I-600-A

So with our couple of hours of warning, Brian and I filled out the I-600-A. This form will allow us to be pre-approved for a visa for our child. Once our homestudy is done we turn it in and then we wait for an approval letter from Immigration. So I dug through my file boxes to find the supporting documents and filled everything out. We learned Monday night that we needed to get this form in ASAP and that Tuesday was the only day to return it. On Tuesday morning I went downtown to the office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration. I was given walk-in hours and figured this would take 10 minutes because surly no one else in San Diego is adopting internationally. Sure it's a city but it's not that big. Boy was I wrong. Two and a half hours later I was finally leaving. The process was very much like the DMV. I had to feed my meter a couple of times but it really wasn't all THAT bad. There were 15 people in line in front of me all regarding international adoption. Who knew?!? One woman sitting next to me was chatting on the phone and saying this process had her contemplating suicide - now that was totally dramatic and inappropriate. Meanwhile I sat there super excited and actually happy to be sitting there waiting for my name to be called because it meant that we were one step closer to our little guy. When my name was finally called I couldn't hold back the beaming smile. The woman I had the appointment with was super nice. She did almost give me a panic attack though :) As she was glancing over our paperwork she started counting on her fingers while looking at my birth certificate. She goes, "You are 23?" I said, "Yes." "Well you aren't old enough to fill out this form." I said, "Sure I am, I know I am at the minimum age but I can adopt at 23." She says, "No sweetie for this particular form you have to be 24." WHAT?!? You mean according to Ethiopia and according to our agency I am old enough to adopt but I am not old enough, by 4 months, to fill out the necessary paperwork to adopt? Luckily I had my thinking cap on and pointed out that I put Brian as the primary person adopting and I was "only the spouse." That was good enough! I was so happy in that little 10 minute meeting. For those of you who know me well, you would never describe me as a "peppy person" and had I been on the other end of that meeting, I am pretty sure I would have nauseated myself with all the obnoxious peppiness that was going on!!