WE ARE APPROVED!!!!!

First, is anyone still reading this? Well, it doesn't matter, I'll keep writing regardless (or 'irregardless' Mr. Smith :) )

Today we received, via USPS, a letter from USCIS. The first thing I read was "NOTICE OF FAVORABLE DETERMINATION CONCERNING APPLICATION FOR ADVANCE PROCESSING OF ORPHAN PETITION". What does that mean? It means that the United States of America has determined that we are able to furnish proper care to an orphan as defined by Section 101 (b)(1)(F) of the immigration and nationality act. In other words, Uncle Sam says we can go get our kid and bring him back to the United States and raise him as our own.

In fact, USCIS has forwarded our application to the American Embassy at Kiev, Ukraine and cabled the approval notice to the Embassy.

I opened the envelope with extreme excitement. In fact I was shaking as I tried to open the letter. It is amazing, and only by the grace of God, that it was just 12 days ago that we completed the fingerprinting for the FBI background check. Steph expected the letter to take at least 3 weeks. I, on the other hand, being less optimistic about the speed at which our beauracracy laden government can perform, expected at least a 2 month waiting period for this approval. When dealing with certain government agencies, it has been my experience that it is necessary to hire an expiditer to get approvals in a timely manner. These expediters are quite expensive, they actually carry your forms and documents to specific offices and to people with whom they have deleloped relationships in Washigton D.C. to quickly obtain approvals and signatures. Why do I expound on expediters, it is because I know that we have an expediter working for us, it is evident in every step of the way that God is carrying our paperwork to the right people.

What is the next step? This approval actually completes the dossier. We now just have to obtain a few signatures on documents that we have to prepare get every document in the dossier notarized, then go to the Indiana Secretary of State for Apostille (certifying that all the notary signatures are authentic) and then we can send our dossier to Ukraine for translation and submission to the Center for Adoption in Ukraine. The waiting period after that is an unknown. We cannot even begin to speculate on how long this will be. We certainly pray that it will be a quick turn around, but it may take some time.

More later, thanks for all of your prayers and comments. We especially thank those of you who have let us know that you are committed to praying for Steph, our child and me on a daily basis.

USCIS APPOINTMENT

Last Thursday, March 3rd, we went to Indy for our USCIS appointment for the Federal Background check. The worst part of this experience was getting there.

We left home in two vehicles. I was headed out of town for the night for work, and Steph intended to go to her office after our appointment in Indy. So, we drove two vehicles to Daleville, and left my work truck at a gas station. On the way to Daleville, we were both hearing on the radio that the entire NE side of Indy was shut down due to an accident. Well, it is my MO to never leave for a destination until the last possible minute to make it with zero time to spare. I find it uncomfortable or a waste of time to arrive places too early. For example, I normally travel nervously to the airport wondering if I will make a flight and it is normally my fault when we walk into church on Sunday morning after the organ has begun playing. This time I was wishing I had left a little early.

We decided that the only way we were going to make it was to find an "alternate route." You may know that from Daleville, IN there is really no such thing as an "alternate route" to Indianapolis. I-69 is really the only option. We started south on I-69, traffic was very slow (30 mph), even some 30+ miles from Indianapolis. We decided to exit on 67 and try to make it down to I-70. We drove as if we were going to be late (no cause for alarm I was still driving safely!) and we made it to 950 N. Meridian Street only 5 minutes before our letter indicated we were to be there.

The Departement of Homeland Security is on the 4th floor on this building. Upon exiting the elevator we were met by a security detail and were searched. I emptied my pockets as if I were going through airport security. However, the metal detector beeped at my pocket, I reached in and pulled out some change and a dog biscuit. I offered the biscuit to the security guard, he said, "you had better keep it you may be in there all aftenoon, you might get hungry." At this point I thought, why did we rush to get here. We walked into the waiting room and were handed a paper to fill out. The room was packed with immigrant families. We found the only place where there were two chairs together and took a seat, expecting to spend hours in this crowded hot room. Everyone in the room, except for us, was either Latino or Asian. We assume most were there applying for citizenship.

Before we could even finish our intitial paperwork at the USCIS, a man approached us and asked, "Are you Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin." We were surprised that we were getting action after being there such a short period of time. We knew this was either real good and we would be moved ahead in line, or it was real bad and there was a problem with our application. He asked us to follow him and we were taken to a processing room. WOW, we didn't have to spend all day waiting at the Dept. of Homeland Security.

The fingerprint processing room was very technologically advanced. They simply placed our fingers on a glass and the computer recorded our fingerprints. No Ink! It took about 15 minutes and we were out of there. We think that those who are there to complete form I600A, international adoption, are perhaps given priority.

Many have asked, do you know when you get to go to Ukraine? The answer to that question is that we have no idea. It should take about 30 days to get our INS approval to adopt. That completes most of what we have to accomplish. After receiving this approval letter, we simply have to put together all of the documents for our dossier. We will send our completed dossier to Kathy and she will look over it to see if we have everything in order. Then, we will send the dossier to Ukraine, it will be translated and then processed. We have no idea how long this will take. We understand that it depends on the number of dossiers Ukraine is receiving and which government employee gets our application to process. If approved by Ukraine they will send a letter inviting us to an appointment to the adoption center in Ukraine. The amount of time between when the appointment letter is received and when the appointment date is can vary greatly. Recently one family received their appointment letter in January and their appointment was scheduled for June. So, we may have to wait as long as 6 months after we receive notification of our appointment.