A Delay In Our Adoption Process

We were notified by our adoption agency on Tuesday that there has been a new procedure/policy put into effect that will probably delay our adoption process. The I- 600 form, which is the Petition to Classify an Orphan as an Immediate Relative, is normally filed in country (Vietnam) once we are there. The USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) now says that beginning 10/29 we have to file it here (in the US) and wait for approval before we can travel (which can take some time). So once we receive our referral we will have to file the I-600 with all of our baby's documents and once we receive approval, our agency can start to work on travel arrangements. This doesn’t seem like it will delay us getting our referral, but it will delay the time between when we get our referral and when we travel. They are saying that now it could take up to 4 months to travel after we receive our referral.

We were hoping for more referrals this month from our agency (including ours) but it seems to have been a slow month. Some families that received referrals in late August and mid September just received their travel plans and this new policy will not affect them since they already had imminent travel plans. We were hoping if we got our referral this month that we would be one of the last groups to travel before Christmas and be home by Christmas, but now it is looking like we will probably travel sometime after the New Year. The latest they are letting people travel is the first week in December. This brings on more delays though with the New Year in January followed by Tet the Vietnamese New Year in the beginning of February.

We have learned throughout this whole process that all we can do is wait and pray. Once we have done our part, it is totally out of our hands and into the hands of God, our agency, the orphanages and the Vietnamese Embassy. New policies will always be coming into effect and changes will continue to be made that may or may not affect people’s adoption processes for the good and the bad.

What we do know is that at the end of this journey, some day in the near future, we will finally have our little girl and bring her home and that is the most important part!