Saturday, February 21, 2009

So do your fingers change that much in 15 months?

Hi all,

A couple of positive things today. Thursday, the last letter that we were waiting upon for the dossier arrived here. Steve picked it up at the homestudy agency, ran it over to the Secretary of State's office for the apostille and it went into the mail that afternoon.

Yesterday we made the 3-hour drive to KC to the Homeland Security office. We had to renew our fingerprints, which expire the middle of March for our I171-H. (Does it make sense to anyone why the approval is good for 18 months, but the fingerprints are only good for 15 months?) Everything went fine, no hitches, and we even got to spend some time with Steve's parents and our daughter Sarah (who's in KC for the next 3 weeks, doing an internship in dietetics at the children's hospital.) It was really good to see all of them, to catch up and share with them.

We drove down to the Plaza for the couple of hours between lunch and meeting up with Sarah. We were going to do a little shopping, but when we parked the car in the garage we were both so tired that we just crashed for about 20-30 minutes. I wish I had taken my camera with me--it would have been a great picture of what this journey does to you--sleeping in the parking garage in KC! We did rally, and journey out to Barnes and Noble, where we were just able to relax.

We drove back last night, and it was late when we got home. We decided that it was probably a good idea to get some sleep, so we slept in this morning. I now have a BUNCH of stuff that needs to be done--a bunch of papers to grade to get caught up for my online class (that honestly, I wasn't able to focus on last week--I feel bad that I'm behind, but I also know it's not fair to the students to grade their work in a crappy state of mind.) I'm trying to stop focusing on all this adoption craziness (both ours and everyone else in this situation, for whom my heart is just breaking, along with all those children this is going to affect) and focus on what I CAN do. But you all know that is just HARD.

So---a good end to a frustrating week. My prayers for all of you in this homestudy/post-placement craziness that you will find peace and grace in the midst of the storm.

5 comments:

Amy said...

hehe it's not your fingers that change.... but you could have been naughty during that time. but I agree, should be the same length of time for the actual form itself!

Rich and Jolynn said...

LOL! The cat nap probably gave you the 100th wind. Next time I need a mental break I am going to try it. I agree that sometimes you have to put the adoption thoughts on hold, if you can.

Troy and Rachel said...

It's crazy isn't it?!?! I also agree that the two forms should exire a tthe same time. Why doesn't anything make sense???!!!

Rob said...

At the risk of seeming a little spiteful, I kinda resent that you're treated almost as a criminal just because you want/need to adopt a child rather than have your own.

With the federal & local background checks, fingerprinting and everything else, if bio-parents had to endure half of what we adoptive parents do, most of 'em would probably change their minds!

Carolynn and Steve said...

I don't understand why there isn't some central network that these all go into--why won't the fingerprints that we do for the FBI work for the Homeland Security people? They do them on exactly the same kind of machine!
And why didn't Homeland Security just compare the new ones with old ones? What we did this time was exactly like the first time. To me this is like going to your doctor, and every visit being like a first visit.
I kinda understand why all the Russian requirements are crazy, but the US requirements don't always make sense, either. It makes me feel like they think I'm bringing in a baby terrorist.