Finger Print Update

Happy Mother's day to all the fabulous Moms in my life! I hope you all had an amazing day. I just wanted to give a quick update to let you know Paul was finger printed for USCIS on Saturday morning. This means that now we need to complete our picture pages, wait for our home study to be completed, and wait for our pass ports. So, the thing we can be working on is the picture pages. The other two details are out of our control. I am a bit concerned about the picture pages because they recommend 4 pictures per page. That is difficult to do when you need to show that you live an active life. I am hoping that by mid July we will be officially on the waiting list for a referral. That would be wonderful.

I need some sleep, so off I go. I'll be back with more updates soon.....

Quick Update

Okay, I am in a much better mood today. Here is were we are at. I had to get reprinted for DCFS/FBI and did that on Wednesday. We should get our DCFS clearance soon. This clearance information needs to go into our home study to complete it. Today, I finally was able to get my finger prints done for USCIS. I went at a great time. The wait was short and Luc did really well. The woman who did my prints was great. She did a set on the computer and then a set with the ink. She wanted to make sure I would not have to go back and do them again. Paul is going to go and get printed tomorrow. When we are both finished being printed all we have left to do is do our picture pages. We are still waiting for our passports which most likely won't be here until July. It is a 10 to 12 week wait and they were mailed out on April 11th. My Dad is still waiting for his passport. It has now been 14 weeks. I am hoping things begin to move a little quicker. This is crazy!

I will be in touch as we keep on trucking along.

Hurry Up and WAIT!

Oooooooh, well I guess I am in a mood tonight. Let's see what have we been up to. We had our second home study visit and we are in week number three and still no word of a rough draft of our home study making it to Tien in JOH Seattle office . Tien is the expert on home studies. She goes through them with a fine tooth comb to make sure there are no red flags. She is the direct link to Taiwan. Home studies are taking anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to complete. Once our home study is complete, Paul and I are hoping our passports will have arrived. Then we need to send a copy of our signature/picture page to Tien and 4 picture pages. Once this is all complete then we will be officially "waiting" for a referral. It can take up to 12 months for a girl.

We had our Adoption education hours on April 28th and 29th. This was as an amazing class. Paul and I took so much away from it. It was nice because we were not the only people in the class adopting from Taiwan. There were 3 other people.

I think I mentioned in my last post that I am part of 3 yahoo groups. I tend to follow the Taiwan JOH group most. I set up a Ladies Night Out with the other women adopting from Taiwan through JOH. I am excited to meet these woman and find out were they are in the program. It seems like they are all at different places in the process. I am really looking forward to it.

I must admit today I have mixed feelings about this whole process. On one hand I feel confident that this wait will not be as long as we are led to believe. That may be naive of me, however, my gut is just feeling this way. On the other hand, it is these little things I have left to do that are weighing on my mind. Paul and I are trying so hard to get to USCIS for finger prints, but we need time for this. I drove all the way to Naperville to get finger printed last week, and when I walked in there were about 30 people waiting. This was at 2:15pm on a Thursday. I just turned around and walked out. What a bummer! We are going to try for this Saturday, if Paul doesn't have any jobs lined up.

Another bummer, I received a letter in the mail today from DCFS and I have to go and get fingerprinted AGAIN! The FBI could not read my prints. I hear that this is very common. I know non of this is major, however, it is those little things that tend to nag at me daily. It is just one more thing to add to my list of things to do. In this process everything is waiting for something. DCFS cannot license us without FBI clearance. USCIS cannot complete our 171 I form until they have a completed home study and finger prints.

I know we are on the right track and doing things as quickly as we can. It will all be worth it.

Thanks to everyone who checks in on the Blog. Please feel free to post comments. I will do my best to update more often. I just want to have information to share.

Have a great week!