february 18, 2011

had a bit of a set back yesterday (or the day before??  i've lost track).  called the uscis (united states citizenship and immigration services) to check on the progress of our I-800A (I-797C).  discovered that walking in for early fingerprinting was not necessary as our case is still sitting in a pile, yet to be touched.  there is a huge backup of paperwork, apparently from raising rates back in november.  when folks heard there would be a rate hike, many rushed their home studies to completion to beat the increase.  uscis was swamped.  they are still catching up.

we are looking at (best case scenario) 90 days from lockbox (dec 23, 2010) to I-800A pre-approval (I-797C), so right around march 23, 2011 we should be receiving our I-797C.  from there, we will get it sealed and send it to the agency and our dossier will be complete.  they will translate the entire dossier and ship it to china.  so maybe two weeks after march 23, we will be logged in at china.  that would give us an LID (log-in-date) of roughly april 7th or so.  a very disappointing date, as we had hoped to be logged in back in early feb!  we were dreaming.  we are newbies to this stupid hague process, unfortunately.  :(

also, learned yesterday that travel to china is currently projected at anywhere from 3-6 months AFTER LID.  folks, that means, assuming a second week of april LID, we might be going to china in july, august or september!  i will be so sad if we miss his second birthday.  of course, i will be extremely grateful to be on the road to china REGARDLESS of when we travel, but had hoped this process would not take quite that long...

still, the day will come that we meet our dear ning yuan and, well, turn his life upside down!  and then hopefully, give him a great future with a loving family and a welcoming home.  :)  one day at a time.