One Step Closer

As most of you know, international adoption requires an inordinate amount of paperwork gathering, paperwork authenticating and unfortunately for some, paperwork updating.

When we started this process back in, oh, the last decade (ok, 20 months ago) the average wait times were estimated to be only 3 - 5 months so I didn't think we would have to cross this bridge of expiring documents. As it turns out, most of it hasn't been all that bad, but the timing has been somewhat nerve wracking. You can't update things in advance like I would have preferred so it's all going on now and I have had a few sleepless nights worrying that things won't happen in time, which would delay our ability to get these boys home.

Our recent challenge has been getting our CIS fingerprints updated. I sent in the request for our fingerprinting appointments as soon as we were allowed to, back in early November. Eleven days later we received our appointment date and all seemed to go smoothly when we showed up for our appointment on December 16th . But then we waited...and waited...our original fingerprints expired and still we waited. It only took two weeks for them to process our prints last year, and that timeframe included the Thanksgiving holiday, so when we hadn't heard anything after six weeks I started to get worried.

I tried emailing them...

Nothing.

I tried emailing them again with "URGENT PLEA FOR ASSISTANCE" in the subject line and an explanation that we had received our referral, were expected to travel to Addis soon, and that this delay could impact our ability to bring these children home...

Still nothing.

I got our case worker in on the act and she emailed them, and a week later emailed them again...

Still nothing!

On Thursday, Kristin (our case worker) and I emailed back and forth about it. I asked if she thought it would help if I physically showed up at their offices in Hartford. She said it might. I asked if she knew the address. She sent me the address and I replied to say that I would drive up there the next day. I hit send and low and behold, while we had been emailing back and forth, CIS had emailed Kristin to say that our prints had just been processed!

PHEW! And what crazy timing but mostly just phew! It will still take about a month for them to make their way to Addis Ababa so this really happened just in time.

The moral of the story? Don't be afraid to get your stalk on!

In spite of all this, I have been surprisingly at peace with this stage of the wait. I know it is the hardest part for most people, but we waited so long for our referral and those last two months were full of so much uncertainty, that this feels like a walk in the park. Something about seeing the boys' faces has made us feel like everything is going to be ok. And we have been overwhelmingly blessed with pictures and videos from traveling families, so we know that they are doing alright and are being well cared for.

Monday marks the completion of seven weeks waiting for our court date. The boys have gotten cuter and we have fallen more in love with every passing day. I have been trying hard not to think too much about our court date. Trying hard not to do what I did when waiting for our referral and get my hopes up too early. Trying really hard.

But I do hope it's soon...I do hope so, I do...