Our Chinese Butterflies: Waiting and our new Fundraiser

Friday, March 16, 2012

Waiting and our new Fundraiser

We have had several people ask us if we were still adopting Clare and the answer is YES!!!!

We are just at a point where we have to wait. Once again, our paper work is in the immigration office and once again, it is being held up. I spoke with an Officer there and they think we should have our approval in a couple of weeks. It has been a complete mess. We sent our I800 overnight on February 15th to the lock box in Texas, after it was checked by our agency. The whole process was suppose to take 2-3 weeks. On Wednesday, March 7th I decided to call and see if they had even received our paper work, because I had never received our confirmation letter. I was totally unprepared for what I was told. I was told that yes, my paper work was there but, it had been rejected once in February and again on March 1. The Officer was very kind and said she would figure out what was going on and give me a call back. About 5 minutes later she called and told me that apparently I had 2 extra numbers on our application, so the computer rejected it. I had the correct numbers on there, but they are no longer needed and the space to put them there is still present. So, she told me exactly how to fill out these two pages and that I would have to start over again, when my paper work was returned. She also told me to make sure I waited until the paper work was returned, because if I sent in new papers they would be rejected if the old were still in the office. She also informed me, that our paper work was still sitting on our Officer's desk (where it has been sitting since it' s last rejection of March 1.) and she would try and mail it out the next day. I hung up the phone and cried.

Now, it is March 12th and I go to the mailbox to find a letter from the USCIS saying they received my paperwork at the LOCK BOX on March 1. On March 15th I have still not received my paper work back. So, I wrote a very nice, non confrontational email to them asking where my paper work is, why I haven't received it yet (it is now 14 days since the last rejection), and can I just recollect all the information again and overnight it the next day. The very nice Officer called me about 90 seconds after I sent the email and told me she was looking into it, right now while I was on the phone. Come to find out, an actually human looked over my papers, typed the information in herself and it was actually accepted on March 2nd. Then she said she looked at the Officer's case load we are assigned to and she should get to it in the next 2 weeks.

So, we now have to sit and wait some more. I have cried so much over all of this it is driving me nuts. I have decided to leave it all in God's hands and focus on something else. I have chosen to focus on the last bit of money we need to bring our sweet Clare home. We were full funded, but with the hold up in immigration, we will now probably not travel until very late March or early June. Mid March starts China's Tourist season and with the cost of gas rising the ticket prices really go up. We now find ourselves short $4500.00. We have $1000.00 in savings, we had put aside for her health care once she got home, but we are now going to use it towards our tickets. That still leaves us short $3500.00.

This fundraiser will run from Friday, March 17th to Saturday, March 24th at midnight. Winners will be chosen by: random.org and announced on Tuesday, March 24th.

With every $5.00 donation you will get 1 chance.

You can also earn a chance by sharing on your facebook, blog, or twitter. Please be sure and leave a comment when you share, because there is no other way for me to keep track of this information. I am working on the honor system.

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