Waiting ...

We spoke with our case manager at WACAP on Friday. She told us the stock information that we could expect a wait of one to ten months for a referral, but then she went on to say we should expect to wait about four or five months since we are open to either gender. Later she said she thought it would be into winter. She was thinking early 2010, probably January or February, but before April. She said that right now there are twenty to thirty families wanting infants ahead of us, but 80% of them have specified girls, so we are figuring there's about six families actually ahead of us open to a boy.

I think they are expecting a bit of a delay right now while the Ethiopian office gets revamped, they move locations, and they muck through the rainy season. They are expecting a large number of referrals next time, but because of administrative red tape, they think those referrals won't happen until September or October. She believes our referral won't be in that group. We can expect it will be December to February before they are able to offer the next wave of referrals. Hopefully that batch will be us! She said it takes two to four months after referral to travel, so the group ahead of us could complete their adoptions and free the beds for more children as early as October to late February.

I'm still hoping and feeling our referral will happen during the Christmas season. I've always felt that it will come sometime between Christmas and New Year's Day. That may be optimistic.

APPROVAL!!

We received our I-171H today! Woo Hoo!!! We fax a copy of our approval to WACAP this afternoon, and then we will officially be on the waiting list. Tomorrow we have an appointment to speak with our case manager, and at that time we will narrow down the age and gender of the child for whom we will be open. At that time she'll also discuss with us the approximate waiting times depending on our decision.

One Week And Counting ... Again

It's now been one week since our social worker mailed the addendum to our home study.

The Count Begins Again

Today the addendum to our home study was mailed to USCIS. The countdown begins again. Hopefully they'll be as quick this time, and we'll have our I-171H by the end of August.

Trying Again

On Thursday we quickly filled out and mailed the Request for Evidence form to our social worker. We had to wait until we heard from WACAP to be sure we filled out everything correctly. I finally heard back about 3:45 pm, and the post office closed at 4:00 pm. Ben RUSHED over to the post office and just beat the deadline.

Today I heard from our social worker. She had finished our addendum and had it certified, but she did not receive the form on Saturday that we'd mailed her. She emailed us back later today and said she'd received it late this afternoon, but it was now too late to go in today's mail. She was going out of town tomorrow, but she assured us it would be on its way to USCIS on Wednesday.

If USCIS sends us an approval this time in the same time period it took them to send us the Request for Evidence, we should have our I-171H and be on the waiting list by the end of August. I hope that happens! I've had the feeling from the very start that we would have our approval right at the end of August, and we would receive a referral sometime near the end of December.

Progress?

Well, my heart skipped a beat when I checked the mail today, and there was a letter from USCIS. Several people on the Tennessee International Adopt chat group said that if USCIS was requesting additional information, the address was handwritten on the envelope, but if it was the I-171H, the address was typed. Our envelope was typed!

Nope ... it was a Request for Evidence form. USCIS wanted three things clarified:

The first questioned our I-600A application. We were told by WACAP to write, "no" to the question, "Will you travel for the adoption?" because we will not travel until after the adoption is completed by proxy. It turns out that most states want the question answered that way, but Tennessee is an exception.

Second, USCIS stated that Griffin's permanent address could not be listed as a dorm room. That correction requires an addendum by our social worker. Since Griffin now lives in his fraternity's house, and it is privately owned, we asked her to use that address.

Finally, our home study didn't specifically state that Ben and I had never received a denial for an adoption application. That statement will also be added to the addendum.

It's disappointing that our home study wasn't accepted the first time, but I guess it is good news that we know USCIS is already reviewing our case just 2 1/2 weeks after our home study was mailed in. Hopefully they'll get the corrections next week and will process our case quickly. This time with an approval.

Waiting ...

Two weeks and counting ...