grrlTravels

I had another entry in mind

It came today. It came today! It came today! It came today, today, today!!! Folks, I have in my hands, today, an I-171H "Notice of Favorable Determination"! And not only that. "Your Visas 37 cable has been sent to the American Consulate or Embassy in Guangzhou". (Whatever that could mean.) And also, "Your application has been approved for 1 child(ren)."

Wow.

I am so happy I can't sit still.

Today I was at work with K. while E. stayed with the baby sitter. I was enjoying my once a week day with grownups. For lunch we went to the mall to buy a Halloween costume for E. (I gave up on making one after I had not one single solitary brillant idea, and not even a mediocre one either.) I said to K., "Let's go and get our passport photos done, if we have time," and he agreed, that being the last thing on our list to do for the dossier. While we were having them done I said, "I wanted to do these today because I think our paperwork just isn't being sent until we get this done, so let's just do it. Then our paperwork will come and we can stop worrying." And we got home, and voila, there it was. So if you are eagerly anticipating the receipt of your I-171E, my advice to you is go and have your passport photos taken. If you have already done that, I don't have any advice. Sorry.

When E. was born, he arrived bright and early on a Sunday morning. My C-section was around 8 am (don't even get me started) and he was here, breathing and crying, by 9. We repaired to the recovery room and started dialing. And no one answered. Not one single person. Everyone was at church, you see, and we had to hold our good news to ourselves for hours until they came home and got the messages. Well, tonight I started dialing, and no one was home. I think every time I get really good news, the arrival of a child news, no one is home or going to be home. I don't know really what that means and I really don't care because, did I tell you, I got my I-171H today!!!

Here are our terrible "passport photos". Or should I say "Lucky Passport Photos". So just notarizing and a good old NJ state seal and we are in business with a December DTC date (I hope).

I actually got two envelopes today from the CIS (Agency-Formerly-Known-As-The-INS). I got all excited when I saw the first envelope and started dancing around in the front yard. I opened it up, and out popped our original birth certificates and marriage license that we had submitted way back when in March. Nothing else, just our 3 originals returned to us. I was surprised. Then I got angry. An envelope from the CIS with Nothing In It But 3 Dumb Original Documents that I already have multiple copies of??? Then I decided to look on the bright side. If they had sent our originals back, it meant that we were making progress and that our file was being reviewed and processed. And the I-171H couldn't be far behind, could it? And it wasn't!

We had our fingerprints taken on September 10, so that was 6 weeks and 3 days for those of you keeping score. The fingerprints were taken in Philly, but our CIS office is in Newark. We had heard that the PA people were getting the form in about 2-3 weeks, but for NJ, for us, it took 6. Anything is better than 10, right?

Did I say I was happy? We're having a baby! And we'll meet her in hopefully about 10 months.

Posted by grrlTravels at October 25, 2004 8:37 PM