I talked with the Charlotte CIS office this morning and we scheduled an appointment for next Monday. I also called the Sheriff's Department in Florida to find out how we get a police clearance report of Naomi. Then I rushed to the post office & overnighted the request letter to them. I included a return envelope with overnight postage paid. The person I talked to said they would process our request the day they receive it so we should have it back by Thursday.
The CIS office said that after Naomi does her sworn statement, they will hand us our completed I-171H. That will be the final document in our paper chase.
We will still need to get a few things notarized. Then send everything off to be certified. And then get everything authenticated. But I think those last 3 steps will go pretty quick.
We're getting close!
Our records indicate that your fingerprints were again "rejected." Therefore, it will be necessary for you to obtain police clearances from all jurisdictions where you have resided since 1998.
It will also be necessary for you to appear at the Charlotte CIS office for a brief sworn statement. This is national agency policy and cannot be waived.
You will receive your Notice of Approval (Form I-171H) at the conclusion of the sworn statement.
I'll call them tomorrow to make an appointment. I'll schedule a day off from work. And we'll drive 170 miles to Charlotte. Bot most importantly, we'll continue to move forward and we'll stay the course!
And hey, we'll feel much better after we have a little salt & pepper calamari from PF Chang's tonight. Yum!
Hey, I found the following adoption blogs this evening.
Drop by and check them out.
We just received our 100th comment for this site! Thanks to everyone who has left a comment. We love seeing your thoughts and feedback.
The comments really make blogging more enjoyable. They add interaction. And they make this site more conversational instead of it just being a forum for me to post my thoughts.
BTW, thanks to Tray for leaving the 100th comment!
We received an email from a friend this evening who is in the process of adopting their second child. She told us about their challenges as they waited on their first child. And like most all of us, they had delays. But now that they've got their child, they can't imagine having anyone else as their son.
I've heard a lot of people say the same exact thing. And I know that one day we'll be sharing the same story with someone else who is waiting.
This morning we went back to the BCIS to get Naomi's fingerprints done again. I talked to them about our situation. I explained to them that if her prints failed a second time we would be required to get police clearance reports for every jurisdiction we lived in over the past five years. Plus, we would have to drive to the Charlotte CIS office (170 miles away) and she would have to give a sworn statement.
They told us that if her prints were rejected the first time, they'd be rejected the second time. They said it had very little to do with their ability to capture the prints and more to do with her actual prints. Some people just have bad prints that can't be recorded at the level required to read them effectively.
Wow... okay. So we'll just wait for the next letter and take it from there. They did attempt a different method of fingerprinting her though. The first time they used ink and paper. This time they used a computer to scan her prints. Will it make a difference? Probably not. But we'll wait and see.
"Our records indicate that your fingerprints were "rejected" (unable to be read) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Therefore, it will be necessary for you to have your fingerprints taken again."
That was the first paragraph of a letter that Naomi received today.
This post will serve as our Guestbook. You can sign it by just saying hello, or you can answer some of these questions:
Thanks!