We Have A Case Worker

We have been assigned a case worker! Here is her email to us:

It is my pleasure to officially welcome you into the Ethiopia program here at WACAP! I sent off a packet full of information about the program and the next steps to get started. Please take some time to review the packet when you receive it. I would love to schedule a time when I can speak with both of you to discuss the program and next steps. Please let me know of a good time to call you, possibly next week.

I look forward to working with and for you!

Counting

One week since our home study was mailed to USCIS ...

Officially Approved

We got an email today from the Home Study Processing Coordinator at WACAP. It said:

I wanted to let you know that I have just officially approved your file into the Ethiopia program—congratulations! The Ethiopia team will be contacting you soon with your next steps. It’s been a pleasure working with you and I wish your family the best. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything else I can do.

Paperwork Complete

We are through with the paperwork. Today we picked up the county certified home study from the social worker's house, went to Nashville to have it state certified, and mailed it off to WACAP. That was the last document needed for the dossier. Well ... except for the I-171H.

I asked our social worker today what her experience has been with USCIS lately. She said she is hearing from her clients that it is taking about two months to get approvals back. She told us to count on eight to ten weeks. That's not as good as the four to eight weeks I was hoping for, but it's certainly better than eighteen weeks.

Discouragement

I received some discouraging news today. I posted a question on the InternationalTNAdopt chat list to see how long the Memphis USCIS office is currently taking to process the I-171H. I received two answers. The first woman said she got her approval this past February, and it took ten weeks, two days. Another woman said they completed two adoptions, and both times it took eighteen weeks to receive approval. We had been told to expect four to six weeks, so I sure hope those waits aren't the norm.

The Wait Begins

Our social worker mailed our home study to USCIS today! Now we wait for the I-171H. Once we receive it, we go on our agency's waiting list, and we wait for a referral.

Tomorrow we plan to pick up the county certified home study, get it state certified, and mail it to WACAP. That completes our dossier! There is no more paperwork, so there is nothing left for us to do but wait ... and wait ... and wait.

Approval!

Our home study has been approved by WACAP! Just as soon as our social worker sends a notarized copy to them, we'll be officially accepted into the Ethiopia program! We can also finish up that final bit of paperwork now for our dossier. Finally and most importantly, our social worker can mail the home study to CIS so we can get that precious document, the I-171H, and be added to WACAP's waiting list!

Whew!

We got a call from WACAP today. They have our dossier safe and sound, and it all looks good. Whew!!

Uh Oh

We got an email over the weekend from WACAP's Ethiopia program director telling us to feel free to mail our dossier to her attention. We mailed it by registered mail on July 2nd! Uh, oh! Since WACAP is on the left coast, I have to wait until late morning to call them. I sure hope our dossier didn't get lost in the mail. That sucker took me over a month to assemble.

Email Info

Today we got an email from Meg, the Home Study Coordinator at WACAP. She said she was submitting our home study for review today. The review process will take a couple of days, and then she will get in touch with us and our social worker if any changes are needed. Once she receives the final, notarized version, she will get our file officially approved into the Ethiopia program. She will let us know when everything is approved and ready to send for verification and immigration.

Next Step

Today our social worker emailed the corrected home study to us for final approval. After that, she emailed it to WACAP for their approval. WACAP was closed today, but hopefully they'll get it tomorrow, will review it, and approve it quickly. Next step ... CIS approval!

Lots of Progress!

Today was a very fruitful day! We received the final document for our home study, a notarized copy of our third reference, so we took all the documents that had been notarized in Davidson County to the county clerk's office for county certification. After that we had all the documents state certified at the Secretary of State's office and mailed our dossier off to WACAP for review.

Late this evening we received a rough draft of our home study for review. I stayed up until after midnight making corrections and emailed it back to our social worker. Since this is Independence Day weekend, both the social worker and WACAP are taking tomorrow off as a holiday, but hopefully our home study will be submitted to WACAP by the first of next week, and they will approve it quickly.

Well, we've done all the paperwork and now we wait. First we wait for WACAP to approve our home study, then we wait for our social worker to make corrections and submit our home study to USCIS, then we wait for USCIS to send us our I-171H, then we go on the waiting list and wait for a referral, then we wait for a court date, then we wait for a travel date. Patience is not my strong suit!

Our social worker said tonight that USCIS is currently taking four to eight weeks after receiving home studies to send out the I-171H, which is much quicker than it used to be. I'm hoping that means we'll be able to be added to the waiting list by the end of August.