You know, in our world, when someone doesn't know something but is asked about it, the person often flippantly responds with "God only knows". I think in my entire life, I have never uttered this phrase. I try take seriously the holiness of God and try not to so easily dismiss Him. I can safely say, and with no casualness intended that God only knows when we might be given permission to travel.
I would love to post the email Maren received today from the director of the India program at our agency. Perhaps someday when our beloved little girl is at home, I might go back and edit this particular post to include the full text of the email. I want her to know about it. I want her to someday understand that we did everything we could to bring her home as soon as we could and that so much of the delay came down to shenanigans on the part of others.
In keeping with the norm for the past year, nothing is happening during the expected time frames. The latest hang-up is her passport. The passport was supposed to be issued within 10 days from the date of application. I have lost track as to where we are at this point, but it is right at about a month. The email we got today indicated we can probably expect to wait several weeks more or even longer. If I understood the email correctly, the problem essentially seems to be coming down to government employees attempting to make themselves look good by doing nothing. Yes, you read that correctly. Somehow or other, there seems to be some sort of twisted interpretation of self-pride that is keeping people from doing their job. Basically, if they don't do their job, they cannot do anything wrong. Only by doing one's job can one make a mistake, therefore, better to not do the job at all. Really. That is honestly the way it seems to come across. I want to be clear that I am talking about employees on the India side as the goverment employees on the U.S. side really have been quite accomodating and swift (child abuse checks aside).
This passport slow-down is affecting several different adoption agencies and families waiting to travel. The part that really gets my craw is that we are now her legal guardians. We are legally responsible for her. We have never met her. We would love to meet her. We want to bring her home. And yet, we can't go because they won't issue a passport for her. There is nothing that needs to be decided. There is nothing that needs to be investigated. There are no documents that need to be produced. Someone somewhere simply needs to take a funny little booklet, imprint her picture on it, slap some official lingo on it, and get it to her social workers in India. It is tough to be patient with that sort of thing. I can understand a mistake. I can understand a misplaced document. I honestly can't understand someone not even attempting their job. That is just flat wrong. It is made even more wrong when the life of an innocent little girl hangs in the balance.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Happy Birthday to.........Us???
Today is Elijah's birthday, but we all got a bit of a present today. As noted yesterday, we decided to take a flyer to see if we could get our fingerprints redone (or is it rerererereredone?) early. This would accomplish several things. One, they can be being processed at the same time our daughter's passport is being processed. Two, there is still a very real possibility that the prints will be rejected as we did not have all the typically (but not completely mandatory) paperwork redone. Getting these prints done sooner will allow for extra time if there are problems.
The story about today is a rather neat one. In co-op this morning, Maren had one mom ask if we were taking the boys with us to the printing. We really didn't want to for ease sake and hoped to pass them off to someone. This mom (thank you Amy) was interested in taking them but the logistics just weren't going to be easy to pull off. Maren then was able to ask another mom (thank you Kris) who would be able to take the boys skating with other kids but would not be able to be fully hands on to help with Elijah. The next person sitting with them was able to provide the extra attention he would need with skates (thank you Katy) and happily rounded out a multi-mom effort to make our trip easier. It turned out to be a bigger deal than any of them realized at the time.
Once I got home from work, we blazed down to the federal building, and found a spot on the street just about a block away from the building. Because we were kidless, we could briskly walk down the sidewalk and cross the streets to get to the building. We quickly determined that the police officer looking through the bushes using his baton immediately in front of the federal building was not exhibiting enough alarm to keep us from entering the building. After I got a preview of what TSA pat-downs might be like (don't forget to put your phone in the bin...it makes the bomb- checkers a wee bit tense), we rushed into the room at approximately 3:43pm.
One person was just leaving while another met us at the bullet-proof window. Well, I don't know for sure that it was bullet proof, but testing it probably would have made the bomb-checkers a wee bit tenser. Anyway, the nice but exasperated lady inquired about our business. When we made our very humble and very apologetic case, she hollered back "We've got another one". I don't know exactly what the unseen man several rooms over hollered back, but his tone of voice suggested it probably wasn't, "Oh goody. I hadn't fulfilled my desire to help humankind enough this week, and I was really hoping someone would rush in at the end of the day, on a Friday, the start of a long holiday weekend (MLK Day), WITHOUT AN APPOINTMENT, and ask us to do something we have already set aside time to do in several weeks." Maybe that was his response, but I really don't think so. While this was all happening, we looked on the wall to see a very clearly written statement that really did say something like, "There WILL BE NO fingerprints taken after 3:45 pm". We looked at our watch which said, "3:45". Well, technically it didn't say it, as I have graduated past talking watches, but you get the picture. At some point in this, the manager guy showed his face (not the rather unhappy man mentioned above), realized we were adoptive parents seeking our prints, and really did say, "We tend to treat our adoptive parents really well." He hopped the other two into high gear and had all three of them working super-fast to get our work done. Just as Maren's was getting finished, it was discovered that one of her social security number digits was wrong. The man commented that if that had not been caught, it would have caused major problems. Thank you Lord for all that went well today. By the time it was all said and done, we were actually there probably less than ten minutes! Apparently the end of the day before a long weekend can be a pretty powerful motivator!
The story about today is a rather neat one. In co-op this morning, Maren had one mom ask if we were taking the boys with us to the printing. We really didn't want to for ease sake and hoped to pass them off to someone. This mom (thank you Amy) was interested in taking them but the logistics just weren't going to be easy to pull off. Maren then was able to ask another mom (thank you Kris) who would be able to take the boys skating with other kids but would not be able to be fully hands on to help with Elijah. The next person sitting with them was able to provide the extra attention he would need with skates (thank you Katy) and happily rounded out a multi-mom effort to make our trip easier. It turned out to be a bigger deal than any of them realized at the time.
Once I got home from work, we blazed down to the federal building, and found a spot on the street just about a block away from the building. Because we were kidless, we could briskly walk down the sidewalk and cross the streets to get to the building. We quickly determined that the police officer looking through the bushes using his baton immediately in front of the federal building was not exhibiting enough alarm to keep us from entering the building. After I got a preview of what TSA pat-downs might be like (don't forget to put your phone in the bin...it makes the bomb- checkers a wee bit tense), we rushed into the room at approximately 3:43pm.
One person was just leaving while another met us at the bullet-proof window. Well, I don't know for sure that it was bullet proof, but testing it probably would have made the bomb-checkers a wee bit tenser. Anyway, the nice but exasperated lady inquired about our business. When we made our very humble and very apologetic case, she hollered back "We've got another one". I don't know exactly what the unseen man several rooms over hollered back, but his tone of voice suggested it probably wasn't, "Oh goody. I hadn't fulfilled my desire to help humankind enough this week, and I was really hoping someone would rush in at the end of the day, on a Friday, the start of a long holiday weekend (MLK Day), WITHOUT AN APPOINTMENT, and ask us to do something we have already set aside time to do in several weeks." Maybe that was his response, but I really don't think so. While this was all happening, we looked on the wall to see a very clearly written statement that really did say something like, "There WILL BE NO fingerprints taken after 3:45 pm". We looked at our watch which said, "3:45". Well, technically it didn't say it, as I have graduated past talking watches, but you get the picture. At some point in this, the manager guy showed his face (not the rather unhappy man mentioned above), realized we were adoptive parents seeking our prints, and really did say, "We tend to treat our adoptive parents really well." He hopped the other two into high gear and had all three of them working super-fast to get our work done. Just as Maren's was getting finished, it was discovered that one of her social security number digits was wrong. The man commented that if that had not been caught, it would have caused major problems. Thank you Lord for all that went well today. By the time it was all said and done, we were actually there probably less than ten minutes! Apparently the end of the day before a long weekend can be a pretty powerful motivator!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Passports back! Next Step Please.
Our passports arrived back home today with some very cool looking Indian visas secured in them. It is good to get them back.
We are going to "wing it" tomorrow and show up at USCIS with no appointment with the hopes that someone there will have compassion on us and allow us to update our fingerprints prior to February 2 when our appointments are scheduled. If they will grant us this small request, it will save us at least three weeks. Three weeks doesn't sound like much, but we are ready to be done with this.
We are going to "wing it" tomorrow and show up at USCIS with no appointment with the hopes that someone there will have compassion on us and allow us to update our fingerprints prior to February 2 when our appointments are scheduled. If they will grant us this small request, it will save us at least three weeks. Three weeks doesn't sound like much, but we are ready to be done with this.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Visas and fingerprints
We got word today that the Indian consulate in New York has accepted our request to go to their country and awarded each of us a visa valid for the next six months. This is quite good news. We were somewhat concerned that Elijah's passport might cause a bit of an issue simply due to the fact that he was not born in this country. We had taken steps to secure an Ohio birth certificate for him as well as a United States passport. These things seem to have made his visa process the same as ours.
Additionally, we have gotten word that our next fingerprint appointment is scheduled for February 2...the same day our last prints expire. We aren't sure what that means. We are sure that it means we have no shot at traveling prior to February 2. We don't know if we could travel the next day if needed or if we will have to wait until something comes back from USCIS. Obviously we are hoping that we can travel without waiting for paperwork to be returned.
Additionally, we have gotten word that our next fingerprint appointment is scheduled for February 2...the same day our last prints expire. We aren't sure what that means. We are sure that it means we have no shot at traveling prior to February 2. We don't know if we could travel the next day if needed or if we will have to wait until something comes back from USCIS. Obviously we are hoping that we can travel without waiting for paperwork to be returned.
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