SO, July 2010 we get the referral for Akvile and the wait begins. All of the Home Study Paperwork that we had done now has to be translated into Lithuanian. This takes a little while, when it is finally completed it is sent to the Adoption Service (AS) in LT. They then have to make sure we have everything they need according to there Laws. We receive information back, that we need to fill out some more paperwork. This is completed; sent to our adoption service, and that is translated back into Lithuanian and sent back to AS in LT. Once that is all done the AS in LT hires Lawyers for our case.
Weeks go by and we are asking questions. What is going on? Does it always take this long? Questions about Akvile? Finally in October 2010, we receive paperwork from the Lawyers; but not a court date yet. We need to review the case and make any changes. We also need to provide a letter requesting the waiving of the 40 day waiting period. In LT adoptions there is normally 2 trips you have to make. The first one is the court date. From there the judge will decide to waive the 40 day waiting period; if they do not then a second trip must be made to finish court documents and bring a child home.
So after reviewing the case and making slight changes; like a name change for the child and other facts of our case. We send this back; once again since there are changes, translation has to happen again. In late November, early December 2010 we receive word that we cannot schedule a court date until they receive a copy of our tax information from 2009. This frustrated us, since our taxes were completed before April, we should have been warned that this was needed. There is a chance that we could already have Akvile home if we would have known about this sooner. But that is now the past, so we send a copy of our taxes.
While that has been sent we are informed that our USCIS paperwork that we completed in December 2009 is about to expire. The paperwork is only good for 1 year and then you have to do most of it all over again. By this time we are about to lose it. So in December we start the process all over again... Doctor's app't, background checks, Interviews, and more. So we get this all completed in December 2010 and mailed back into USCIS.
Now we are waiting on USCIS for our fingerprinting to be scheduled. While we are waiting, we receive word that a Court date has been set; February 4th, 2011 in Vilnius, LT. So our adoption service contacts USCIS to see if they can expedite our paperwork request. The canned response we receive is "it will be processed in the order it was received." What kind of response is that? We try to remain calm, knowing at the time it was going to be close. We planned on traveling at the end of January, but since we do not have all of the required paperwork, we have not bought our plane tickets yet.
At the start of January 2011 we receive a letter from USCIS with our Fingerprinting Schedule; January 26th. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! We planned on flying out January 27th, there is no way we can get our fingerprints and have the required paperwork in order to travel. So once again our case worker contacts USCIS to find out if we can reschedule or just "show up early." The response we receive this time is that they cannot reschedule, but we could attempt to show up early and hope they will process us. Ughh! On January 6th, 2011 we arrive at the fingerprinting location and they accept us to have this done; whewwwwww.
January 15th, 2011 we get mail from USCIS. We are excited! We are done! Nope, it is a letter stating that there is "Missing Evidence." WTH!!! They require an interview; home visit interview is not present in the update. Since it is a Saturday the only thing we can do is e-mail our Adoption Case Worker. Then we find out, there office is closed on MLK Holiday, so we have to wait for a response until Tuesday.
On Tuesday we finally hear from our case worker and she tells us that USCIS has never required this in the past. She doesn't know if the USCIS worker did something wrong or if there has been a procedure change. She comes out that day to do the "Home Interview." She does her thing and leaves, sends a copy to her Home Office for review and then it is mailed out overnight to USCIS. USCIS should have received this paperwork on Friday January 21st, 2011.
Now, here we sit again, waiting on our U.S. Gov't to process our paperwork. The short of this is, if we do not receive the approval form by January 27th, 2011 we will not be able to make our scheduled court date.
If we do not receive the paperwork in time there is two things that could happen.
1. The lawyers in LT will reschedule the court date; approx court dates are
end of February, beginning of March.
2. When the lawyers try to reschedule, the judge might not set a date until
we have received all of the required paperwork. Which could mean
March or later.
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