Recently I've been waking up each morning and doing the math in my mind to calculate how many days it has been since we submitted our I800A application to USCIS. Our social worker told us to expect around 60 days for the application to be processed and even up to 90 days for final approval to come. We submitted on May 30th and we were just approaching the 40+ day mark for the wait. I knew in my heart that it could still be another 20+ days before it came, but this week I have just felt this sense of urgency and I've literally been stalking our mailbox daily. Seriously, I think our mailman must wonder what on earth we are waiting for because we can easily let our mail pile up for close to a week at a time before we check it (it is not one of those super nice mail boxes at the end of our driveway). I have been checking daily and have been so disappointed to find the endless stream of junk mail arrive. Yesterday, I forgot to check it during nap time as I've been doing this week, so right as we were pulling out to head to the fourth night of VBS, I grabbed my keys and made a quick stop at the mailboxes to check it. I opened the door and found this inside:
What does it say? In a nutshell, it says APPROVED! United States Immigration says we are considered acceptable to adopt one child from China with medical special needs ranging in age from 0-3 years. We were approved in 48 days. Praise God!
What comes next? Well, this week we found out we have a brand new social worker on our case (I'm sad, but I know I'll come to trust our new one quickly!). We literally just talked on the phone on Wednesday and last night I had the joy of scanning this lovely document to her! She is notifying the team in Birmingham with our dossier and they will begin the authentication process immediately! We are so thankful they do all the authenticating for us. Authentication should take between two and four weeks. Once this is done, our dossier will be sent to China and we will officially be D-T-C (Dossier to China!) and our wait for being matched with our daughter will begin. This is truly right around the corner!
Praise God for His faithfulness and favor so far! Please join us and pray that our authentication will go quickly and smoothly (I'd love to fall closer to the two week time frame, rather than the four weeks!). Pray that our documents all meet requirements and all signatures can be verified.
Thank you for coming on this journey with us! We couldn't do it without the love, support, encouragement, and excitement of those around us!
No comments:
Post a Comment