Speed Bump !!!

Well, things apparently were moving too quickly (yeah, right!) and we have encountered another "obstacle" we have to work around. We were notified by the U.S. Immigration people on Friday (7/29) that our home study was missing one piece of necessary information (even though we have been through this process 3 times before, now that international adoptions from China are covered by the Hague Conventions, MUCH more information about us has to be collected and reported this time). Because I (Steve) lived in Illinois for 3 years (1979 - 1982) we had to get a criminal background check from the Illinois State Police for that period (which we did), but apparently we also needed to get a background check done by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (making sure I didn't abuse or neglect any kids during those 3 years). The fact that the Missouri DCFS background check (covering the last THIRTY years) was OK is not enough.

So.....we quickly found the necessary form online, filled it out, and sent it by Express Mail to the proper office in Springfield, Illinois. They will receive it on Monday (8/1) and then we wait for however long it takes for them to do their job. They will fax their findings to our home study agency, who will forward those results to the U.S. Immigration Service and write an addendum to our home study. With luck we will then be back on track towards getting the last document we need before we can send all of our papers to China. How long this will take is unknown, but it's certainly going to take longer than we want it to.

The most frustrating thing about this whole episode is that we depended on (and paid) several agencies to know what was needed in our home study and to make sure we had everything we needed. Our social worker produced the home study. Before it was considered finalized, she sent it to her superiors in St. Louis to check and to our adoption agency for them to check, also. Everyone said it was fine. But as we now know, it wasn't. There is nothing we can do at this point but take the time to get the information they ALL missed and move forward whenever we can. But it's impossible to not think about that young girl waiting in China.