And we thought getting a court date (again) was the hard part?

Argh... two weeks til we leave (again) for Russia and life is a whirlwind, and full of unanticpated roadblocks.

See, our INS fingerprints expired last week (this we knew was happening) and since Mike is working in CT all week, and generally only comes home on Fridays, we planned to go last friday. Well the snow closed the office that does them. We decided to go today instead. Mike took the morning off from work, we drove to Boston, paid $33.oo for TWO HOURS of parking, got the office, waited another hour to see someone, then were given an envelope to mail in a written request for new fingerprints. A further discussion with a supervisor didn't get us anywhere, except to convince the woman to let us scribble a request and give it to her to walk over to the next room (that you can't get to by yourself unless you work there) and leave our "written request" on the desk of the woman who handles adoption matters. So we drove home really ticked off that a) Mike wasted all this leave for nothing, b) it cost us $33 in parking and at least another $10 in gas to get there, and c) that neither the woman nor her supervisor could even guesstimate whether we'd get our request approved, and appointment scheduled before we have to leave for Russia!

On the way home Mike suggested we again call our Congressman, Barney Frank. We needed his help the first time around, with Skip's adoption, and they were VERY helpful. Well the woman who deals with adoption issues is on vacation and her supervisor is on vacation! But, another woman gave us the name and fax number for a woman who should be able to help us. We faxed over a letter of explanation (well more like begging for help) and a copy of our Approved I-797C (which, if you'r able to click on the picture above, you'll see for yourself that it says NOTHING about a written petition!). About 30 minutes later a call from the Boston Adoption Unit. A VERY helpful "Elvira" told us we had an appointment for 6 January - two days after we leave for Russia! She said she knew the date didn't work for us, but that once we get this written appointment notice in the mail, we could bring it to Cranston, RI (which is alot closer and alot easier to get to than Boston), and they would do it that day. She insisted we didn't need to worry, they'd take care of us in RI! Then she called back and said, not to wait for the letter, she was contacting the Supervisor in RI, and telling the we'd be in tomorrow or Wednesday to get them done! Since Mike is in CT til Wed. I told her we'd be there in the afternoon to have them done!

Phew, relief, relief, relief! Thank you Mr. Frank! Once again you look out for your constiuents!

Okay, now I have to return to trying to get our 8 medicals updated by the end of the week! Too bad Mr. Frank can't help us with this one!