What's the Hold Up?

Many people have been asking why no news...Well, we're at the mercy of immigration at this point, unfortunately. A document called the I-600A is without question one of the most important forms to be submitted. It is the form that requests the advanced processing of an orphan from China.

In Washington, it requires a completed homestudy, which was officially done on January 8th...the form was fedexed to the US Citizenship and Immigration Service office on the 9th.

Next, they send us an appointment for getting our fingerprints taken, of which the results (criminal background checks) could take days or weeks. As you can imagine, I'm on pins and needles waiting for that appointment. Once we get that piece of paper, we will most likely barge into the office and try to get our prints done ASAP. There is an office in Yakima that simply can't be that busy except for apple picking season...and we have a little time before that happens.

So...once we have the I-600A processed and the fingerprints done, we'll get a document from INS called the I-171H, which is the "Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Adoption of an Orphan". Once we have this document, we can combine it with the last of our dossier items (final notarized documents, pictures, birth/marriage certs) for our agency.

We are paying them to compile our documents, have the certified, and send them off to China. They have to make a few stops along the way for official stamps of approval, but at that point we'll be free and clear (hopefully). If a letter, signature, or smudge of ink is out of place, they'll ask for a "do-over", but we're hoping everything skates through without incident. By the time that I-171H comes, we won't have much time to waste. Again, April 30th is our deadline!