Day 48: Thursday, 7/7

Very, very good news people! Of course, as with everything else, I had to wait... and wait... and wait. I was up with Grace at 4:00 and even on the best days when I wasn't expecting news, it's been difficult for me to fall asleep since it's, oh... 11:00 am back home. Even after 48 days, my internal clock is not fully adjusted to the different time zone. So I refreshed the DHL tracking page 439 times – no change. When I was cyber stalking Stacy's package it actually did give pretty good information throughout the delivery process. Not so much on ours. But finally the magic time of 8:30 rolled around... so I waited until 8:45 to call. A slight adjustment for island time.

We were supposed to talk to Ken but he was out and the man I did speak too was difficult to understand so even at the end of the conversation, I still wasn't positive that our package had arrived. We waited a bit and finally got a call from Daisy at the Embassy who confirmed it was there and it would be ready for us after noon. This was, by the way, our first call with any update on anything from the Embassy. File that information for later.

There were a few things to get done now that we knew we'd be flying out on Friday so we went downstairs for breakfast to lay out the plan. We were expecting Emi and Maddy at 11:00 for lunch and afterwards we had to run get more diapers, more bottle liners, and of course, some more cash... always more cash. The girls were a bit late and while we were sitting and talking, Emi showed us a red, swollen area on her finger. She thinks she cut it or punctured it while doing her handicrafts and it was definitely infected. It was almost noon so we decided to stop at Dr. Pinano's on the way back from lunch. While on our way to lunch, Jeff noticed the clinic was open so we did a u-turn and headed in.

I know Emi knew we were stopping at the clinic but she wasn't prepared for him sticking a needle into the tender spots and draining it! She scowled at us a bit afterwards and indicated how her finger was throbbing. He gave her some antibiotics and Tylenol 3 for the pain. I will say one thing for the medical system here. It's cheep and there's no insurance red tape. I guess that's two things... Anyway, while we were at the office, I asked if I could weigh Grace again and Dr. Pinano cheerfully agreed. Little Miss Grace is now 13 pounds 12 ounces. She's really pushing the limits of the clothes we bought – yay, I get to go shopping again. I think she'll even fit into some of the clothes Julie gave me before I left!

We'd left the choice for lunch up to Emi – anywhere she wanted to go – but she couldn't make up her mind. Despite there being many types of food on the island, I don't think a lot of the local folks get to sample much of it. One reason for the celebration dinner on adoption day being at the Chinese restaurant is to give them a chance to try something they normally wouldn't eat. Since the restaurant normally reserved for the celebration dinner wasn't open for ours, we decided to try it now that that the owners were back on the island. I had some beef with veggies and Jeff tried the fried rice. I thought Emi would branch out a bit and try something new but she got her old standby of fried chicken.

While at lunch Maddy received a phone call from a birth mom who was apparently going into labor – she would be needed at the hospital in a little while to help the mom during delivery. For my friends who are waiting for a referral, I can't say who's matching up with who – it's just become too complex to try and anticipate how many JOH families are remaining and who's in what order from the LSS families to try and predict anything about the babies currently in the program. The only thing I know for sure is that there have been at least two babies born while we've been here and that paperwork is being processed. Given that there's a 30-day wait before a referral can be made, I'm hoping you receive your news soon.

While at lunch we brought up the idea of school for Destiny. Emi had told us before that she planned to enroll her in Kindergarten this fall but we hadn't heard anything more about it since then. In fact, there was a possibility that Emi and the girls may move back with her dad's family who are now living on Ebon. I think if Destiny is in school, it's likely that they'll stay and we offered, through Maddy, to pay for Destiny's registration and school costs. We'd originally talked about the Coop school – which is about $2500 a year – but we think there's a wait list and it's also farther away from where they live. According to Maddy, the Delap Elementary school is the best public school on the island so we're starting there. Costs are minimal – a small registration fee and school supplies. It'll give us more time to dig out of the tiny financial crater we've made and get the cash flow going again. Maybe next year we can get her into the Coop school.

Maddy took off with her ride, we dropped Emi at the hospital (to get a copy of Destiny's immunization records to register for school) and we went back to the hotel. No sooner had walked in and laid a sleeping Grace down to nap and the phone rang. It was Daisy saying our papers had been delivered and we could come pick them up whenever we wanted. I confirmed that she really meant anytime this afternoon and she said yes...

We scooped the kid back up and left for the Embassy within 10 minutes. We arrived and went through security getting to the office at 2:45. Daisy looked slightly surprised and asked if we were here for our paperwork... then told us that Andrew wasn't there. He'd run into town for... we don't know what. She said that there was a letter that Andrew hadn't signed and asked if we wanted to wait or come back. Seriously... there was no way I was going to leave that place without our paperwork so we waited. She motioned us to wait in the conference room. Thankfully we'd brought the rest of Grace's bottle in but we left the diaper back in the car. Last time it took about 15 minutes for Stacy to get her package – we hadn't expected a delay. I know... after 7 weeks, you'd think I would have learned there's always a delay.

It was 40 minutes late when Andrew and another guy finally arrived. They went into the other office first and then both came into the conference room. The other guy was Eric, the Consular General (or some such title)... the guy above Andrew from what I could tell. A very interesting conversation happened next. They had the paperwork and would go through it with us and answer all our questions but first, Eric wanted to offer his sincere apologies for all the trouble we'd encountered. There had apparently been a perfect storm of issues with our paperwork and none of them had been our fault.

Our biggest complaint while here wasn't that it took 7 weeks, it was that we had no information along the way. He explained that while it was his decision to no longer share tracking numbers, he would normally call us with periodic updates: the package was received in Manila, the petition is being reviewed by DHS, the petition is approved by DHS and now on to the State Department... and so on. This would have been all we needed to hear, however, Eric said he'd not had an overlap with Andrew and hadn't oriented him to this process. They were both genuinely shocked to hear that the first phone call we received from the Embassy (from Daisy) was that morning... both said they would look into it and fix whatever the problem was that led to us being in the dark the entire time. We also mentioned that we hadn't actually called the Embassy as we'd been told by Gordon and our agency not to. After hearing these things, they both felt even worse at how our case had been handled.

After many apologies and then going through the packet, Eric asked if we had any questions or if we wanted to bring up any complaints or feedback. Of course, we did... again mostly about the lack of information. We asked why it was so difficult for them to get information from Manila. Eric shared some history about the processing of visas as well as the different groups that are involved. Something no one explained before was that the visa required two approvals... Ours was approved by DHS on 6/22 but then had to go to the State Department. I'll have to ask Stacy what the issue date on her visa is and I'll be ours our a week apart. This would explain why ours took longer. It's still not a good explanation but at least it's a reason and that's all we were trying to get.

We came away feeling slightly better about our situation... not that it took 7 weeks but that we had some answers about why and some apologies for it having happened. Andrew even apologized multiple times for the whole cell phone/wife incident. I still accept responsibility for that gaff but it sounds like she wasn't supposed to give me her number in the first place so I don't feel quite as bad about it. I did mention to them that I think it's unfortunate that we're warned about contacting the Embassy because we don't want to make them mad... They really don't want that kind of reputation and hope that people and agencies don't really feel that way.

I think the solution here isn't to tell families not to call, but instead explain how we should call and what to ask for. Don't call every day or even every other day - there's a reasonable middle ground. As you get further into your trip – around the 4^th week (or earlier if you aren't getting proactive updates from them) - then call and request an update but know that they may not have new information for you. They do want everyone to know that if you have an emergency, call anytime 24/7.

After about an hour, we left the Embassy and went to run a few errands. Jeff was going to try and do a last load of laundry while I started packing but the machines were all busy. We went down for dinner instead and a chat with bubu. Tomorrow we plan to open the doors after noon for whoever wants to stop by and say goodbye. We have to arrange for Gordon's sister-in-law to come get the car at some point but it's all gassed up and ready to go. We're hoping Maddy can drop off some extra medications we'll be leaving behind for Dr. Pinano.

With laundry finally done (but slightly damp) the packing is as far as it can go for the night. A few episodes of TV and it was bedtime. Up early tomorrow, finish packing and, oh yeah, I'm going to give the $10 pedicure a try at the salon downstairs. I hear their massages are really good too and only $30. We'll see... I could use it :)

Our flight will be leaving Friday night around 8:45 and we'll get into Honolulu around 3:30 am Friday morning... we will get to spend almost 4 days there! Our flight out of Honolulu is Monday evening putting us in MSP late on Tuesday afternoon. I'm sure we'll have a few more updates while we're in Hawaii, but for now, Yokwe all.