The Phone Finally Rang

The phone finally rang with our agency on the other end, calling to tell me that Lan's dossier has finally been approved by the provincial authorities in DaNang. We are officially waiting for a travel call. A travel call that could come, "any time". In reality, most families from our agency have received a travel call 30 days after the call about their child's dossier being approved. So, in all likelyhood, we will get a call on December 15, telling us to be there on 31st. After I got off the phone with my agency I sat in my office chair for a full five minutes, shaking like crazy.

The bad news is, we will not be able to file our I600 petition at the USCIS office in Cleveland. (Our agency had been having families file the I600 in the US, but, they have switched, and now we will file in Vietnam. The downside to this is that I need to file an I824 form in Cleveland, and pay them $225, to process this request and send our pre-approval to Hanoi. I am pretty sure I could overnight a FedEx envelope to Hanoi for less than $225, but, I don't have any choice but to send the US government more of our money.) The upside to this, according to Mrs. Broccoli Guy, is that we will be able to get Lan's passport issued in the name "Lana W~" instead of her Vietnamese name (N~T~Bich Lan), which will save us having to have her name changed on her certificate of citizenship back here in the US. Considering that I am contemplating taking the kids to Mexico (Cozumel) for a family vacation next June, whatever keeps us up to date with Lan's citizenship papers is a good thing.

Happy, nervous, excited and generally freaking out,
LM

PS - Oh, I survived the Tiger Cub meeting. It was touch and go, but, we pulled through. By the way, in case you are ever in a position to make such decision, THIRTY is too many tiger cubs for a single tiger cub den. Just something to file away for future reference.

LM