Nothing is simple in the world of adoption!
A lot has happened since James returned home from the mission trip. We initially thought we could do a few simple updates to our paperwork and be on the fast track to adopting our daughter. We already had our home study completed, medical exams completed, SBI background checks, passports, marriage licence, biometric fingerprints, and US Immigration Approval. Since all of our paperwork was to adopt one male child between the age of 8-10 all we needed to do was an addendum to our home study to change the sex and age range. Send that off to immigration and our approval letter would be updated. Simple right...not quite. After some back and forth with our immigration officer it was concluded we had to file a brand new application with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) because although the approval was still valid it was not within the time frame required overseas. That meant an update to our home study not an addendum would need to be done, which not only is a significant the cost difference, but our social worker would need to do another home visit which would take time out of our already tight deadline. And then the snowball effect...
Our social worker was out on maturity leave, our medical exams were a year old and no longer valid, our SBI background checks expired in 3 days, our marriage licence was certified more than six months ago so they were no longer valid, we decided to take the kids with us when we travel so now they needed passports. Not to worry our home study agency assured us they would find another social worker in our area to assist us. I call my doctor's office, to make physical appointments for my husband and I, I explain my situation and they say the next available appointment is in June...since that obviously will not work I leave a message for the doctor (who is actually my neighbor). Then I call the pediatrician to make physical appointments for the kids...their doctor is on maturity leave...and won't be back until the end of May...REALLY...I explain my situation and ask to see another doctor, they give me some resistance but after standing firm I got appointments for them the following week. My doctor calls back and says she can see my husband and I that Friday...Perfect. I mail out new SBI background check applications, complete and print the passport forms for the kids, gather our passports, birth certificates, social security cards, drivers license...anything I might possibly need for the appointment. I will call the Apex post office to set it up and we should be all set.
Getting a hold of the post office via telephone is probably equivalent to calling the white house and asking to speak to the president! I called and was told I had to call back on Friday because that is the only day they make passport appointments. Ok fine I can wait two days no big deal. Friday comes and when I call they tell me the person that processes the passports is out and won't be back until the following Friday to please call back then. Slightly annoyed but what can I do. The next Friday comes and I literally called 30 times and the phone was busy. Now we are starting to lose our patience so James decides the following Friday he will go to the post office in person to make the appointment. Well when he shows up the next Friday they say appointments can only be made by phone so anyone in line for an appointment must leave. At this point we are completely done with Apex...so we begin calling other post offices and in Raleigh there is a 6 week wait, can't get through to Fuquay, and Holly Springs doesn't process passports. FINALLY we get an appointment in Garner, but my husband is going to be away on a business trip. I truly was about to give up, getting a passport just shouldn't be this hard. James called the post office in Angier (I've never even heard of this town) and said he was able to get an appointment...April 24, nearly one month later.
It's April 24, we arrive at the post office exactly at 10:00 a.m. for our appointment. We skip the family already waiting as they have a 10:15 appointment. The woman processing the applications is super nice. I tell her all about the adoption, we pay, she wishes us good luck and we are walking out 20 minutes later. When we get outside James turns to me and says "by the way we didn't really have an appointment", "excuse me" I said, "you told me we had a 10:00 a.m. appointment". He says "well they didn't have any appointments for two weeks and we really need to get this done so I asked them what time the first appointment is and the lady said 10:00 so that's what I told you". As much as I wanted to kill him I was happy he tricked me!
On May 17th...The Livshin Family became international!!!
