Oh my goodness. So much immigration paperwork. For each child, there were 64 pages of documents. Some had to be notarized. All had to be scanned and apparently I'm an idiot about that. First off, our old printer was a champ at scanning and the new printer not so much. Or you have to stand there like an idiot and keep track of what page you are on and do it one.by.one. So I broke down and went to Kinko's and paid the lovely people that I now know by name from all of our FedExing documents.
Only to come home and discover that now that all my documents were scanned into one giant document that was too large to email. Even though I specifically asked Shannon at Kinko's to scan it at a low resolution so that it would be less than 25 MB. So I tried this Google share thing. Then cursed myself for spending money on something that probably wouldn't work. So then, I stood like an idiot, and scanned each document into separate PDFs and then sent my poor immigration helper 6 separate emails (not including the 2 original ones with the Google Share docs and also an email apologizing for all of my emails) with an accompanying 36 attachments.
This is where I'd like to thank the Wizard of Oz, Pixar, Dreamworks, and Disney Junior for parenting my children this past week. It is incredible the amount of ignoring your "in home children" done just to adopt more children.
So I sent my poor immigration helper about a dozen emails. Each containing an apology for all of the emails. I wanted to make sure all of my documents were correct before shipping them to her.
Guess what? She actually raved about my using the Google Share thing. She only had to open one attachment and was done looking at my documents likety split because she didn't have to open 6 emails and 36 attachments. (These are actual numbers, people. Not exaggerations. 36 attachments. 18 per child.)
So of course, I then sent her ANOTHER email telling her to please ignore my other bajillion emails. This made her type LOL. So gold star for me.
My documents looked great and now they are off! Off to be matched with our translated court documents stating that Charlie and Mollie are all ours for forever and ever. We will petition the US gov't to list them as our immediate relatives and then request visas for them. This will take....
wait for it.....
anywhere between at least 4-9 months.
Because the US State Department is grossly understaffed in Kinshasha and they must investigate every case for fraud and corruption, both of which are rampant in the DRC. So it is necessary for them to make sure that we aren't participating in any child trafficking but so.freaking.long.
So. freaking. Long.
So maybe don't ask me when we will be traveling. Because honestly, if they hadn't just changed the investigation procedure, I would've said maybe May or June. But now I'm just praying to have my kids home by Thanksgiving. {Actually, I'm praying to travel this summer. Like all the time. I may or may not have had to have a come to Jesus meeting with Jesus about this. He sang me the "Be Patient" song and then gave me this whole Be still and know I am God, I am Father to the fatherless speech. Classic Jesus.}
I try not to think about the time too much. How every month they are over there kills me. How an armed militia marched into their hometown and took over the UN Compound this past weekend. How it finally quieted down thanks to the Congolese guard and some UN Peacekeepers and a healthy downpour of rain. (Cue Toto's Africa) But not before 35 people were killed. How Mollie will most likely turn 2 in an orphanage. And how that means we will HAVE to buy her a seat on the airplane. How I have swimsuits for them. How when I close my eyes I see them and if I try hard enough I can see them running around my backyard in a sprinkler. I try not to entertain those thoughts because then I just can't function. So I just try to sell my shirts and find the ones lost in the mail and prep for our facebook auction and feed, bathe, and clothe my family.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
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