Update on the Drama

After nearly 6 weeks of trying to get someone to listen and respond, we have finally received an update. Last week I finally had to get our US Representative's office involved. I was referred to him by a friend who worked in the previous US Rep's office. I was able to give them all of the information I had and they did an inquiry on my behalf. Amazingly within a couple of days of the inquiry being filed I was sent an email from the USCIS telling me they had our paperwork and it was in process. They gave me a new file number but, not surprisingly, when I tried to check on the progress they file number wasn't in the system. So started a whole new chase.

While the US Rep's office was doing it's thing, I also took it upon myself to contact the Office of Children's Affairs at the US State Department in Washington DC. Yesterday, a few days after receiving our new file number, I got a call from a woman at the US State Dept. telling me what I already knew and added that I should expect our file to be approved in the next several days. She was awesome and gave me her direct line, promising that she would be available to check on things whenever I wanted her to. Just a couple of hours after her call I got a call from an immigration officer at USCIS telling me that our file had been approved and was now being sent off to the National Visa Center.

Yesterday was the first time anyone had bothered to call me or to respond specifically to question's I had posed. This was one of the most frustrating exercises I have ever been through. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because I was dealing with the US Government which is a complete mess.

So what's next? The National Visa Center will process our approval and send correspondence to the US Embassy in Ethiopia telling them how many Visas we are eligible for and what age ranges those children can fall within. This approval will cover both Derartu and A.

We haven't received any updates on the Ethiopia side. My hope is that everything is ready to go over there and we are just waiting for this Visa approval to get there. However, the US Embassy has become more stringent with approving adoptions in Ethiopia due to allegations of corruption. They are doing a lot more investigating and are being huge sticklers on all the paperwork. This has slowed the process down tremendously. In fact, the only other AAI family to pass court the same day we did was supposed to fly out on Christmas Day to Ethiopia to pick up the two boys they are adopting. They got word yesterday that the Embassy had a problem with some paperwork so they are no longer going and don't know when they will be able to.

With all that is going on I am starting to think it will be late in January or February before we go over to get Derartu. This isn't for sure, but I am trying to be realistic with all that is going on. A's court date is on 1/17 and we had been assuming that we could bring him home in March but it may end up going into April because of all these delays.

We are praying that the US Embassy and State Dept. don't put a moratorium on adoptions from Ethiopia as it has been rumored. I don't think that would affect Derartu since she is legally our daughter, but it could impact A's adoption which would be an awful thing to go through.

So, as always, we need your prayers. Prayers for our kids and prayers that we can get these kids home before the government decides to make any decisions that would prevent us from doing so.