Congressional Inquiry (and Referrals!)

Ah the joys of adoption paperwork.

In May we filed our "Petition for the Advanced Processing of Orphan" with Immigration.

In June we were fingerprinted. You may remember the dorky photo at the Department of Homeland Security. :)

In August I was concerned that we still had not received our "Notice of Favorable Determination." We cannot bring Bear home without this letter. I contacted our local agency to make sure our homestudy was sent. Then I contacted Immigation to ask if they had our homestudy and everything they needed. I received no response from Immigration. It hadn't been 90 days yet so I decided to wait before contacting them again.

This past Friday, still no letter. So I contacted Immigration again. This time they responded. "We have not received your homestudy. We will begin processing once it's received."

Aye yai yai. They must have lost the homestudy.

Here's some advice to everyone out there chasing the paper. When in doubt, call, email, etc. until you get the information you need! I wish I had been more insistent on asking for specific information throughout this process.

So today, I called our representative in Congress, Jim Sensenbrenner to ask for his assistance. His office is going to do a congressional inquiry on our behalf. He has a more direct line to USCIS.

As Julie put it this morning, this is not yet an emergency. I just need to make sure it doesn't become one shortly!

Moving on to the good stuff. Some families we've had fun getting to know this summer on the waitlist have received their referrals. Yeah!! Adam and Christie were right behind us on the list, separated by a mystery family. They received their referral of a wee boy (3 weeks old!) two weeks ago. And tonight the Jones family posted their referral news. A baby girl will be going home to join her parents and her big sister who is also from Ethiopia. And the Boyce family received their referral of their sweet girl the same day we heard about Bear. It sounds like she and Bear traveled together from the government orphanage to Hannah's Hope.

So much JOY! We celebrate with you all!

**Breaking news....add Dan and Tara Jean to the referral list. They got the call today!