One More Hurdle
After a smooth first trip, we obviously needed a bit of drama in our life to spice up our journey to Mia. We felt confident that we had paid our dues with Sasha but obviously one more payment was needed.
When we originally started our journey to find our daughter, we had thought that Guatemala would be a nice option. The children are BEAUTIFUL, young, in foster care and Guatemala would be a new country for us (okay .. this wasn't the deciding factor just one of several factors we considered) and the timeframe to adopt was really quick. In April 2007, we submitted our I-600A for Guatemala. As the year progressed, Guatemala adoptions came under a lot of scrutiny and the near term future of adoptions in that country didn't look promising. We decided to switch countries. We thought about the Ukraine (yes, another country we hadn't been to ... what can we say ... we like to see the world) but eventually decided to go back to Russia after finding an agency that seemed like they could help us with minimal challenges.
In November, we submitted our application to our new agency and sent our social worker, Nikki, a note to let her know that we had selected Russia as our country. She had been holding off completing our homestudy awaiting our country selection. She prepared our homestudy and got our DCFS letter and everything was sent to USCIS in Chicago in December. We received our 171-H (Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) in early February. I followed the instructions outlined on the USCIS website and the I-600A form to make sure that our country was changed from Guatemala to Russia in early March. We've been waiting for confirmation of this change for two months now.
Fast forward to last weekend returning home from Russia. We still didn't have any letter saying that USCIS had successfully changed our country. I emailed the US Embassy in Moscow and they haven't received our cabled 171-H. Huh ... what does it take to get this done? I have a copy ... can I just cable it to them myself? What's their number?? But alas ... no. I posted our challenge on the Illinois Adoption board (yes, there are board for EVERYTHING and I must admit that I am on most of them ... a sickness? Perhaps but it does provide me a ton of great information and many good friends). A very nice woman emailed me personally and provided a phone number and email address to the USCIS office in Chicago that handles this. I emailed all the information that I have to this address. The US Embassy provided me a different email address to yet another government agency. I copied my original note and emailed everything to them. They emailed promptly back and said they haven't ever received a Visa for us. What??? I can see them not getting the Russian visa but no visa ... not even one for Guatemala. ARGH!
I finally get a response from USCIS. They don't have a home study nor a DCFS letter to support our file. WHAT??? I thought that they had to have everything prior to us being sent a 171-H. I then sent everything to our social worker, Nikki. Now a bit on Nikki ... she's a spunky woman who has years in the adoption profession. She knows EVERYTHING there is to know about this process. As I was typing, I was thanking God that we have Nikki for a social worker and not someone else. Nikki evertually answers (I had warned her that we might have an emergency on Tuesday if I couldn't resolve this on my own) my plea for HELP! and calls. She discovers as I had that USCIS thinks they don't have two needed documents. She talks about all the documents that USCIS have lost recently. This doesn't make me feel any better. I send her a message asking how we could have received our 171-H without these documents. She says that USCIS must be totally confused. That makes two of us. I scan in our 171-H and send it to Nikki and USCIS. What I was hoping was that USCIS would say, "Oh, we must have filed your documents incorrectly. Let me take a look through this box over here in the corner. Perhaps it was just mis-filed. OH .. here it is! I'm pressing the buttons on the fax as I type this note to you. The Moscow Embassy should have it in 2 seconds." But alas ...
This morning, after two more messages to USCIS, they finally provide me a list of 'stuff' that they need to complete the change of country request. I think they typically mail you a list of needed items instead of telling you over email but I was .. umm .. insistent. They need an original homestudy and DCFS letter (which will be the same that they have already received but I digress) and a change of country letter (which they also have had for since March 6). I forwarded all this on to Nikki this morning including a scanned copy of the change of country letter so that she can pop everything into DHL today. Officer Dominguez from USCIS informed me that I should wait a week for them to get it in their department and then can follow up with a request to expedite the process. Can't they just write a note in our file that says that we need urgent assistance? We may have court in as early as four weeks so we don't need them to drag this out or mis-file any more documents or have any more drama at this point.
Mia is waiting ... and she needs sunlight .... so she can get some teeth (she's a pretty girl but she needs teeth). Okay all my friends with your good prayers ... please add us to your list that all our paperwork gets done quickly and in time for our court date. Mia needs your help!
When we originally started our journey to find our daughter, we had thought that Guatemala would be a nice option. The children are BEAUTIFUL, young, in foster care and Guatemala would be a new country for us (okay .. this wasn't the deciding factor just one of several factors we considered) and the timeframe to adopt was really quick. In April 2007, we submitted our I-600A for Guatemala. As the year progressed, Guatemala adoptions came under a lot of scrutiny and the near term future of adoptions in that country didn't look promising. We decided to switch countries. We thought about the Ukraine (yes, another country we hadn't been to ... what can we say ... we like to see the world) but eventually decided to go back to Russia after finding an agency that seemed like they could help us with minimal challenges.
In November, we submitted our application to our new agency and sent our social worker, Nikki, a note to let her know that we had selected Russia as our country. She had been holding off completing our homestudy awaiting our country selection. She prepared our homestudy and got our DCFS letter and everything was sent to USCIS in Chicago in December. We received our 171-H (Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) in early February. I followed the instructions outlined on the USCIS website and the I-600A form to make sure that our country was changed from Guatemala to Russia in early March. We've been waiting for confirmation of this change for two months now.
Fast forward to last weekend returning home from Russia. We still didn't have any letter saying that USCIS had successfully changed our country. I emailed the US Embassy in Moscow and they haven't received our cabled 171-H. Huh ... what does it take to get this done? I have a copy ... can I just cable it to them myself? What's their number?? But alas ... no. I posted our challenge on the Illinois Adoption board (yes, there are board for EVERYTHING and I must admit that I am on most of them ... a sickness? Perhaps but it does provide me a ton of great information and many good friends). A very nice woman emailed me personally and provided a phone number and email address to the USCIS office in Chicago that handles this. I emailed all the information that I have to this address. The US Embassy provided me a different email address to yet another government agency. I copied my original note and emailed everything to them. They emailed promptly back and said they haven't ever received a Visa for us. What??? I can see them not getting the Russian visa but no visa ... not even one for Guatemala. ARGH!
I finally get a response from USCIS. They don't have a home study nor a DCFS letter to support our file. WHAT??? I thought that they had to have everything prior to us being sent a 171-H. I then sent everything to our social worker, Nikki. Now a bit on Nikki ... she's a spunky woman who has years in the adoption profession. She knows EVERYTHING there is to know about this process. As I was typing, I was thanking God that we have Nikki for a social worker and not someone else. Nikki evertually answers (I had warned her that we might have an emergency on Tuesday if I couldn't resolve this on my own) my plea for HELP! and calls. She discovers as I had that USCIS thinks they don't have two needed documents. She talks about all the documents that USCIS have lost recently. This doesn't make me feel any better. I send her a message asking how we could have received our 171-H without these documents. She says that USCIS must be totally confused. That makes two of us. I scan in our 171-H and send it to Nikki and USCIS. What I was hoping was that USCIS would say, "Oh, we must have filed your documents incorrectly. Let me take a look through this box over here in the corner. Perhaps it was just mis-filed. OH .. here it is! I'm pressing the buttons on the fax as I type this note to you. The Moscow Embassy should have it in 2 seconds." But alas ...
This morning, after two more messages to USCIS, they finally provide me a list of 'stuff' that they need to complete the change of country request. I think they typically mail you a list of needed items instead of telling you over email but I was .. umm .. insistent. They need an original homestudy and DCFS letter (which will be the same that they have already received but I digress) and a change of country letter (which they also have had for since March 6). I forwarded all this on to Nikki this morning including a scanned copy of the change of country letter so that she can pop everything into DHL today. Officer Dominguez from USCIS informed me that I should wait a week for them to get it in their department and then can follow up with a request to expedite the process. Can't they just write a note in our file that says that we need urgent assistance? We may have court in as early as four weeks so we don't need them to drag this out or mis-file any more documents or have any more drama at this point.
Mia is waiting ... and she needs sunlight .... so she can get some teeth (she's a pretty girl but she needs teeth). Okay all my friends with your good prayers ... please add us to your list that all our paperwork gets done quickly and in time for our court date. Mia needs your help!
posted by Tamara at 8:14 AM
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