Phew! Crisis Averted.

The amazing news of our LOA arriving was somewhat dampened yesterday, when we arrived home from work to find a package from USCIS (aka Immigration).   In the package was our entire I-600A renewal application with a note saying it was rejected because we had submitted it with a personal check instead of a money order.  I was more than beside myself because the directions to the I-600A specifically say that payment may be made by check or money order, and even go as far as to provide specific details regarding check processing.  In ordinary circumstances, this little "hiccup" would have only cost us a couple of weeks, but we had significantly more on the line this time.  The package arrived on Feb. 4.  Our current approval expires on Feb. 8!  If we don't have our renewal application filed by Feb. 8, we lose our I-600A (non-Hague) status, and have to start from square one as a Hague family.  This is an expensive proposition in light of the fees we've already expended to keep our current approval in place for the last 3 years, but even worse, would add many months to our wait.

You cannot have too many friends when you are trying to complete an international adoption.  That much is clear.  Without revealing too much, one of our friends has contacts in the USCIS field office, and was able to quickly find out what was going on.  As it happened, our local office does not have the ability to process checks.  An applicant would have no way of know this, however, because there is no indication on the website that this is an issue.  We're really just lucky they returned our application with enough time to go get a money order and FedEx the application back to them before Feb. 8.  I shudder to think what might have happened if we had been out of town, and not gotten the mail until next week.  

We are so grateful for our friend, who took the time out of her busy day to make the calls that, ultimately, put my very stressed out mind at ease.  I continue to be humbled by the many kindnesses we have been shown throughout this journey.   Silas has an awful lot of people in his corner!