 250 miles after that holding the precious stack on my lap, so as to save it from inevitable coffee splashes, flying shoes, and sharp turns.

I can’t even tell you how thankful I was to have Ryan find that postal note in our door before we left for the weekend.  Surely it would have blown or washed away in the weekend weather.  It may have been who knows how long until we realized that we had paperwork awaiting us at the post office.  Thank you God!!  And what a treat to be able to visit the adoption agency in person, meet face to face with the people whom we communicate regularly, and hand over our paperwork.

Sarah

We’re almost there…

As I said, we received our form from Immigration & Citizenship on Friday.  We had it notarized Monday, and the whole packet went out in yesterday’s mail to the Kansas Secretary of State (for his certification).  Now, I don’t want to stoke any inter-state rivalries, but if the office of the KS Secretary is even half as fast as the office of the IA Secretary, we’ll be pleased (though, we had just three documents to be certified in IA and there are 19 that need KS certification).  We really have no idea how long this certification might take…I would be delighted to have our documents back in 10 days.

It’s a bit of a horse race because one of the letters in our dossier was notarized by a person whose commission expires 07/23/11.  Our dossier needs to make it to the US Department of State before that date to be considered current.  If we miss that date, suffice it to say that we’ll have some re-work to do.

We’ll keep you posted!!

Sarah

She’s good…she’s with us

After a couple weeks of running to the mailbox in hopeful anticipation, I was delighted on Friday to find our Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application For Advance Process of Orphan Petition from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services!!  It is a page that we will take with us when we travel to Ethiopia to bring home our baby.  It’s a long title for a paper that will essentially allow various officials (US Embassy in Ethiopia, airport checkpoints, Homeland Security, US Immigration) to say, “On her own, she doesn’t qualify...she’s not a citizen, she doesn’t meet the necessary requirements to enter the country, but we’ve checked out the people with whom this little one is coming home.  We know and can vouch for the two people who are traveling with her (they’ve been through the proverbial “ringer”), and if they say she is theirs and she belongs here with them, then she’s cool.”  And then, just like that, it won’t matter that she doesn’t bear official government-issued identification, a US birth certificate, or a passport, just as long as she’s with us.

This process begs the comparison to what Jesus Christ does for us, as believers.  On our own, we have no place in heaven.  None of us qualify or meet the entrance requirements (of holy perfection).  Apart from Jesus, our citizenship most certainly lies right here on this fallen earth, and we stand no chance of success when facing the judgment seat of Almighty God.  However, for those of us who love and serve Jesus, the Son steps in on our behalf (and this is the beautiful, merciful, unbelievable part) and says to the Father, “She’s one of mine.  She belongs here with Us.  She’s cool.”  And then, just like that, our failures, our misdeeds, and our lack of merit matters not, just as long as we’re with the One.

Sarah

“How are you doing today?”

Sarcasm is difficult to decipher through written text (just one more reason I don’t care to blog).  Without seeing a subtle smirk or hearing the inflection of a voice, it takes some extra work on the part of the reader to correctly identify and interpret the writer’s true intent.  All that to say, I feel the need to clarify that I am being completely serious here…but for the lack of waiting room décor and furnishings (which were obviously standard government-issue), we could not have been more impressed with the US Citizenship and Immigration office that we visited last week for our fingerprinting.  It singlehandedly redeemed our opinion of governmental service providers (Ryan thinks this statement is over the top, but he was impressed nonetheless).

We arrived about 8 minutes before our scheduled appointment to find “a lot” of cars parked in the lot and in the streets surrounding the little nondescript warehouse-type building.  We had read on our appointment summons that “cell phones, cameras or other recording devices” were not allowed.  Ryan shed his phone, and I left my camera in the car, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving my phone behind since the kids were back home with a babysitter .  So, I just left mine stuffed in my purse, silenced, but on.

As we were entering the building, there was a sign on the door about the cell phones.  I didn’t stop to read if it said “not allowed inside the building” or “no usage” or what.  But, I wasn’t too worried since the thing was quietly stuffed at the bottom of my purse.  No problem.

Two steps inside the door, I saw two uniformed guards with a metal detector and airport x-ray machine.  Possible problem. 

I pled ignorance, saying that I had seen the sign on the door about cell phones but had been moving too fast to read it…were they not allowed at all inside the building?  The guard asked if we were here for fingerprinting, and I said that we were.  He said that we’d be fine as long as it was silenced.  Whew.  Almost flunked fingerprinting before it started.

One of the guards (a 60 year-old Caucasian man) could see that I was all flustered about the cell phone thing and about the unexpected x-ray.  I was hurriedly trying to get metal out of my pockets and retrieve paperwork from my purse, not wanting to hold up the line or irritate the men with firearms.  He kindly assured me that there was no rush and invited me to take my time.  Then, he inspected our appointment summons and saw that we were there on an orphan petition.  He asked what country we were adopting from.  When we told him, he smiled and asked, “How are you doing today?”  In Amharic…the official language of Ethiopia.  We recognized it but were not smart enough to answer him.  Graciously he floated us the Amharic line for, “Fine, thank you.”  We assured him that we’ll take a crash course and pick up few key phrases before we travel.  A nice touch for him to take an interest in us.

As we rounded the corner and followed the officers’ directions to the “last door on the right,” it was like we stepped into another world.  We, as American citizens, became the distinct minority.  There were probably 100 individuals and families sitting in various corners and sections of the waiting room.  Many were quietly speaking their native language to each other, and some were dressed in attire from their culture of origin.  I realized that these good folks were not here to be fingerprinted for orphan petitions.  They were immigrants pursuing American citizenship and were waiting for their official interviews by the USCIS officials (thus the restrictions regarding recording devices).  Nerve-racking, I can only imagine. 

When we made our way to the other end of the waiting room, we stood in front of a half door with a sign that said something to the effect of “Please be advised that due to our scheduled volume, wait times may exceed one hour.”  Nice.  The clerk asked for our appointment summons, gave us some paperwork to complete, and handed us numbers.  We sat down with clipboards and filled out the short sheet of information.  It didn’t take more than three minutes.  And, I had no sooner put down my pen, than she called our numbers.  As it turns out, we were about the only ones there just for fingerprinting.  The extended wait time is for the citizenship interviews.

So, we hurried back into the office and offered up our digits.  There were two technicians, and they took us simultaneously.  It was the same drill as before when we were printed by the local police department for our FBI background checks.  All four fingers together, then each finger and thumb “rolled” individually.  The clerks were so quick and professional (and mine was very friendly…we chatted about how many fingerprints he rolls in an average day, etc).  They completed our forms, told us the next steps, and sent us on our way.  

In case you haven’t been convicted of a crime lately, perhaps you didn’t realize that there is no ink involved in fingerprinting these days.  Even our local PD has gone digital.  They have this fancy screen on which they roll your fingers and voila!  Your fingerprint image shows up on a screen in front of you.  Amazing and a little terrifying.  Not sure I’m ready for this type of technological biometric business…a step closer to imbedding ourselves with microchips if you ask me.

But all in all, fingerprinting was a success.  We expect our CIS approval form sometime next week.  Then, the whole adoption dossier package goes to the KS Secretary of State for certification.

Sarah

Iowa Certified

Good news…the Secretary of the fine state of Iowa agrees that we were both, in fact, born and married.  Fingerprinting for the Department of Immigration this week.  I think we can, I think we can, I think we can.

We’re still here

People told me, and it’s true.  They said that it takes about 6 months to compile an adoption dossier.  I thought, “Well, that’s a little slouchy.  How can it take that long to fill out forms and pull together documents?  Clearly those people haven’t my organization and motivation.”  Well, we are those people.  And, here’s how it can take that long.  You can’t work ahead.  Every form hinges on another form.  And, most forms hinge on some branch of the government doing something to "aid" in the process.  Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait.  We scurry to do our part just to send something off and wait and wait for a response so that we can take that piece of information and scurry through the next form and do the same thing.

All that to say, we’re awaiting an appointment which was scheduled on our behalf by the US Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services to get fingerprinted (again) for our child’s immigration clearance.  When we finally received the letter last week with our appointment time, I about fell over when I saw that it was scheduled for a date almost three weeks away.  Anyhow, it’s coming up.  Not quickly enough, but it’s coming up.

On another front, the Iowa Secretary of State is verifying that we were, in fact, born and married.  We’re anxiously awaiting his findings.  Once he adds his certification stamp to our birth certificates and marriage license, those are ready to go to the US Department of State, except that they have to wait for the rest of the dossier, which has to wait for the one form from Immigration, which has to wait for the fingerprints.  Anyway, once we finally get our Immigration form (which will presumably follow a few weeks after the fingerprinting appointment) from the USCIS, we will add that to the pile of stuff which will be certified by the Kansas Secretary of State.  Then, assuming everything passes his inspection; our adoption agency will take the reins and get the entire dossier to its various destinations in Washington DC.

And, in case you’re wondering, the current time spent compiling the dossier: 4 months…tick, tock, tick, tock.

Sarah