Final Ruling!

After 15 months of waiting, we heard what we've been waiting for. Sweet baby Andrew is officially our son! We received the phone call at 5:15 pm on 6/6/2008. It is a moment that we will never forget.

Now, I know this information lends itself to the question of "When do you go get him?" I wish I could give you a specific answer. However, we have 2 paperwork details to figure out. I know. Ugh. Having done 2 adoptions, I know firmly believe that glitches, bumps in the roads, snafus are destined to be a part of the journey.

We have 2 hurdles ahead of us. The first one is on the Taiwanese side. We had some very unusual circumstances where the courts officially made us Andrew's parents before filing for his passport. His guardian/parents must file for his passport and obviously we are willing to do that in a heartbeat. The problem is that they want us to be in Taiwan to do that and it requires 2-3 weeks. We can not spend 2-3 weeks in Taiwan. So we are now in problem solving mode to find an alternative solution.

The other glitch is on the U.S side. We have received immigration approval from our local USCIS office. However, there is a new procedure where immigration approval goes through the new National Visa Center then off to Taiwan. Unfortunately, the procedure is so new that the kinks haven't been all worked out. Functionally, the local USCIS offices aren't in communication with the National Visa Center. So, we must spend long hours in phone trees and waiting to get our immigration papers forwarded to Taiwan. Oh joy!

We are working on these things this very minute and will let you all know when they get resolved. While we wish we didn't have these bumps in the road, we are keeping our eye on the prize! We are probably within 3 weeks of getting our son home! That is more than enough motivation to keep plugging away!