Waiting on immigration... and a bit of hope, too.

We do not have much to update right now, except that we are waiting... and waiting...and waiting on immigration approval.   According to others' past experiences, this should have happened a week or so after our biometrics/ fingerprints-- even if we had our fingerprinting done early (which we did).  We called immigration and were told that they are allowed to take up to 90 days, so we might have to wait an additional 60 days-- maybe more.  We're hoping that doesn't happen. 





I want to make it clear that this is not just an annoyance that we wish things would move faster.  In adoption, timing is everything, and we have documents that are soon to expire if immigration doesn't come through.  If that happens, we have to pay an extra $90 to have a portion of our dossier (we have everything done except immigration approval) sent to the Chinese Consulate and then send our immigration approval as soon as that arrives.  We're sure this has happened to others before, but there's a bit of a worry for us that documents may not find each other.  After all, the entire dossier was supposed to go over there together as a group.  We have until July 11 for immigration to come through and make the move so that we can send all of it at once.  If that doesn't happen, we will just continue to trust that everything will come together as it is supposed to.  In the meantime, we're keeping busy by filling out adoption grants-- not exactly a fun step, but very necessary so that nothing else has to be delayed.

Despite this unexpected delay, we know that God's timing is everything, and we are still very hopeful and very excited that things are moving along, and we saw a beautiful sign of hopefulness tonight on our soon-to-bloom Rose of Sharon-- a beautiful black swallowtail butterfly.  It was hanging on to the plant for dear life for fear of being blown away with the gusty wind outside.  Here is a picture of it for you to see--

 

 



Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we continue along our journey.  We hope to have some good news to deliver to you soon!

Fingerprinting Fun

On Monday, just before we left Indy to visit Howie's parents in Ft. Wayne, we travelled downtown to have our electronic fingerprints taken.  They have quite an operation down there!  We thought we'd be in and out-- no problems, right?  Well, hopefully no problems.  We have to wait and see to be sure.

Howie had his taken first, and I saw the lady talking to him about something.  Then, he had to leave the room, and I had to get my fingerprints taken.  That proved to be a little difficult due to my hand eczema.  Actually, my hands look pretty good once the weather starts to warm up, but apparently, my fingertips were drier than what was required for the biometrics to be taken, so I twice had to rub in cornhuskers lotion that they had ready for me to use at the facility.  I think that finally turned out fine, since she was told electronically if it was acceptable or not and kept redoing them until they met the standard.

Afterwards, I met back up with my husband, and we got in the car, ready to continue our journey.  I asked him out of curiosity what they were talking about when he had his prints taken, and he said, "She asked if we were adopting from Uganda" because that's what was stated on the screen that she was working with.  He said that we were not and were adopting from China.  She then deleted Uganda and typed in USA.  I said to Howie, "Why didn't she type in China?"  He didn't know, so that's where the mystery lies now.  I called a number that we  had on our fingerprinting form (a national number for homeland security questions about fingerprinting), and I asked if they had the number for the place where we received our fingerprints, and they said, "No, they have no phone number.  If you have a question, you'll have to go there in person to ask them."  Our secretary at Bethany said that she had never heard of a situation like Howie's happening but that she wouldn't worry too much about it; she thought it was fine, so we're not going in person to ask-- at least not yet.  Hopefully everything gets figured out where Hague is concerned (China is a Hague convention country) and we receive our Immigration Approval sometime in the next week or so. 

Then, we'll copy and send off our dossier!

We'll keep you posted!

Jenn

A Little About Our Family

 

 

 

Hi, and welcome to our blog.  Here is a little information about our family of two-- as of now.

 

My name is Jenn Fischer, the official author of the blog, but my husband, Howie may write a blog post from time to time as well.  I'm not sure about that at the moment.  :)

 

We met online through Catholic Match just about four years ago, in 2009, and we quickly moved our relationship from an online one to an "in person" one.  Each weekend, either I would travel to his hometown of Ft. Wayne, IN,  he would come here near Indianapolis, or we would meet for a day in between our two homes in Muncie.  We soon found out that we had found the love of our lives in each other, and Howie proposed to me in January of 2010.  I, of course, was thrilled and immediately said, "Yes!!  I will!!"  We celebrated right afterwards by eating lunch at Bucca de Beppo with our parents.  What a wonderful day to remember.

 

By September of that same year, we were married, and we spent a lovely honeymoon in Story, Indiana.  Quite an appropriate place for two teachers to spend their honeymoon, wouldn't you agree?  At that time, Howie was still in graduate school, completing an intensive program to earn his master's degree in teaching mathematics, and I was in my tenth year of teaching English at a local middle school, so our honeymoon was short, but it was something I will always hold dear in my heart.

 

After another year passed, we began trying to start a family.  Things didn't turn out the way we had assumed they would, but we still deeply longed to have children of our own, so we began to consider adoption in the summer of 2012.  We thought about local, domestic adoption, but something just didn't feel like it fit for us in that regard, and we soon knew why.  We were being called to international adoption in China.

 

In December of 2012, Howie and I watched a video produced by Show Hope, which showed a teenager who was adopted from China.  She explained how there were many babies still in the orphanage that she had left behind and that many of them had special needs.  By the end of that video, Howie and I were sobbing.  We sought out more information about adopting from China, and each time the end result was the same.  How could we ignore these precious children who so desperately needed parents?  Our mind was made up.  We would adopt from China. 

 

Still, despite our minds being made up, I wondered if this was what God really wanted, or if it was just Howie and I who wanted this to happen.  God knew my doubts, and He knew that music was the way to calm my fears and reassure me of His will.  On a day that I had to leave early to go to an education convention, I turned on my usual radio station, K-Love, and the station played the song "Merry Christmas" by Third Day.  For those who aren't familiar with the song, it is an adoption song about a little baby girl who was abandoned in China.  I began to cry, and thought, "Okay, God, is this you?"  Then, immediately following that song, K-Love played "Kings and Queens" by Audio Adrenaline.  That, again, has a message of adoption.  By the end of that song, I was openly weeping, knowing that this was God speaking to my heart and letting me know that He wanted this and that we were to trust Him in our journey.

 

And so our journey began....  We started our home study shortly afterwards, finished and approved that, completed all of our dossier paperwork and had it state sealed, and applied for immigration. Here is where we are now:  We are going to have our fingerprints done this Monday, June 10.  Our dossier will be ready to go by the time we receive final approval from immigration, and then, once our dossier is logged into China, the first big wait begins, the wait for a match, otherwise known as a referral, otherwise known as notice of the potential child who will bless our lives beyond anything we could ever imagine.

 

Please join us in our adoption journey and feel free to comment on anything you read.  Also, please be patient with us.  We are new to blogging, and we welcome any feedback or suggestions on how we can better improve our layout.  :)

 

Thanks,

Jennifer Fischer