So this is where we are now. We have received approval but now it goes to the National Visa Center. I called everyday after the approval notice to see if they had our case yet. They received case on Sept 21st. So now we have to wait for them to manually load our case which they say could take up to a month. Once information is loaded they generate more fees which can be paid online. So like a crazy person i check the website no less than ten times a day waiting to be able to pay the fees and get moving along. Once fees are paid we have to mail in a packet with all of our paperwork that we have already submitted (birth certificates, marriage certificate etc...) and some new things such as affidavit saying we can financially provide for the child, copies of our passports etc... Only problem now is that i don't have everything we need. I knew Michell was going to need a passport to come home with us but didn't realize we would need to send copies of it this soon. She doesn't have a passport and it's a process just to get that done. Just like in the United States both parent have to give permission for a minor to apply for a passport. So we called the Honduras Consulate here to find out what we needed to do. They tell us we need long form birth certificate for Michell (which we don't have) and Martin has to come in and get an affidavit notarized saying he gives biological mom permission to apply for passport. So we send money so she can get the birth certificate ordered and sent to us as quickly as possible. It is on it's way to us now by fedex which says it could be 10 - 15 days before we receive. So we are waiting to get that so we can travel to New Orleans to the Honduras Consulate and get this form he has to have notarized so we can send it back to her (another 10-15 days) so she can apply for passport. The bio mom has told us it takes about a month to get a passport there but we are hoping if we pay more we can get it quicker. So we are waiting again......
I logged onto the payment portal earlier and got a message saying that you can not make online payments at this time. From what I've read this is a good sign. It means they are working on our case and getting ready to invoice us. Once we have paid fees submitted packets and they have looked to make sure everything is there then the whole case is transferred yet again. This time it will go to the US embassy in Honduras. Once they have the packet they will set up an interview with us. We will have to travel to Honduras where we will finally get to meet our little girl (yay) and to present all of our documents and proof of relationship and answer any questions they have for us. At this time they will either approve the Visa and we will be on the next flight back to the US with our little girl (finally) or they will ask us to submit a DNA test or they could deny the visa request and we will come home devastated. I refuse to think of that as a possibility at this point.
We were hoping to go visit her in December for her 3rd birthday but now with everything moving more quickly than expected we are putting off that trip hoping by January we will be going for our interview.
At this point all we can do is PRAY AND BELIEVE thus the name of my blog site: PrayAndBelieve.blogspot.com. I do believe that everything happens in God's perfect timing. If Martin had found out about the pregnancy one day earlier he would have been able to stop her from leaving and going back to Honduras. They would probably be together now because he would have tried to make it work for the sake of his child. That is the kind of person he is and I love him for that. If that were the case I wouldn't be married to my best friend, and we wouldn't have Micah who is a joy and a blessing to our family. If Martin had filed his petition when she was born he would have been waiting 4 or 5 years to possibly be getting a visa for her. But because God's timing is perfect the biological mom decided she was ready after me and Martin were married. Everything so far has happened much faster than we expected and we have faith that things will continue to move in a positive and quick manner. We are Praying and Believing that God will lead us down the quickest path to our child and will bring her home very soon. Please keep us in your prayer also.
I will continue to blog about our journey so that one day we can look back with Michell and she can see the hoops we jumped through to get her here and how much we loved her even before we ever met her.
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