The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good: I think that the USCIS tells you that the approval of your I600-a application can take anywhere from 6-12 weeks after fingerprinting. So, let's say we were fingerprinted on August 19th at 10:00am, that would mean we would receive approval somewhere between September 30-November 11. The USCIS website even says that the field office in my area is waaay behind this "target time frame" for approval of this document, and I should expect more like a 4-6 month wait. (when I found this out in May, it was not a happy day. sheer panic, I emailed everyone I knew and so wanted them to tell me it wasn't so. but there it was on the official website, so I had to believe it, right?)

But we received our approval *today*, just six days after our fingerprinting!

Contrary to my firm belief when I left the office last week, my fingerprints were not rejected and I do not have to redo them! Unbelievable, and so good!

The Bad: The whole reason I got our approval today is because we were able to pick it up in person. How did we know it was ready, you ask? Well, because our precious USCIS District Officer (and yes, I did say precious, she was so sweet and helpful and went out of her way to make things right...bet you won't hear THAT very often about people who work at USCIS) called us that morning. My beloved caller id said Deparment of Homeland Security in abbreviated form, with enough letters that I got the hint not to ignore this call, but to hurry up and drop everything I was doing and answer it this minute. Our precious field officer gently informed me that my husband and I didn’t sign the application (DUH!). She said she would mail it to me, and then we could sign it, and mail it back to her, and then she would mail us the approval. As I sat there digesting this simple hold up that would now add ANOTHER week to this process, I realized that she was calling on a day that my husband had off from work, and this USCIS office is ridiculously close to our house. With boldness or in desperation or maybe both, I asked her if we could just come by that VERY MOMENT and sign it. She said “Sure, come on by, and I’ll just hand you your approval!”

The Ugly: I quickly called Terra, my family coordinator at AWAA, told her the good news about our I171-h being in our hands within the hour (which is typically the very last piece of paper that anyone needs to complete their dossier, simply because it takes so long to get the approval) and said that I was just double checking that I had everything in before I mailed the whole she-bang to her THAT VERY AFTERNOON. She was reviewing some things with me, specifically about certification of documents, when I realized what I had done. Or HADN’T done. My birth certificate, my husband’s birth certificate, and our marriage license are all from other states. In my mind, I was just thinking I would certify them all at the same time at my state capital. Not so! They have to be certified from the state from which they came! (and yes, this is CLEARLY stated in our dossier guidelines, I guess I just didn’t think it applied to me!)

I haven’t touched paper work for the dossier since July 7, the day I mailed my I-600a application. All this time I’m just sitting here doing nothing, when I could have been getting these things certified!

So, in sum, I now have the 171H, (thank you Jesus!) but I don’t have certified certificates. Instead of heading to our state capital before heading to a copy store before overnighting it all to AWAA, I am back to checking the mail each day for birth certificates and marriage certificates! There was a serious panic (how could I be so dumb?) and then there was a serious flurry of activity, getting things in envelopes, writing checks and cover letters, and getting them out the door. We are now at least a week out from receiving all of these documents back, which as my precious friend Heidi who is also adopting from Rwanda and my sister who has already adopted internationally reminded me, isn’t the end of the world. Thankfully, I find my hope and joy in God’s sovereignty, and in who I am in Jesus, and not in my being perfect.

But even though I am tempted to pretend it didn't really happen, I had to share it, the whole thing, the good, the bad, and the ugly.