Nice Job Feds

For the last several weeks I haven't done anything adoption related. At least not physically. But today was mostly devoted, once again, to paperwork and the like. Jonathan and I received our appointment notice last month to be fingerprinted for our future children's visas. Our appointment was for today. My time slot was 9am and his was 10am. The paper informed us that there was limited seating and so no extra people in the waiting room. Hmmm, we have four tag-a-longs. So, our plan was to tag-team it. I would go in and he would stay in the car with the kids and then we would switch. Anyway, I had to wake up really early because I live on a farm and there are goats to be milked and chickens to be fed and dogs to be tended to. It was DARK when I got out of bed. I don't get out of bed when it's dark, people. But, I did today. And we were in the car, driving off by 7:15am. On time. We had 110 miles before we were there. We told the kids they could watch movies today since it was going to be an unusually long car day. So, it was quite quiet. Except for the occasional burst of laughter, which always bring smiles to our faces. Nothing like listening to kids belly-laugh. We stopped on the north side of ABQ and used our Starbucks gift cards for some breakfast sandwiches and two lattes. We pulled up to the strip mall government office with 2 minutes to spare. I got out and Jonathan drove away to find a park, or store and a bathroom. I walked in to the biggest, emptiest "store" with a couple of fingerprinting computers. Plenty of room for the kids. But on every wall, as well as on the appointment notice, in BIG LETTERS, it said that cell phone use was prohibited. A couple signs said that failure to follow the rules would get you kicked out, so I wasn't about to use my phone to get Jonathan back there. We had been waiting for this appointment for a month. I was seen and done in 15 minutes and Jonathan got back before long and he was in and out too. Nice job USCIS. Nice job Feds. We complimented the lady on the way out and she chuckled and said she used to be even quicker but they just changed machines on her!
So on the way back to Santa Fe I started looking through all papers we had and all the lists of papers that we need. I noticed I needed three more forms notarized so we headed to our church and got that done. We got home after 3pm and there were more adoption things waiting in my mailbox: our psychological evaluation and some documents that I sent to the Virginia Secretary of State to be apostilled. So, I started making copies and got all the Texas documents ready to be shipped (we had our psych. eval. done in the Lone Star State). So, the evaluation, husband's and two older kid's birth certificates, and our marriage license are headed to Austin. One less thing to worry about.
Next big thing for me is to go to NM SOS and wait for 25ish documents to be apostilled. Johnna told me today that after fingerprinting, it takes anywhere between 1 and 3 weeks to get the final approval for the future kids' visas. It feels close. When I got the packet that described all that had to be done before we could send off our Dossier, I WAS OVER-WHELMED.  But, we are close. I know there could still be a few bumps. We might have to do a couple things over....but okay.
I want to hope this is going to keep flying by. This has been an amazing experience so far. God has already grown me in ways that I never thought I could grow and I know there is so much more in store. I can't wait to get an email with two or three little brown faces. I wonder if they will be smiling. Or if they will be pictured together. Or if they have their only toy in their little dirty hands. Their dirty little hands will be something that they will have in common with the current Grassmick brood.
I hope they like us. I know they will eventually. And I know it will take time.
I hope they latch on to our kids like they depend on each other now.
I hope one day we are one big happy family.