We Survived Home Study! (and the Paper Chase)

Last Saturday we met with our social worker for round 2 of the home study. Like the first visit, it went very well. We are done with the home visits and interviews- wahoo! Our social worker (did we mention she was real nice?) is currently in the process of typing up the home study report to submit to New Life for review. After New Life is satisfied with it, we will get a copy for review. Once we are happy, we meet one last time at a mutual location to sign the report and it will be submitted to be authenticated by New York State and the US government and to also be translated into Chinese. The authentication usually takes 4-6 weeks.

Last Friday we had our fingerprints taken at the Syracuse satellite office of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), which is part of Homeland Security. They used the scanner-type fingerprint machines- no ink! Pretty cool. The home study authentication and the fingerprints we just had taken are all needed to get our I-171H, which is approval from USCIS to adopt an orphan from another country, and is the last piece to go into our dossier.

Other news...
We finished off the computer course evaluation and recieved our certificate the next day. Not bad, considering the site that offers the courses indicated that the certifiacte could take up to seven days! We've already emailed the certificate to New Life.

We finished off the Internation Adoption Risk Statement tonight and will be mailing that, along with a hardcopy of the online course certificate out to New Life tommorrow.

The Paper Chase is now over! But...

We found out today that the USCIS fingerprints we had taken are only good for 15 months, The Home Study report is valid for 18 months, and the I-171H (when we get it) is valid for 18 months. With the curent wait time being around 18 months, these documents will most likely expire before we get our referral. Unless the wait times pull back in, we will be looking at Paper Chase Part II which will include re-submitting the I-600A, another round of fingerprints, a home study update, and another I-171H. Oh yeah, and about another $1000 in fees.

At ths point we don't really mind much because we know it will be oh so worth it in the end!!

We'll keep you posted.

Love,
Gary & Alli