It Shouldn't Be This Difficult

Just over 6 months ago we submitted our home study application and 4 weeks ago our home study was finally submitted to USCIS. We have been anxiously awaiting our 171H, which is the last document we need to submit our dossier and begin our wait for Naomi.

In the meantime, I submitted a copy of our dossier documents to our agency coordinator to review. As she reviewed them she realized that due to increasing time lines after referral, a change was probably going to need to be made to our home study. Basically, when USCIS receives the home study one piece of information they are looking for is the age of the child we want to adopt. The age range of the child we are requesting is reflected on our 171H (USICS approval). Our home study requests an infant 0-12 months. However, this age range may not be adequate. If, for example, we receive the referral of a 6 month old infant and at the time of our Embassy appointment in Ethiopia she is 12 months and 1 day old, our 171H will not be acceptable because the age range only goes to 12 months. Our coordinator suggests that we increase the age range to 24 months just to be safe.

I didn't think this was going to be a big deal so I emailed our social worker to let her know we were going to need to make a change and this morning I get a response saying, "this is a bit more involved than one might think." In a nutshell, we start over again. She re-writes the home study, gets the IL required endorsement from DCFS and then sends it on to USCIS. She verified this information by contacting USCIS, who has now been put on notice that we're making a change so the last 4 weeks of waiting for our 171H has been wasted time. Instead of getting our 171H based on our current home study, submitting our dossier and then making the necessary age change, we will be waiting another 1, 2, 3, or 4 months to get all of this taken care of.

Here is a comparison of time lines

Lili's adoption - Just before the 3 month mark, our home study was complete and on its way to USCIS
Naomi's adoption - Just after the 3 month mark, I'm getting my fingerprints done again and still waiting on our home study

Lili's adoption - At 4 months and 1 week, our dossier was on its way to our agency
Naomi's adoption - At 4 months and 1 week, we're waiting for our completed home study

Lili's adoption - At 5 months and 1 week, we receive our referral
Naomi's adoption - At 5 months and 1 week, our home study is done, we have our DCFS endorsement letter and everything is on its way to USCIS

Lili's adoption - 7 months and our case has entered Family Court
Naomi's adoption - We are about 3 weeks away from the 7 month mark and I have no idea where we will be at that point.

Lili's adoption - 14 months - We're bringing Lili home
Naomi's adoption - Who knows!

Am I frustrated? Absolutely!!!!! This is taking much longer than Lili's adoption and that is a frustration.

When I started this blog I did so for the primary purpose of keeping friends and family up-to-date on our adoption and to share a little about our lives. However, the other benefit of blogging is that it allows me to have a record of what has happened at each stage of this journey. I wish all stages were positive steps forward, but that just isn't always the case.

One day in the future, I'll go back to read about the journey that brought our children to us and probably won't remember the frustration that I feel at this moment, but that day can't come soon enough at this point in time.