LOVELY DAY!

After many voice messages and emails, we just found out tonight that our fingerprint clearances came through yesterday according to our social worker! She will have the completed Homestudy report on Thursday!!! That means that we can move to the next step!! Most importantly, we can hand in a copy of the report to USCIS so that we can get the last document for our Dossier, the I171H, which is supposed to take about 4-6 weeks. Hopefully we will get it sooner because we need to get everything to our agency by 4/13 which is a little more than 6 weeks away. In the meantime, I can get 3 more documents certified and authenticated (including another copy f our homestudy report) and get our Dossier to our agency, without the I171H, and then send that document when it comes (after certification and authentication).

What is pretty ironic in a couple of ways is that we had Chinese food for dinner and this was one of our fortunes...

Several hours later we got the news that the clearances had come through! So it does look like we were meant to go to China!

Yesterday was a GREAT day!

Wednesday we called USCIS in NYC to see if they were doing anything to help speed up the process for people trying to make the May 1st CCAA deadline. They basically said no, BUT that we should hand in our I600A application right away (usually you have to wait and submit it together with the homestudy report in NY) and they would be able to at least get the fingerprint process underway. Usually you apply then wait 2 weeks for an appointment letter. So we applied yesterday which was interesting because it took us 2 hours to get into the city thru the ice and snow. Then we asked if we could get a fingerprint appt letter while we were there so we didn't have to wait 2 weeks and then even longer for the actual appt. The lady gave us an appointment letter and an appoitment for SAME DAY!!!!! I've never heard of that happening! Maybe because we were the only ones there, maybe because she said the lady that normally give out appointments was out, who knows! So we had to rush from NYC to Hempstead to the USCIS office there to get fingerprinted! So that is taken care of! We are just waiting on the homestudy report now, which we will have to hand into USCIS when we get it. The home study report is being held up by the Office of Children and Family Services who were supposed to be expediting those fingerprints 3 weeks ago. Technically we should have had clearance 2 weeks ago. And now, our social worker is on vacation until Feb 26th! Good timing! NOT! I sent OCFS an email because this is really holding us up. At least we are half way done with USCIS though, that is such a relief. I think once we submit our homestudy to them it takes 4 - 6 weeks to get the final document, I171H. I hope there are as good to us about getting it to us quickly as they were getting us a fingerprint appt.!!!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting....

Well, it's Monday so it's been a week since NYS OCFS should have flagged our fingerprint cards to expedite. Hopefully we will hear back this week that they have been expedited and the social worker can finish the homestudy. We really need to apply with USCIS as soon as possible so that we can get that all done before April 13th. Hopefully we'll be able to go to USCIS sometime next week.

I've finished the dollhouse/bookcase I was working on. Here are some pictures.

I've put it in the nursery already...LOL. And it just fits against the wall under the slant so that's good. I don't plan on painting the nursery till our paperwork gets to China, but I just had to dress up the bookcase with the stuff I already had!