The Amazing Officer B

If you read this post, you know that February didn't start off on a productive note.  After lots of incredible progress in January, the beginning of February involved more redoing than doing.  In fact, after I wrote my sad post, I got a call from our courier saying that yet another document had been certified incorrectly and had to go back to the Secretary of State.  Another document to fix, and I was already losing my mind over the fingerprint appointment letters that still hadn't shown up.

Fast forward to Friday, February 6.  I rushed home from school pick-up, absolutely certain that the long-awaited fingerprint appointment letters would be in our mailbox.  After all, it had been 15 long days of waiting, and U.S. Immigration had pretty much promised 10 to 14.

The mailbox was empty.  Again.

I confess, all my determination to wait patiently left me.  The clock was ticking ever closer to Ch*nese New Year, which would mean delays in getting our paperwork through the final stages of certification.  It just wasn't right that getting fingerprint appointment letters in the mail was taking longer than our entire twelve-page home study.  (I mean, you should be able to print and mail a one-page appointment notice infinitely faster than you can write a short novel about someone's entire family, right?)

So I called U.S. Immigration, and in my best my-daughter-needs-heart-surgery voice, I told them that this process was taking way. too. long.  We had a letter from a pediatric cardiologist requesting that they expedite our case because of our daughter's need for surgery; however, I'd been told I couldn't submit it until we got fingerprint appointment letters.  Thankfully, the Immigration Officer who answered the phone gave me permission to send my expedite request.

I quickly pulled up our expedite email, which I may or may not have written earlier that week and saved in my Drafts Folder.  I glanced at the time as I sent it.  It was after 4:00pm on a Friday afternoon; I couldn't imagine there was any way someone would have time to look at my email, let alone actually respond, before the weekend.

About 32 minutes later, my phone rang.  It was Jeremy saying that the Immigration Officer assigned to our case had read our email and responded. The Amazing Officer B had called him to say that she'd gotten our email, that she would be working the next day (Saturday!), and that she'd be glad to email our fingerprint appointments if we did not receive them in Saturday's mail.  What?!?

I mentioned before that we've been blessed by some pretty awesome people who have walked with us in one way or another on our adoption journeys.  The Amazing Officer B is absolutely one of them.  True to her word, she called the next afternoon.  Our letters still hadn't arrived, so she sent them via encrypted email with some totally adorable password like "sweetgirl".  Not even kidding.

With appointments in hand, we were able to drive to our state capital that Monday to walk-in for fingerprinting.  (Our actual appointments had been arbitrarily assigned for a date later in February.)  No one in the office mentioned we were there on the wrong day, and we were in and out in less than ten minutes.  It was a fun little date, and we even had Cheesecake Factory gift cards to pay for a super yummy lunch.  (Thanks, Mom and Dad!)

Officer B said she should have our fingerprint results in her computer by the next morning and would email our approval as soon as she finished it.  Getting the approval certified would involve another trip to our state capital (about five hours roundtrip), so I made sure my schedule was clear for the next day and found a friend to hang out with my boys.

Then things started to get crazy.  Before bed, Li'l Dude had a fever, so I canceled the babysitter.  The boys would just have to join me on my adventure across the state.  The next morning we hung out at home, waiting for the phone to ring.  When it did, it was Jeremy with bad news.

The Amazing Officer B had our approval ready, but there was an issue with our home study.  She needed three words taken out.  Easy enough, right?  Except those three little words were on the notarized signature page.  She would need our social worker to make the changes, resign the page, and have it notarized again.

Thankfully, our social worker is also amazing.  She had a new page emailed to Officer B in no time flat.  There was just one little problem.  Now that we had a new home study, I needed a certified copy of that too.  Which meant I now needed to drive to our social worker's office (an hour away and not any closer to our state capital), pick up a new home study, print our Immigration approval, and still make it to the state capital by 5:00pm.  Yikes!

I decided to head to our social worker's office, hoping and praying that our approval would be done and could be printed when I got there.  Just as I was leaving town, I got an email from Officer B.  Our approval was done, but their entire computer system had crashed.  I'm not kidding.  I truly didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this point, so I tried really hard to laugh and set off for our social worker's office anyway.

Over an hour later, I had our new home study but still no Immigration approval.  I also had two little boys and a lot of Chicken McNuggets in my car and a R-E-A-L-L-Y long drive ahead of me.  I decided to email Officer B to see if she had an update on the computer system.  This is where her superhero alter-ego kicked in, and she completely saved the day.

She started emailing me regular updates (including smiley emoticons and bold lettering and a profuse apology).  Then, the system came back up and she emailed our approval right as I pulled into a friend's driveway.  A friend, a printer, an emailed approval...perfect.

Just after 2:00pm, I hit the road...again.  This time I had all the paperwork I needed in my trusty purple accordion folder.  (That thing has been with me on more trips to the Secretary of State than I can count.)  We made it to the state capital with time to spare, and enjoyed leftover Cheesecake Factory yumminess and some Incredibles on our drive home.

About eight hours after leaving our house, Li'l Man, Li'l Dude, and I made it back.  The day had started out disastrously; but, thanks to the Amazing Officer B, everything worked out in the end.  The rest of our paperwork was certified and on its way to the Ch*nese Consulate.  It should be picked up tomorrow and on its way to our agency before the closures for Ch*nese New Year.  Phew!

Once again, I'm left feeling incredibly thankful for people who have gone above and beyond to help us bring our sweet girl into our family.  All of my you're-so-amazing emails can't really express how grateful I am to people like our social worker and the Amazing Officer B.  The things they have done, even the things they might consider small or routine, put the wind back in my emotional sails and make this roller coaster of a journey just a bit easier.

Oh, and that's not all. Officer B has already offered to expedite the second part of our Immigration approval.  I told you, she's amazing.