I find myself thinking I need to update the blog on an almost weekly basis. But when there's little happy news to talk of, it's hard to find the motivation.
We received our Article 5 waaay back on August 21, 2014. That was the last step we had control over, the ball has been in Indi@'s court ever since. As time went by, we learned of 4 other families that were waiting for the first approval from Indi@ (ARC approval) in the same state as us (Maharashtra). We had been waiting the longest. Months went by and nothing happened. Our agency kept checking with our orphanage, who in turn kept checking with the committee that issued the ARC approval. We kept hearing to be patient. :( On December 2nd, the family that had been waiting the shortest amount of time for ARC announced in our Facebook group that they had received ARC. I told myself that if they got it, surely we did too if we had been waiting 3 months more than them. But alas, no. Over the course of the next few weeks, 3 of the four families had not only ARC, but received NOC too (the last approval needed) and were moving on to court. We still waited....... To say that I was devastated was an understatement. I came up with a theory that the ARC committee started a pile with our info. Then as the other families got their Article 5 approvals, their paperwork was put on top of ours. So when they finally sat down to issue approvals, they started with the paperwork on the top of the pile - the family that had been waiting the shortest amount of time. And then they "ran out of steam" before getting to ours at the bottom of the pile.
On December 26, as Cece and I sat around playing with her new Christmas toys, I received an email. We FINALLY had ARC. While I was breathing a sigh of relief, I was frustrated. The others had moved on to court and we were now 2 steps behind them. About a week and a half later, when I was expecting to receive our NOC (the others had gotten theirs days after ARC) the first family to pass us had passed court and was talking about gotcha. I wanted to crawl in a hole and not come out. But for the sake of my family, I put on my big girl panties and made the best of every passing day.
A month went by and no news of NOC. I was becoming downright bitter. Our agency called CAR@ to ask why there was a delay in the issuing of our NOC. Turns out that half our paperwork was placed on one person's desk. The other half, along with our ARC (NOC cannot be issued until ARC is received) was on another desk. Apparently neither person thought to ask around to see if anyone else had the other necessary paperwork. So even though it was their mistake, they told us to be patient and they would issue our NOC in the 15 business day timeframe. Indi@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!
As I left a meeting on Thursday, February 12th, my phone rang. It was our agency with another episode of "good news/bad news". The good news was that our NOC had been issued. The bad news was that it had spelling mistakes galore. So this meant that until a new NOC was issued with everything correct on it, we can not be filed in court.
Here we are ushering in March, and we still have not been filed in court (I have become quite good at navigating/stalking the court's website). The family that passed court in January is now home with their little girl. On Friday, another family passed court and is talking of travel soon. And the last 2 families have court dates soon.
I just want our boy home. At this point he will most likely celebrate his half birthday before we can go get him. I fear that his scoliosis is progressing in irreversible ways. And what must he think of us? He's known since July that we're coming for him. Yet we haven't come yet. Does he think we don't care for him or want him?
Hopefully the next time you hear from me it's a case of good news only.
