Saturday, February 26, 2011

I-800 is on it's way to USCIS

I finally finished filling out the very important I-800 Form on Friday night the 25th with LOTS of help from our stateside helper, Carla. Good grief, I had to ask for help on almost every question. I don't want our adoption process to be delayed by some silly mistake of mine and believe me, I did NOT find the government's printed instructions to be very helpful at all.
I wanted so badly to get it in the mail by the end of the week. So Saturday afternoon I drove over to Twin Falls knowing that mail is picked up from that post office at 5:30 pm. The business where I usually make copies had closed about 10 minutes before my arrival at their curb so I had to drive all the way across town to Office Max. There I made copies of the beast plus copies of the two documents Carla had sent from About A Child. Of course, the first copies of the I-800 came out white because I'd fed the papers into the copy machine upside down! I got out to the car and started stressing because I could not remember whether I was supposed to mail the copies or the originals with the USCIS documents. Yipes! I didn't have enough time to drive home and email someone. I did have the 800 number for USCIS which I dialed and listened very faithfully to the long automated menu but of course that office was closed for the weekend. Ditto with the About A Child office. So I'm leafing through my little address book trying to think who in the world I could call. Not Toni--it was middle of the night for her. Finally I just called Kevin and asked if I happened to have Shelley's email in my contact list. She's a friend from Reece's Rainbow and also assists people with adoptions from AbbyLand. Sure enough, he found her name and shot her an email and praise God! she must have been perched at her computer because within just a few minutes I had the official answer--make copies but send the originals both of Carla's and Toni's documents. YES! By then I was sitting in front of the post office and had already filled out the envelope and enclosed the originals -- figuring that was my best bet. Anyway, I very happily (and nervously) put that lovely piece of mail in the bin about 5:15 pm. Hey! time to spare. Is it possible that this was our last piece of adoption paperwork?????

Also on Saturday, I was quite pleasantly shocked to receive the apostilled documents back from the Secretary of State in Boise! Wow, I just mailed them on Wednesday evening.

1 comment:

  1. You are so close to FOREVER! We have so long to go, but hearing how close you are gives me hope. :) Praying it goes quickly for you and sweet Abby is home soon.

    ReplyDelete