We are still waiting, as well, and have no idea when we will travel. It will be either June or July, because of the biggest small mistake that USCIS (immigration) could possibly make. Our immigration officer approved our immigration documents but made a little mistake on each approval. A two-letter mistake, even! Our address on each approval had us living in Iowa instead of Indiana. So what... big deal, right? Wrong! Wrong because these approvals were sent to my agency, which shipped them off to China. Wrong because they were shipped to the NVC (National Visa Center). And wrong because we were the last to receive them to potentially at least prevent the agency from sending them to China.
I told our immigration officer of the mistake, which meant that she had to reissue each approval-- our I-800 A approving us for adopting a child with the special needs that he has-- and our I-800 provisional approval, which proves that as long as he has a VISA, he can be adopted and enter the US as an American citizen. Our agency was able to contact the person to whom they had sent the incorrect documents, and she will try to take care of that in China. However, no one at the NVC is aware of what has happened, or if they are aware, they have ignored my emails and failed to send a response. We cannot fill out our very last piece of paperwork for the adoption until we know that they have the new approvals, and we've been told that it can take them up to 10 days to process those, so we are really not sure what to do. We should learn more Monday... we hope. Our fear is that the NVC will be confused if we send our last big of paperwork to them before they have the new approvals and that something else will delay us-- so any and all prayers are appreciated! I write about this so that you know what we are going through and that we continue to persevere and to rely on God to take care of our little one in the meantime. MOST people do not end up going through this many hurdles in their adoption. It just so happens that we don't fall into the "most" category. However, we would go through this all over again if it meant that the end result would be uniting with our son, Gabriel. In a sense, this is what all good mothers do, isn't it? We love, make sacrifices, worry about our children, pray for them, and ultimately have faith that God will lead us and them through life.
While waiting, it is important to know that, as much as we think about our son, his biological mother may very well be thinking about him. It is a tragedy that she was not able to care for him. We know that she loved him and did what was best and what would get him the medical attention that he desperately needed to live past his first few days of life. On this Mother's Day, we give thanks to her for risking her own life in order to help him get this care. We thank her for giving her son the gift of life, and we pray she is doing well and hope she somehow knows that her son is alive and well and will be going to a good home. We will never be able to meet her to thank her in person, but we hope that she knows that her son is loved. We will always honor her on this day, as all mothers, both biological and adoptive, should be honored.
