2 weeks down...

The past couple of weeks have been a little crazy. After receiving our referral information, we sent everything to the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota so that an adoption specialist could review Sam's medical information. Besides having asthma, he appears to be a very healthy little boy.

Then we wrote a letter to the director at the orphanage officially accepting the referral. After that, we had a ton of paperwork to complete... I-800, I-864W, and DS-230. We also had to update our medicals and employment verifications as well as our FBI Background checks. So we went to the police station last Thursday to get fingerprinted, then went straight to Fed-Ex to overnight our fingerprints to the FBI. Beth warned us that the FBI Background checks have been taking up to 10 weeks lately which is why we needed to get them done ASAP. When I heard 10 weeks I kind of went into panic mode and decided to call Congressman Pomeroy's office (they helped us with Joey's adoption so I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask). I spoke with a guy named Nick and he was great... he listened to me ramble on about how I can't possibly wait 10 weeks to see my little boy and then told me that he has a contact at the FBI and would see if he could help expedite our results. Whatever he did worked because we had our results the following Tuesday. They processed our results in 1 DAY!! It is a HUGE relief to have this part done. THANK YOU NICK!!!

You may be amazed (but probably not surprised) that I actually had time in between filling out all of that paperwork (and calling my Congressman's office) to start shopping. Here is one of my first purchases (I couldn't resist)...

Our agency told us that we could send a care package to Sam so we bought him a really soft blanket and matching puppy and a little photo album with our pictures in it. Beth sent the package to Colombia early last week so hopefully he'll be receiving it soon.

What's next? We should receive our I-797C (Sam's visa pre-approval) within a week or so. The approval is forwarded to the National Visa Center who then forwards it on to embassy in Bogota. They will review the documents and issue what's called an Article 5. The Article 5 is then taken to ICBF and reviewed. Once ICBF is finished reviewing it, they will notify Casa de Maria and our "encuentro date" (the day we get to meet our little boy) will be set. Once we know our encuentro date, we can make our travel arrangements and apply for a visitor's visa. If everything goes as planned, we will be traveling at the end of April!!