I-600A Sent!

Yesterday we sent in our I-600A and accompanying paperwork and today it was received by USCIS in their Lewisville, TX processing facility (where then they will send it on to our regional processing facility for the actual processing, an improvement to drive further efficiency!). Now starts a long wait for US government approval for us as adoptive parents, only interrupted partway through for a midpoint fingerprint appointment.

People often ask us if we know who the child we are adopting is yet... it's hard to explain that even though we started the process months ago, as far as Rwanda is concerned, we don't even exist yet. Everything we have to date was preparing for the USCIS government approval, which then becomes just one piece of the dossier that is eventually sent to Rwanda. All other pieces of the dossier we can work on at the same time as this approval and many we have completed already, but the USCIS approval is necessary to complete the dossier and eventually send it to Rwanda, where then they will start their process of approval and then finally referral of a specific child. So.. although it seems we have made significant process, we are not that far along in the journey, and in fact now have very little we can do to accelerate any part of it. However, we are thankful that everything has gone fairly smoothly to date.

This weekend Mary started the process of nesting (or maybe just early Spring cleaning?), clearing out virtually every storage place in the house, resulting in two trips worth of donations. I didn't know we had so much stuff.  We normally think of ourselves as pretty simple, not hoarders or collectors, but the evidence was fairly strong against us when I couldn't fit everything into the minivan for one trip. That said, it's exciting that she is already thinking of how to rearrange Sarah's room to make it ready for her new sister.