Updates

I realized I have not updated in quite a while.  Not much is happening right now for us.  To catch you up I have been dealing with a MESS with our I-600.  Our paperwork was approved and we were notified but the paperwork was not sent on like it should have been.  I spend about 2 weeks trying to figure out where our paperwork was to find out it was still in someones desk and just hadn't been sent on.  After being promised the paperwork would go out that day but the officer and a supervisor I waited the 3 days and checked on it again - STILL NOTHING!!!  I was beyond frustrated so ended up calling our senator and finally the problem was resolved.   The next governmental agency actually process the paperwork the same day they got it to help expedite so that was very nice.

So right now we are all approved on the US side and it is all up to Korea now.  We are just waiting on his exit permit to be approved as the next step.  I am hoping this happens sometime this month but am not holding my breath.  I am still holding on hope for summer travel but things really need to start moving for that to be the case.

Friday we completed out psychological testing which is a new requirement.  What a day!!!  We left the house at 6:30 a.m. to travel an hour and a half for our appointment.  I gave us 30 extra minutes but we were still almost an hour late due to traffic.  The testing went ok.  Better than I expected it to be.  It took about 3 hours.  We wrapped up there and grabbed so lunch and headed off to our travel meeting which I was very fortunate that our agency scheduled on the same day as our Psych. test.  I was able to take one day off and kill two birds with one stone.  That went smoothing then we hit traffic :(  It took us about 5 hours to get home so we didn't roll into the house until almost 8:30 at night.

The good news is it is done.  One more step done and finished towards our little boy.  I have been doing ok with the wait lately, but what I wouldn't give for a new picture.  I bet he has changed so much.  He is almost 11 months old now and my last picture was at 8 months.

I-600 Approved

Today we got notification that our I-600 was approved.  Our I-600 classifies our new little guy as an immediate relative to us to allow him to enter the United Sates become a citizen once his visa is approved in Korea.  Very exciting to get the American side of the paperwork all done and complete.  

Next step this document is sent to Korea and we will hopefully get his exit permit approved in the next month or two then will be submitted to court.

The Roller coaster ride

Our process has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride lately. 

Good news, bad news, good news, bad news! One day we would end the day on a high of good news just to find out bad by morning.

So here is what has happened.  About a month or so ago the news of a tragedy broke (news article).  I was worried right away that there would be a delay or freeze of our adoption but it seemed some people were still getting court dates so we were all hopeful that things were still moving.  Come to find out the Ministry of Health and Welfare in fact did put exit permits on hold.

We were fortunate enough that we got submitted for our exit permit just days before the news of the tragedy broke (otherwise we would be even farther backed up).  It is hard knowing that things are on hold with no idea when things would begin to move again.  

This past Monday the agencies met with the Ministry and we were told things would start moving again.  Court dates followed and so we were hopeful that EPs would begin again to.  Finally today we saw the first EP approved in a very long time.  The people today who were approved were submitted in mid December.  

We are still waiting on news if the courts will require us to get a series of 5 psychological test before we travel or if they will pair it down to just one or two.  I do have an appointment but am hopeful that we will be able to have less test.  I have been told by multiple psychologist when calling around for the test that several of the test they are asking for are very outdated and not used anymore.  It will also be significantly less money if the test are narrowed down.  

So what does this mean for process?  Well it is still hard to know.  The average EP is approved about 2 months after being submitted so we were originally hopeful for around April 20th but we will see what happens after this hold.  I am at least glad things are moving again. 

Once we get EP approval we get submitted to court and then the next step is notification of our court date and we leave for Korea.....It is getting close and we can't wait for our little man to join our family.