Ominous

Persona non grata?
I emailed USCIS starting on Sunday and each email I sent got kicked back - a "user unknown" message. I started to wonder if they had blocked my email. I swear, I have emailed them only twice. I received another contact email from our state's international adoption group. That one worked . . . and today I received this in reply:

"We received your home study on 10/24/2007. Your case will be reviewed in the order it was received."

Sounds kind of ominous, huh? I read it to mean "there are about a 1000 cases and you are number 999." Call me an optimist.

Our FBI fingerprint clearance will be 3 months old on 11/17. I wonder if we should get new. Any thoughts?

The Apostilles are here though. I am going to go home and look at them and visualize our I171H traveling speedily from 101 West Congress Parkway to our mailbox.

I dream of a FEDEX truck

Apostilles!
They have been mailed and are on their way. They are in Champaign to be exact! I just spoke to my mother on the phone and she asked about the adoption. I just felt so frustrated because I want to get this mound of paper out of our house . . . I want to be officially waiting, to be in line, to be paperwork pregnant, to have this off of our plate, to let the pieces fall where they may. Can you think of any other cliches? I just want to be done with this part of the journey already! So, I checked our FedEX account once more and was so pleasantly surprised to find that the 1.1 pound package was sent on Friday.

From my estimation, we are at about 9 pounds and an I171H shy of a bouncing baby girl.

Inching forward

Progress (at what feels like a snail's pace)
We received the mortgage letter with border on Tuesday. It is now at the Secretary of State's office with the other documents.

It is a wondrous sight, isn't it? All squiggly and border-like. We have about 10 letters from our mortgage company in the binder.

October 31 is my self-imposed deadline for submitting the dossier. I don't think we are going to make it because we still don't have the I171H. And, despite the fact that the Secretary of State has the new, improved mortgage letter, as of this morning, our Apostilles had not left the building. Sigh.

Gardener or Ghost?

On to much more entertaining news - our dear Luca told us he wanted to be a gardener when he grows up and for Halloween. Both Scott & I love to work outside, so I think that is so sweet. Kids do pay attention! But, as of last night, he said he wanted to be a ghost for Halloween. From gardener to ghost - the mind of a 4 year old is so very amazing.

Last year, he was an astronaut and we were his earth and moon.

Happy Halloween!

No border!

No border

So, you PAPs & APs out there will completely understand this . . . others may find it absolutely insane. As stated in the previous post, I sent roughly 16 documents to the state to be Apostilled. They arrived this past Monday. How many times a day can a person check their FedEx account? Lots, I tell you. Lots. I got a call on Thursday from the Secretary of State's office letting me know that one of the documents cannot be Apostilled because the notary's stamp does not have a BORDER around it. Everything else is there . . . but . . . THE BORDER. Why would they even sell stamps that don't have a border at the notary store?! And, it is our mortgage letter - the one that we had to get redone. The woman was nice enough to contact the notary who broke the notary law of borders and asked her to send a new document directly to the Secretaty of State. I will check on the situation at the beginning of the week.

We have been endorsed!

All of the above doesn't matter a heck of a lot because we still don't have our I171H. I checked on that in the middle of the week only to find that DCFS had not given us their stamp of approval yet. Long story short - immigration now requires approval from Illinois DCFS (Department of Child & Family Services) before they issue the coveted I171H. But, the following day, our social worker sent me an email letting me know that she received our endorsment and was sending it on to Immigration. I am envisioning a day - maybe a week or two from now - when I open our mailbox and a stream of adoption documents pours out.

The dossier takes another trip

I have now started to refer to the dossier as our other child. It has now made its way to visit its grandparents-to-be and great grandparents-to-be. My grandparents are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary with family and friends tomorrow - 65 years, 9 kids, more grandkids than I can count, and even some great grandkids (soon one from Kazakhstan). Happy anniversary to two extraordinary people!

Off to Apostille

Most of our documents are now entrusted to this man - Jesse White, Illinois Secretary of State. May they all be to his liking. May they return to us properly Apostilled quickly. If there was an altar to a paperwork god/goddess, I would leave an offering.

And, now, about that I-171H . . .

The race is on . . .

For Luca

Luca loves cars (and Cars), so I had to use a picture of Lightning McQueen for this entry. And, now that I am thinking about it, Cars is a good metaphor for the adoption process. Pretty funny, huh? I am an art historian - unfortunately, I can find symbolism in just about everything. My eye-rolling students can tell you that. Humor me. Lightning starts out very sure of himself - he only has his eye on winning. Sometimes I feel like I only have my eye on getting done with the adoption only to forget to enjoy the process and people (my, I have been pretty anxious and cranky and annoyed lately). But, that is what Lightning learns. He is forced to learn this in his detour in Radiator Springs. He finds out people (or I should say cars) are important and the value is in the journey. The journey changed him for the better. It turned him into a compassionate car because in the end he chose to help The King rather than win the race. The end wasn't how he envisioned it, but it was still good. So, I am trying to get in touch with my inner Lightning and realize that I need to learn to be okay with the process and trust that the end will be good no matter what.

The process

So, we had our medical evaluations filled out and signed - that was miraculous actually. My traveling notary seemed a bit flaky, but she came through. I had to request new marriage licenses because the ones we have are too old (March). I am so glad that I saw Susan's comment about that somewhere because I don't think this information was in my manual. But, I do feel like I am checking off things and adding them at the same rate. I planned to send everything off to be Apostilled at once, but now I think I will send what I have just in case there are any problems. Then I can get those taken care of before the end of the month. And, what else do I have to do while I wait for the coveted I-171H?

I-171H Envy

I just read about someone getting theirs in a week! Okay. I know. I just wrote an entire paragraph about enjoying the process. Alison, who has helped me immensely, advised me not to harass immigration for the I171H, so I can take that off my to-do list.

After we come home

I have really appreciated reading about people's honest experiences after the honeymoon is over, so to speak. Thanks, Jennifer! I am glad to be somewhat prepared for the issues particular to children who have been raised in an institution. Of course, we researched this before we started the process, but it is so helpful reading honest accounts of the experiences real families. And, I continue to be amazed by the similarities between raising biological and adopted children.

Until next time . . .

The BINDER

The egg project from high school
Did you have to take care of an egg as a project in high school? It must have been some educator's idea of teaching responsibility or even rudimentary parenting skills. I have to interject that it would not be all that effective since the egg does not want to eat every 5 minutes and does not scream and cry for no apparent reason. Actually, I didn't do this . . . I only saw it on some sitcom like the Brady Bunch. But, I feel like I am doing it now with this binder of papers and Great seals and identity documents.

We took a weekend trip to see Scott's family and I took the binder with us in case our house burned down. If that happened, we would be homeless, but we would still have our adoption dossier! I didn't really want to admit it to Scott. But, I did. Then he brought it in the house at night so it would not get stolen from the car. So, we are getting an A+ on the egg project so far! Only a few more weeks to go!

It was nice to get out of the routine of daily life, though. I really think I needed some perspective here. It is so hard when you are in the middle of something - gathering paper and freaking out about the future - to stay calm and find a sense of humor. If I have learned anything the last 3 years, it is that one controls so little! It is that illusion that always trips me up.

This is THE week!
Tomorrow, we both have our medical forms filled out and notarized. It seems like we have been going to the doctor for 2 months now - physical, TB and blood tests. It is hard to believe that we will actually have those forms done tomorrow.

Somewhere Susan posted that she needs to get a more recent copy of her marriage license and now I am thinking that I should just go ahead and do that because we got ours way back in March.

I Love Blogs!
All of you adoption bloggers are keeping me sane. Thanks!

Mortgage Company came through!

So close!
So, we only have to have the medical forms filled out and receive the I-171H. I think immigration & IL DCFS have had our paperwork for about a week. Then, off to Apostille. I will also be copying things tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion to copy before all of the annoying staples.

We're Going Where?
This week I started getting a bit freaked out by the prospect of the trip. I have traveled a bit - even lived in London for 6 months. Before we went there, we were under the impression that they had nothing. I think my dear friend Karen filled her suitcase with Noxema because she feared they wouldn't have any and she had a bit of an addiction. We had to laugh at ourselves when we got there and saw the 2 Burger Kings (a sure sign of civilization - HA!) directly across the street from one another. Well, that was 18 years ago. And, this time we are actually going to the other side of the world where we don't even know the language - although I do plan to try to learn some Russian before we go. Traveling is exhilarating and absolutely exhausting at the same time. I mean I actually have to think about everything - directions, communication, clean water, food - so many things that are automatic when I am at home. And then there is the roller coaster ride of the intricacies international adoption . . . anyone else freaking out?

Okay . . . so I have lost my positive attitude

Can you help me find it under all this paperwork?
The last two months I have been amazingly positive. I have said things like, "Oh, this really is not that bad." And, "They really don't need that much. What they need makes perfect sense." And, "What is everyone complaining about?" You can all say "HA!" now. I guess now that it has gotten down to the wire I am panicking a bit. I have made multiple checklists, printed out a calendar, flipped through my 3-ring binder that holds our dossier about a million times . . . but the fact is, it isn't done!

What remains?

• mortgage letter
• medicals (my doctor does not have a notary in office so I have to try to locate a traveling one today)
• i-171H
• Then, Apostilling & copying everything

An amazing act of kindness

I have to say that I am completely touched by someone who has offered to take my documents to get Apostilled in Chicago. Someone I only know in cyberspace . . . but can you believe that? Isn't that the kindest, most generous offer?

Comments

The comments in response to my last post really did cheer me up this weekend. Thanks so much! And, when I saw Gia's little face I had to smile! If that isn't encouragement, I don't know what is!

So, I just had to vent . . . I have a plan for the week. I can only do what I can do, right?