Fingerprinting

Well, Friday was the big USCIS appointment to have our fingerprinting done. Greg's brother and sister-in-law were in town for the holidays so we made it a family affair. They walked to the nearest shopping center in search of coffee while we went in to have our prints taken. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. We'd heard everything from "it's a horrible experience" to "no big deal, we were in and out in a few minutes." Thankfully, we fell into the latter category.

I have to interject that we had tickets to the Iron Bowl for the same day as our fingerprinting appointment. Those of you who aren't from the football-obsessed south may not understand the importance of this annual event. So I will just say that it's arguably the biggest rivalry in college football-Alabama vs. Auburn. Kickoff was at 1:30 p.m. in Auburn, AL and we had a 9:00 a.m. appointment at the FBI office in Birmingham, AL (three hours away) for our prints. Obviously, getting our child would take precedence over making the game, but we sure did want to make both appointments if possible! We joked that God was testing our committment to adoption by making our USCIS appointment on the same day as the Iron Bowl. HA!

We arrived a few minutes early, without anything on us except our i.d.'s and the paper they sent us with our appointment date/time. The security guard was a jovial older gentleman who informed Greg that he was wearing the wrong colors (he had on his Bama gear and the security guard was an Auburn fan) and would be detained. He gave us each a number which was funny since there were only about three other people in the entire building. We had a good laugh with the security guard and discussed who would win the game while we waited for our number to be called.

The entire process took 17 minutes from the time we walked in the door until we were back in the truck. The lady who took our prints was so sweet and asked all about the adoption. She told me she was trying to get approval to adopt, but that she was a single mom and didn't have a lot of financial resources. I told her I would add her to my list of adoption prayer requests and she told me she would keep us in her prayers as well. Her boss had to approve the prints she took and he was equally as nice. He told me that they were all going to watch the game on the t.v. in the back because their last appointment was at noon and gave me a big "Roll Tide".

So now we just wait for USCIS approval. We also got word from our social workers at our adoption agency and our homestudy agency that our homestudy was approved by the adoption agency and was headed to DHR for state approval. We are praying that it will come back quickly. We've been told to expect a month, but we have friends who got theirs back in two weeks, so we are hopeful that it won't take that long. We will keep you updated...