The Scoop

Referral, September 2010

We are immediately in love.

Update 1, October 2010

Update 2, December 2010:

Dr. Sophia, January 2010

We paid a pretty penny for that update.

Update 3, January 2011

Trip 1, February 2011
Where'd all her hair go?

Update 4, March 2011

Seriously, what is with those socks!

Oh how we want Sophie home!

So we may have gotten excited too soon, because wouldn't you know it, our case is having trouble at the embassy.  Really its par for the coarse and shouldn't come as a shocker.  Trouble is I let my guard down this time and was really, really, hoping that we would be there this week to be a complete family.  I actually believed that it could happen.  Things were going well.  Our MOWA letter was there on time.  We had passed court officially while we were still in country.  Our paperwork was being translated.  Our file was submitted to the embassy.  And it was really looking hopeful.  But alas, it has taken a turn once again to be a huge tangled mess.

Today I cried.  I cried when I landed in the US back in the beginning of March, because it didn't feel right to return home without her.  I have missed her every day since then, and long for her to be home,  but I'm not much of a cryer.  Today I cried.  I want my daughter.  It is excruciatingly hard to hold your child, and then walk away.  It is harder to watch the days, turn into weeks, turn into months, and still no child.  It is so frustrating to be inching closer and closer to the goal, but not ever quite getting there.

So here's the scoop that has me in a tizzy right now.  Its all about paperwork and its all about our government and the rate at which they work to process things.  The embassy has emailed our agency saying our i600a (thee most important piece of paper for visa processing) is expired.  They have it on file as expiring on April 9.  Well, that would be true, but we have renewed it.  The US government here knows that, but they wont be passing that information on to the embassy for probably another 2 or so weeks.  My approved paperwork wont be mailed out until next week "oh Monday or Tuesday" and then it will take "2 days to ship", and then it should take the National Visa Center "about another week or so to scan it and upload it to the embassy." 

Okay, can you expedite that?  "Oh no, only if you have an embassy appointment or the child has life threatening medical needs." 

So can the embassy give us an appointment?  "Not with out an updated i600a on file"

So there you go.  There is our dilemma.  Our only option is to sit and wait  for two to three weeks, until they go ahead and forward MY APPROVED paperwork to the embassy in Ethiopia to show them that I am in fact, and have always been (since it did not expire b/c I RENEWED it) approved.  Nice huh?

Believe you me, we have tried everything we can think of and I will be making even more phone calls tomorrow.  It appears (not a known fact b/c information is extremely hard for people to share for some reason) that the only thing preventing us from traveling to Ethiopia and retrieving our child is a piece of paper resting happily in the Department of Homeland Security, National Benefits Center in Lee's Summit, Missouri.  I don't know about you, but that makes me want to cry.