Seven years ago today the devastating earthquake struck Haiti. A country which was already the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Hundreds of thousands were killed, millions displaced to already disparaging conditions. Destruction and suffering like I can scarcely imagine. Today we remember.
Now, while it's difficult for anything to sound of importance after that...I also know that if I don't write some sort of adoption update while I'm on the blog now that it won't happen until who knows when. So! I can at least say this. Adoption is like those people driving who floor the gas and speed up to a red light just to sit and wait. You're in a hurry to get to your destination (meeting & bringing home your child), and you never know when driving fast might get you through a green light just in time...but more often than not you speed up to hit a red light just to sit and wait forever while you watch people speed by going the other direction.
I've been doing the hurry up and wait thing for years now, but I still put the petal to the metal anytime I have the chance. I never want to look back and think, wow...if I had just done this step faster then ____. So! The most recent example is that a couple weeks ago we got our background checks and home study update done and rushed to get it sent to USCIS with the associated fee. I included the necessary government form allowing them to notify us electronically (either by text or email) when they received and began processing our application. I knew our application had been received (because of tracking on the shipment), but we kept never receiving this notification. So, finally I started contacting people to see what was going on. I didn't want to wait weeks to find out through the mail if there was a problem. Long story short...our application was rejected because the processing fee we sent wasn't enough. They had just updated their fees and our application was postmarked 5 days too late. So it was rejected and being sent back to us. Grrr.
So, yesterday I went and cut a new cashier's check (for the right amount), filled out new paperwork and took it to Mark's office for him to sign, put in another copy of our homestudy and overnighted that bless-ed package again to USCIS. I've never overnighted something and I must say...there is really a sense of immediate gratification! Our package was already signed for today at USCIS! Sweet. Because I sent it directly to USCIS and not through their lockbox facility (that sorts, screens, and mails applications on to USCIS) - I wasn't able to submit the request for electronic notification. I weighed that with the benefit of shaving off time and chose the latter. I'm praying that we're able to get our updated approval letter back in time to send it with Chareyl when she goes to Haiti next month.
Now whenever I get our previous paperwork with rejection letter in the mail (in the next week or two), we will at least be that much further along in the approval process with our re-submission! Now we just wait and hope.
Hurry up and wait! Hurry up and wait!
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