Our First Bumps in the Road

Bump #1: My fingerprints.  Yes, I had a feeling my meager prints were going to cause problems when I was at the USCIS office a few weeks ago and the computer kept saying "denied" or something like that every time we tried.  I haven't heard from them yet about whether they were readable enough for their liking.

But we have now heard from the other agency that has to do a background check...the FBI. The fingerprints that I had the police take that I sent to them were not good.  We got two envelopes in the mail.  One that said that Jeremy passed the background check, and one that said that I would have to send in new prints.  Grrrrr!  Looks like I'll have to try again.  This time I'm going to try to "plump" them up with some greasy lotion the night before (I heard that helps) and I'm going to send them 4 copies--two done by the police station the traditional ink pad way and two done on a computer at the BCI office.  Wish me luck and pray that my poor faint little prints will show them what they need to see AND that we can somehow get them to expidite our background check since we already have a child identified.   It took them about two months to complete the first one.  We need them to be faster this time so we can have our dossier ready when we travel in a month!

Bump #2:  A lovely pink letter that came from the USCIS Thursday, saying that we need to send in evidence of Jeremy's income this year.  You send tax returns and your home study with your I-600a application.  Our last year's tax return showed a sad income because Jeremy's business was in the dumps with the economy situation.  Business has picked up like crazy since we started the process of adoption  (which is an obvious miracle in itself.) We stated a much larger income in our homestudy than what our 2009 tax return said we made last year.  So they want evidence of that income actually happening.  W-2's, bank statements, a letter from our CPA, and check stubs from this year.  We're not worried about this.  Luckily, we have all the evidence they are asking for and it should make them happy.  I just pray they aren't going to ask me to send in more fingerprints, too!

It's funny, on the Reece's Rainbow discussion group, people are always saying things like , "Please pray for us today, that our paperwork makes it here or there, or please pray for my social worker to finish our homestudy this week, or pray for my fingerprints" etc.  I have to be honest, it sounded a little funny to me at first. But now that we are deep into the process and we are hitting bumps, it's not so funny any more!  So much in adoption is completely out of your control, and the only thing you  can actively do is...pray!  And ask others to pray, too!  I'm so glad we can turn to our faith, though. I know that prayer makes great things happen and that God hears them ALL!  The big long ones and the little short ones, too. :)  So, this week, we'll be praying that the FBI and the USCIS will have mercy on us.  Sounds like we're illegal immigrants or something. Gotta laugh.