A Lull in the Action

Well, USCIS did have a problem with our homestudy. (sigh) They contacted our SW, who then called us to say they were requesting John have an assessment done because of his DUIs (from 10 and 12 years ago). Actually, first she called to say they wanted it, but she was contacting them to work it out and not to worry about it. I don't trust her, so I made an appointment for John to have an assessment done just in case, and she called us four days later to say they did. Then she wanted us to send the assessment letter to her so she could send it in to CIS. This didn't make any sense to me. We sent other stuff directly to them, why delay this getting there and pay for postage to her and have her bill us for Fed Exing it to them? Plus, she wouldn't send us the written request from CIS. She just kept saying stuff over the phone. So I called Kathy at FTIA to ask if she knew of a reason we couldn't send the letter directly, and mentioned we never saw a copy of the request. She said that, amazingly, she had requested the SW to send her one and she actually did! Of course, then when she started reading it to me she discovered that the SW had sent only the middle page of 3. Go figure. So she read the request to me, and at the end it said "We also need a letter regarding Ms. Mikkola's issue." HUH?! The SW had NEVER mentioned that to us!

Kathy gave me a phone number that was on the request. I called and got a recording with an email address. So I then emailed, and a couple days later got an email back saying they needed a letter for John and a letter from a psychiatrist for me because of my depression and being on Wellbutrin. Well, we had given the letter from my psychiatrist to the SW back in January! She never sent it!!! So, we figure she wanted us to send John's letter to her so she could mail both in together and never have to fess up to messing up AGAIN. We were furious. I called the doctor's office and they retyped the letter for me, and we FAXed both, then overnighted them to CIS. Then we sent the SW a second original letter from John's assessment. I never told her I had contacted CIS on my own. We figure that the less we speak to her the better, so we're just letting her think she is the one sending everything in and that she got away with her deception. If CIS gets everything twice, who cares.

The real horror is that there is a woman who lives here in IL who reported her SW for doing a bad job. She was within days of her adoption when the social worker suddenly decided she was an unfit parent and interupted the adoption. That was four years ago and they are still in a court battle over it, even though everyone knows it was a retaliatory thing. Someone else adopted their would-be son, and they are unable to adopt now because DCFS has the social worker's report and it takes forever to clear your name from something like that.

So, we are just trying to avoid talking to our SW as much as possible, and let her think she's doing stuff while we cover our butts and do it all on our end. I tried to find out if she had a boss awhile ago, but she doesn't. So no one to complain to anyway. I don't know if she would retaliate, but I'm not going to take the chance.

In the good news department, we finished the rest of our dossier and sent it to FTIA on Saturday. Kathy said they will review it all now, so that when they get the I-171H they can immediately send it all off to Vietnam. This will save us a week or two. I also heard from a woman who went through the Chicago CIS office and she said they are down to 4-5 weeks now, which is very good news. I emailed them today to confirm they have everything and asked if they could give me an estimate on when we might get our I-171H. I'll let you know what I hear.

FTIA is no longer accepting applications to their Vietnam Program because it is at capacity now. This doesn't effect us, except that the wait has increased from 12 months to 18 months for a referal. So, it'll most likely be Spring 2009 before a baby is here. But the boys will be older, and that will make it much easier to add a little one to the family. Jack is excited to have a sister, and he has been pretending to have a baby for awhile now. Like, "Daddy, quiet! The baby is sleeping!" He's told us the baby is a girl and her name is "B." :) (We've been working on the alphabet.)

I can't believe that the only thing left to do is get our I-171H and all it's certifications. Then it's just a very, very, very long wait until our little girl is home!

Christine