On Saturday I sent our home study to the United States Custom and Immigration Services (USCIS). I paid the big cost to have it overnighted by UPS.
I know, I know, overnighting things through the postal service is much cheaper, but for some reason, when you send it USPS it gets delivered somewhere else in USCIS and has a tendency to be lost for 7-10 days! You would think one government program would want to support another government program, but, logic isn't always evident...and I digress...
So, like I said, I paid the big bucks to overnight it through UPS and I tracked it and saw it was delivered yesterday. I gave them a day to get it logged in and then gave them a call today to check on the status. They said they had it and our fingerprint letters were sent out today. The letter should arrive in the mail next week. It will give us an appointment date and time to head to their offices in Fargo to get fingerprints. We won't wait for that date. We will go the next morning and hopefully they will let us be printed early (most people have great success with going early!).
After she told me that our letter went out I asked her if we had been assigned an officer yet and she said, "No, you won't get an officer until we get your fingerprints back." So, me being willing to beg, asked her about the possibility of getting a medical expedite. Our doctor had included a letter of support regarding a medical expedite due to the fact that Charlotte is so tiny and the real possibility of her being in heart failure. The lady I was talking with on the phone said that a supervisor had to make the decision of approving a medical expedite or not and that she would happily transfer me to her supervisor.
I spoke with the supervisor and explained the situation to him. He asked a few clarifying questions and then said he would call me back in a few minutes. Ten minutes later he called and said he assigned us an officer and that he told her it was to be processed as a medical expedite! I was stunned! He explained that we still had to do our prints first before they could do anything, but after that it would be expedited! God is so good! This saved us weeks - possibly months of waiting! Praise Him!
Then, today, I was mailing off my entire dossier packet (our dossier is just all our necessary documents for the adoption) to be apostilled (remember, this means to have them verify the notary is true). I was going to overnight it to Bismarck and then pay to have them ship it back to me and then turn around and overnight it back to Bismarck because there is a very sweet family heading over to U to pick up their 2 boys at the end of the month. They were going to hand carry our dossier and hand it off to the in-country facilitators. Yay for not having to pay international shipping!
Anyway, I was thinking it seemed such a waste to pay all those overnight shipping charges when I was shipping it right back to where it came from anyway. I had the brainstorm to see if my friend could just pick them up when the secretary of state was finished apostilling them. I really wasn't expecting them to allow someone else to get them, but they said it was no big deal! And, my friend said she lives 5 minutes from the capital and she wouldn't mind grabbing them for me! Yay yay yay! Another big blessing today!
This picture is me in the post office this evening.
My entire dossier is in that envelope.
I was putting my paper baby in the mailbox.
I was anxious! That paper baby is everything (but 1 document) that I need to go get my real baby! I worked long and hard creating that paper baby. Now, I anxiously put it in other peoples hand.
I kissed my paper baby.
I prayed over my paper baby.
And...
I slid that baby down the slot...May He continue to show favor to us!
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