A Day of Divine Order

Daniel and I were prepared for a long day sitting at the boring USCIS office. We had three bottles of milk for Cecilia, all her toys, several diapers, all our paperwork in case they asked for something, granola bars and plenty of our own beverages. We hauled our way to Kansas City (an hour drive) with confusing directions from MapQuest (they always seem to give us the strangest, most complicated ways to get anywhere). After two adoptions, we've been there several times and should have known better! We finally reached our destination, saw a zillion cars parked outside and took a very deep breath. "Oh the wait is going to be so long. Look at all the cars" I thought. We walked inside, went through the metal detectors and walked straight up to the fngerprint window at 10:00 a.m. There was no line, and very few people in the waiting area. Most of them were there for Citizenship tests. We were handed numbers and short forms to fill out. We sat down and heard them call out "Number 24?" I was shocked because I was holding number 26! I had barely filled out the form and began to hurry. Just as I filled in the last line they called me. We were each called back individually to give our electronic fingerprints. The specialist told Daniel that he and I "both have marvelous prints compared to most adoptive parents." I have no idea what that means, but I took it as a compliment :-)

By the time we were both completed it was 10:10 a.m. We were shocked and giggling. With Sky's in '02 we were there at least an hour or so, and with Andrew in '06 it was several hours of waiting (Sky was with us and it was agonizing on him). Ten measely minutes is unheard of in bureaucratic government offices. It reinforces for us how supported we are and how supremely right this adoption is.

Now it's just a matter of waiting for their approval letter (the 171-H). I've heard it's typically about two weeks, but there seems to be nothing typical so far about this process. As soon as that's received we can authenticate our dossier and become an official WAITING FAMILY.