A Tale of Highs and Lows

I picked up our mail today and imagine my surprise when there was an envelope from Citizenship and Immigration Services. I was so excited I mentally started writing my blog post. How surprised everyone would be that it only took a little over a week. What lucky people we are. As I continued up the driveway I began to think perhaps I shouldn't count my chickens before they're hatched. So I opened it up and I did not find our 171h, instead it was just a form letter telling me they had received our i-600. I know we drove 300 miles and dropped it off personally.

Adoption Update: We are still waiting on our 171h. I thought I would tell you something you already know. That seems to be the theme of the day.

The US Mail System

I think I need a little lesson in how the US mail system works. Mike works in a different state so that meant we had to have a few documents for our dossier prepared and notarized in that state. This means that we have to send these documents to the Secretary of State in Idaho to be certified. I decided to get this done so I didn't have to worry about it. This is where the whole mail system mystifies me. I took the documents to my local post office where I found out I can't have a tracking number unless I send the package priority. I decided that I really wanted to be able to track that the documents had arrived so I handed over $4.55. I tracked the package and it took 3 days to get there. It is only 1 state away. But here is where it gets really bizarre. I hadn't enclosed a priority mailer so the Idaho Secretary of State office mailed our documents back to me through regular mail. It cost 85¢ and I received the documents in 2 days.

A poem

This is a poem that I found on adoption.com and is also a part of my adoption workbook that I am completing for our agency. It really put things into perspective for me. And when I am bummed because our child won't be a tiny infant when she comes home this poem helps me to remember we are not adopting for 0-8 months we are adopting for a lifetime, and that it is better to give up that first year then to never experience a child at all.

You may want to have a tissue handy when you read this.

DIFFERENT TRIPS TO THE SAME PLACE
Author Unknown

Deciding to adopt a baby is like making a journey to New Zealand.

You have heard that it is a wonderful place, you’ve read the guide
books and feel certain you are ready to go. Everyone you know
has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight
with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to
being pampered on the trip.

So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to
New Zealand. All around you, excited people are boarding planes
for New Zealand. It seems there is no seat for you! You will have
to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a
wonderful trip, you wait, and wait, and wait. . .

Flights to New Zealand continue to come and go. And come and
go. People say silly things like, “Relax! Be patient! You will get
on a flight soon enough.” Otherpeople actually get on the plane,
and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, “That’s not fair!”
After a long time, the ticket agent tells you, “I’m sorry, but we are
not going to be able to get you on a plane to New Zealand.
Perhaps you should think about going by boat.”

“BY BOAT!” you exclaim. “Going by boat will take forever. Not
many people go that way – the journey is very uncertain and
you never know where you will end up. It is also very expensive.
I really had my heart set on going by plane.”

So you go home and think about not going to New Zealand at all.
You wonder if New Zealand will be as beautiful if you approach
it by sea, rather than by air. But you have long dreamt of this
wonderful place, and so finally you decide to travel by boat.
It is a long and uncomfortable journey of many months and
over many rough seas. Just a few people are on board. You
wonder if you will ever see New Zealand.

Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth from
New Zealand two or three more times, marveling about each trip.

One glorious fine day, the boat finally docks in New Zealand. It is
more exquisite than you had ever imagined, and the beauty is
magnified by the months, even years spent on a rough sea.
You have made wonderful and close friends during your long
voyage and you find yourself comparing stories with others who
have also traveled by sea rather than air. People continue to
fly to New Zealand as often as they were, but you are able to
travel only once; perhaps twice. Somesay things like, “Oh, be glad
you didn’t fly. My flight was awful, if was really uncomfortable.
Traveling by sea must be so easy!”

You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to
New Zealand. Still, you know that you have a special
appreciation of New Zealand. You realize that the beauty of
New Zealand is not in the way you got there, but in the place itself.

It Worked :)

We made the all day trek to Yakima to file our i-600a with the USCIS office today. It turned out to be totally worth the trip. We showed up a little early and waited in the car until 15 minutes before our appointment. The friendly security officer greeted us at the door and had us put everything in a tub like they have at the airport. I didn't realize that had you empty your pockets so of course Mike had all his change that he had to dig out. Then when he took out his money clip it has a small knife on it so that had to go the car. It was a little bit of a circus getting through the door but they were friendly and we made it ok. The lady that took our paperwork couldn't have been nicer. She was amused by me because with my anal personality I had filled out the form on orange AND salmon colored paper because I had seen references to both colors and I wanted to be prepared for whichever one they preferred. I also had 3 sets of additional paperwork. One set with statements to the fact that they were copies attached, one set without, and the original documents. Just in case. She took or paperwork and sent us over to get our fingerprints. We ended up waiting about an hour because of other people also waiting which was fine by me. I was just so happy to have it go so smoothly.

Good News, Good News, Good News

Good News #1: Our final home study was in the mail Friday. This means we will be heading to Yakima on Monday to file our i-600. Cross your fingers that they will let us and not make us mail it in and then wait for a fingerprinting appointment.

Good News #2: We got an update from our Vietnam coordinator on Friday. She announced that our agency signed with 2 more provinces in Vietnam. They haven't released the details as to which provinces they are, just that they are in the south. I also don't know exactly when they will start placing children from these new provinces or how many children they have to place. We still have awhile but hopefully this will make our overall wait shorter.

Good News #3: Mike and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant tonight. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am a self proclaimed picky eater. If I were to make a list of foods I like and foods I don't, the don't list would be much longer. Since we announced we were adopting I have been joking that I wonder how many bags of M&M's I can pack because I don't know what I will eat when we travel to Vietnam. However, it has been important to me to really learn about the culture and I decided that I would try new things (This really is a big step for me). I ordered Bun Thit Nuong, luckily it was number 20 on the menu because I wouldn't have had a clue how to pronounce it and I wouldn't have insulted the waiter by even trying. It was Vermicelli with broiled pork and fried egg roll. Now I am not going to lie and say I loved it, but I did like it and I would go back. I actually really liked the noodles and the pork, it was the egg roll part that wasn't my favorite. Mike ordered Bun Thit Ga Va Tom Xo Xau Nuong which was the vermicelli with chicken and shrimp. I tried some of his chicken and it was really good. So I have some ideas for ordering next time. They had some dishes with chili chicken, chili pork or chili beef, but the word chili made me think they were spicy and I don't like spicy foods. Does anyone know if they are spicy or should I try them?

4 Extra Days

As you can probably tell from the title We did not get our home study in the mail today. I still don't understand why it takes the same amount of time to send something across the state as it takes to send something clear across the country. I take some blame here, I should have arranged to have my social worker overnight the document. I know in the scheme of this long wait that 4 days is probably not the end of the world, but have you seen the top of my blog? I'm counting every second.

I had to cancel my Thursday appointment with the USCIS. They only had two appointments left for Monday, which I know I should be thankful that there were still appointments left but I was a little bummed that the earliest we could get in was 2:00. There is some risk in going in person to the USCIS. Technically in Washington (I don't know if they did this in other states too) they closed to walk ins to file their i-600 back in November. You had to mail in your application and then wait for a fingerprinting appointment. Now my Washington adoption Yahoo group has been posting that as of the end of January they have been unofficially accepting walk-ins or more specifically people who schedule an infopass appointment. They say the best day is Wednesday (I don't know why) but people have posted that they have gone on other days. So far I have not seen a single post of someone not being able to get in. Let's hope we are not the first. I know I am going to fret all day wondering if we will be able to get in, so it would have been nice to get in earlier so I could have had some peace of mind.

Now please mister postman deliver our home study tomorrow so I don't have to fret over that too.

Please Mister Postman

I finally succeeded in getting a hold of our social worker yesterday. We have been waiting for our final draft of our home study. He had a couple of revisions that he needed to run by me so he emailed me a copy and I called him back right away. I'm talking less than five minutes. Yes I am anxious to have this done. He said that he would get it notarized today and mail it to us. So I made an info pass appointment with the USCIS office for Thursday. This office will process our form for adopting an orphan and run our fingerprints.

I now have to cross my fingers that the home study will arrive in the mail tomorrow. When I called my social worker today to confirm that he did mail it. (Helpful adopting hint: Don't assume anything, confirm everything) I found out he sent it out priority but when he asked they told him it would take two to three days to get to me. Now I know we live in the boonies but I am in the same state. I used priority mail to mail my passport all the way to the east coast and that made it there in two days. We are talking a fraction of the distance.

Now everyone repeat after me: Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor gloom of night...NOR 400 MILES will keep the postman from delivering our final home study.

Hi my name is Shelley and I'm a shopaholic

I love to shop. My whole family can vouch for that. But when Mike and I decided to adopt and I found out how long the wait would be I decided to make a vow that I wouldn't buy anything for the baby until all the paperwork was submitted and we were officially on the waiting list.

So here is what I have bought so far, and no were not on the waiting list. Dang Ebay!!!


They were all so adorable I just couldn't resist. Do they have a 12 step program for this???

The List

Were on the list. No not the waiting list. For that we need to get our finalized home study, get our 171h (which means we can adopt an orphan), and log all our paperwork with the Vietnam government.

No the list I am talking about is Mrs. Broccoli guys blog roll. This is a list of blogs about people who are adopting from Vietnam. Now I don't want to give the impression that she searches the web and came across our wonderful blog and decided to add it to her list. No I found her wonderful blog and asked if she would add our blog to her list. When I checked this morning there is was a little more than halfway down her alphabetical list. I have added a link to her sight so one you can see that I really am on the list, and two if you want a great resource for finding other Vietnam adoption blogs this is a great place to go.