It's the little things...

Yesterday was a wonderful day! But first, a little back story....I had previously messaged my neighbor about the possibility of getting fingerprints on base. Our entire family had been struck with a nasty virus, so I only wanted to communicate online where we wouldn't get anybody else sick. Eventually, D felt good enough to venture outside with the dog and ran into our neighbor. He asked her again about the fingerprints and she said that she didn't really know of a place, but maybe we could just go to a gate and ask. The night before I had wondered about the same possibility. D suggested to me that I email a friend from church who had adopted 5 children already and see where she did their prints or see if she had any suggestions. I was so glad he suggested that because between the sickness and focusing so closely on these problems, I had not even thought about asking her! So, I sent M an email Sunday morning briefly explaining our fingerprinting issues and asking where they did theirs. That night, she sent me an email that she had forwarded it to her husband and she also gave me a lot of encouragement that I badly needed. Monday, her husband and I emailed a bit back and forth and we were able to get an appointment for Tuesday! Those are my favorite kinds of answered prayers!!

Yesterday (Tuesday, for those keeping track), we loaded up the entire family and headed to the gate where we were going to meet M's husband, MP. (Are these initials confusing anybody else? Maybe I should keep a running list over on the right for easy reference...lol!) He helped us get signed onto base, which was surprisingly easy this time around. I guess it helps that we know the drill now. ;-) We following him onto the base until we got to the right place. I had brought some toys to keep the kids occupied, but the wait was a bit longer than I had planned for. The kids still did pretty well considering. I think the biggest inconvenience was that the building was HOT! MP knew the lady doing the prints for us, so that was pretty cool hearing him talk about how they first met because of a rug! Small world!! They had a machine that did prints digitally, so we didn't have any ink to wash off, just a little water. WAY better than ink prints! The lady was very friendly and printed off 2 copies for each of us just in case we needed a spare. She said that if we end up needing more, it would be really easy for them to print more too. (Should I be worried that they are stored in their computers now?) As icing on the cake, this whole process was free! If we were doing this in the states, we would have to pay $85 per person!! (Just D & me, but still, that's $170 we saved!) D was quick to point out that we're paying more for almost every other service, but I still like thinking that there's 1 thing that we got to save on!

As if that wasn't awesome enough, MP asked after if there was anything we wanted while we were on base, like Taco Bell. D & I had talked about how cool it would be to get that, but since MP was already doing us such a huge favor, we weren't going to ask. So, we all went to the mall and MP watched our kids play in the play area while we went and got Taco Bell! We all ate and talked and the kids played and made new "friends" and it was so perfect! To top it off, I went and got some Cinnabon's that we enjoyed for breakfast this morning! It isn't often that life feels so right, but hanging out at the food court and talking while the kids played was definitely one of those moments.

I'm *almost* grateful for the screw-up at the USCIS office just so we could have that day. In one of the emails from MP, he listed a bunch of rules that he copied off the USCIS site and one of them specifically says that citizens residing overseas are supposed to send fingerprints along with their application. If it wouldn't be such a long drive, I would be tempted to print that off and hand deliver it to the USCIS office in Frankfurt with a great big "I told you so!" But, if they had done it, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to get blessed by M & MP and waiting for the home study would seem so much harder. Speaking of, right now we are waiting on our home study agency to send an "inter-agency agreement" and some supporting documentation to our placing agency. (This was supposed to be done months ago, but they apparently "forgot") Once that's done, our placing agency can review our home study to make sure it meets all of their standards. THEN, our home study agency can sign and seal 3 copies and mail them to us. Once we get them, we will finally be able to submit our I-800A for approval. *sigh* Always waiting!! I'm trying to not get so frustrated because God must have a reason for all of these delays. I still have days (lots of them) when I want nothing more than for Z to be here, but I don't blame any agency/person/organization. The bureaucracy is tedious and there is no way around it, so through the red tape we go!

Birthday!

Today our little Z turns 4 years old!! As I write this, she is probably either already in bed for the night or making her way there. Since Crescent Moon is 7 hours ahead of us, it is 9pm and her birthday is already almost over. I thought about writing this post last night when it was morning there, but I forgot. This should be her last birthday in an orphanage and I pray that even though she can't be with us yet, she still knows that she is loved and thought of on a daily basis. I find myself trying to imagine how they celebrated her birthday today. Did she get an extra sweet with dinner? Did she get a small gift such as a balloon or something to mark the occasion? Did they sing a special birthday song to her? Or did it feel like every other day? I have to think they did something special for her.

At any rate, I haven't had much time to dwell on it. I thought today would be a hard day for me to get through emotionally, but God has provided me with a house full of sick kids and a sick husband. Not that I would usually consider that a blessing, but today I will acknowledge the benefits of being too busy to let myself feel sad by circumstances beyond my control.

As for those circumstances, not much to report. I am still waiting on the agency to get and review our home study. Though, I have already paid for the shipping (and travel expenses), so as soon as it's ready I shouldn't have to wait long to receive it. I asked our neighbor whether she knows of any place on the bases that would be willing to do our fingerprints for us and she hasn't let me know yet, but I'm optimistic. It didn't say it had to be anyone specific on base, just a "US Military Installation", so with the amount of personnel at the many bases in the area, I have to think someone would be willing to do our fingerprints for us!

Today is some of the most beautiful weather we have had all year! Last summer was pretty crummy, so I'm hoping this is a sign of a beautiful summer again! After nap time, I am excited to take the kids outside to get some fresh air! It will do all of us a world of good. :-)

Ugh!

This morning, D & I took all 3 kids to the US Embassy in Frankfurt. It was an hour and 20 minute drive. We had planned on dropping off DJ & L in Kindergarten before we left and picking them up when we got back, but DJ woke up sick and we had a hard enough time getting out the door in time to make our appointment, so L got to join us too.

It was my first visit ever to a US Embassy. Since we had an appointment, getting inside was relatively easy. When we arrived, there were 2 LONG lines and we got to bypass both of them! (Sorry, people waiting) Our appointment was for 9:20. Our number was finally called at about 9:45. At that point, I had been nothing but impressed with how polite and helpful everyone had been that we had spoken with. I was expecting a "driver's license" sort of treatment. Well, up to that point....

When we located window 40, the guy behind the counter didn't care about our appointment letters or our numbers. Just my name and whether we were military. I told him we needed to get fingerprinted. He handed me 2 copies of the official form and said, "There ya go!". I told him that we actually needed them to do the fingerprints for us and he told me that they "didn't do that anymore". I told him that my form said they had to be the ones to do it and he insisted that they didn't do fingerprints. Repeat a couple more times as I got increasingly specific. I finally mentioned that the form was for adoption and he lit up. "Oh," he says, "adoption is the one thing we DO still do fingerprints for!" Aha!! So, we're getting somewhere. He gets up and leaves, I assume to get the ink pad and direct us to a place where he can actually reach our fingers without us removing them and sliding them through the tiny little slit below the window. Then the problems begin....

A lady comes and wants to confirm that we're wanting fingerprints for the I-600A. I tell her that we're getting fingerprints for the I-800A. (That dreaded "Hague" monster rearing its ugly head again!) She says they don't do that since they don't accept those applications there. I do a bit of a double-take. D asked her where we were supposed to get our fingerprints and she said that we had to have them done somewhere in the states. The instructions for the I-800A clearly say that we should get our fingerprints done HERE and I called and spoke to a stateside USCIS rep a few weeks ago who confirmed this AND told me we should get them done before we send in our application to avoid delays. This lady was now telling me that they didn't do them. Apparently, her boss had sent her an email "recently" that specifically said they are no longer to do fingerprints for I-800A forms. We had her call her boss and she was gone for a good 5-10 minutes, so it all seemed good. She came back with a copy of the instructions and we argued a bit about wording, at which point D said that we should just go. We both felt we were right, but the wording was not clearly on either of our sides. She was clinging to the paragraph that supported her view and I was clinging to the one that supported mine. Apparently, the phone call meant nothing to her either. So, we left without getting those precious fingerprints. A wasted morning that D had taken off work. :-(

The instructions say we can also get them done at a "US Military Installation", so we're going to talk to our friends to see if they can help us get onto the base and get fingerprinted there. At least now we have the forms, which is halfway there. We just need someone to take our prints who legally can. There is still hope that we can get them done before submitting our application, which I still think is our best bet for avoiding delays.

The most frustrating thing of this for me is that this is one of the steps that I expected to be easiest. This, and notarizing documents, which also turns out to be much more difficult over here, but that's another topic entirely. I guess crossing hurdles I knew would be there doesn't phase me much, but running into hurdles that I didn't see coming really discourages me. If we're having this much trouble just getting fingerprints, how much harder will it be to get our all-important approval? What about our visas?! I knew we were climbing an impossible mountain, but I had no idea how difficult it was going to be!

Here's a video that D emailed me after we got back that cheered me up a bit. This isn't quite what we ran into, but it's similar enough.

Relief!

I should learn never to blog in the heat of my emotions. ;-) Just before my last blog, I had fired off a few frantic emails to all concerned to try to get things moving and try to see if I needed to be freaking out or if I could calm down. Last night, I got my first response.

I can, in fact, stay calm. Yay!! Glad to have "official" permission! Our agency said that June 15th is not hard and fast. We can get an extension if we need one. We are still hoping we won't need it, but it's nice to know there is a safety net there just in case. I was losing sleep over the prospect of losing our little girl or having to start all over with her country because of issues beyond our control! Now, I can rest peacefully knowing that the wheels are moving at the pace they need to be and if we don't meet the initial deadline, hope will not be lost. God must be keeping things slow for a reason.... I'm sure it has nothing to do with me learning patience. *sarcasm* ;-)

This morning, I was also excited to find an email with a draft of our home study. I needed to read it over for errors and let the home study agency know if I found any or whether I approved of it as it was. After my approval, they will then send a copy to our placing agency for their review. (Like I said before, a LOT of quality-control!) Well, that became my Priority #1 this morning, so it didn't take too long to get through it. I did find a few minor errors and emailed them back with the list. I think reading it over was more relieving than I ever would have imagined. There was a fear in the back of my mind that they were going to deny us since one of the social workers had the typical attitude of "You have 3 young children already. You live in a foreign country with your family on the other side of the world. And you want another young child? Are you sure you can handle another child, let alone a BLIND one?!" I really haven't come up with a great answer to that yet. Basically, yes, I'm crazy, I know. ;-) But, God made her to be our daughter just as much as he made L to be our daughter and DJ & N to be our sons. He was relentless about getting me to pursue her even though we were told it couldn't be done. I'm sure we're in for hard times. I can guarantee it. But, we're also in store for some wonderful blessings too!

Anyways, back to the home study.... As I was reading through it, I was extremely comforted by the very positive way our entire family was described in every paragraph. I'm sure a lot of that is just because it's procedure, but it still felt good to read it. It was very affirming. Yes, we are good parents. Yes, we will love her and raise her as one of our own. Yes, we do have 3 wonderful children. I think I am going to keep a copy of the final home study and read it on those "bad parenting" days. You know the ones. The ones where you go to bed and regret the decisions you made that your kids will surely need therapy for some day. The ones where you wonder whether you will ever figure out this whole "parenting thing" or whether your kids will end up in jail someday. Not that I have those a lot, but they do happen. Reading the home study during those moments might help me step back and look at the big picture. Yes, I do love my children and that's alright. :-)

Roller coaster, indeed

People always say that the journey of adoption is like an emotional roller coaster. Oh boy, were they right!! I'm not sure if I made things easier or harder by going about it backwards. Most people do their home study, complete their Dossier, file I-800A and then wait for a healthy infant to be matched to them or watch photolistings until they find their child in that large haystack. Well, not me! I had to go and find our child first! This has already created a paperwork nightmare! I had to scrounge to get our paperwork very quickly because we couldn't do anything without it. Then we worked on getting our home study (which I will get to in a minute) and training completed. Before we could even have our first home study visit, we had to have a VERY thorough medical examination with more blood work than I could fathom. Well, that's now expired. We needed it when we got it, so we couldn't have waited to get it. Yet, we'll have to do it all over again in the next few months as soon as we cross our next major hurdle. It never was like me to do things the "easy" way! (Not that the standard adoption procedure is easy!)

Here's where we're at now. We had our last 2 home study visits (of 4) on January 28th & 29th. They went well! Our main agency wanted us to have it by the end of January but we could barely get our visits done in time. I explained to S how we really need to get our home study completed and in our hands ASAP! She assured me that she would have it written up by Feb. 1st, but that it would have to go through 3 more steps within their agency to ensure it met all of the guidelines and was up to a certain standard of quality. I'm all for quality, but I did not anticipate the amount of time each of the 3 steps would take. As it is, we're still waiting on the 2nd of the 3 steps and I wanted to have it in my hands by now!

When we finally do receive it, I will have to scan it and email it to our main agency for them to look it over. I pray everything is ok so we don't have any more delays! As soon as they review it and give the ok, I can mail 1 copy along with our I-800A application and the fingerprints we will be getting this Friday morning. The I-800A is the step that we always saw being our biggest challenge. Right now the turnaround time for approval is 10 weeks and there's no way to expedite that one. Even if I could have our home study to mail this Friday, we wouldn't get our answer until the first or second week of May, assuming no delays! We only have until June 15th to get that approval, send all of our remaining paperwork to our agency, have everything translated, AND get that Dossier mailed to Crescent Moon! We really don't have the time for any delays.

Right now, I'm fighting a lot of frustration in other people. I'm struggling to remain patient and calm when it feels like there's only 1 obstacle preventing us from moving forward. I have our little girl's picture up on our computer at all times to help me focus on what's really important - that she can have a family and be loved. But, sometimes I think that makes the waiting that much more unbearable. The longer I have to wait for something, the longer she has to be without a family. :-( God's got a plan and He's in control, I know. I just wish I knew why His timeline seems so slow.