CIS not CSI

CIS is the department of Citizenship and Immigration Services. On May 24th we sent in our application to CIS (I-600A) along with our fee and payment for biometric fingerprints (more on the fingerprinting saga later). This is basically a paper that says to the government that at some point in time we will be adopting a child from Russia. We don’t know their age, sex, or any other information, but we know that the government takes forever for approval so we are doing this pre-paperwork so that when we do the REAL paperwork it won’t take so long. This part gets really complicated. Anyway I wanted to get that date on the blog.

On Tuesday, May 27th we got a call from our new social worker from LifeLink. Her name is Carole Willadsen and we adore her. She is so friendly, knowledgeable, and understands our need to keep things moving. For those of you that know Julie Nuss (Russell) she reminds us a lot of her. She wanted to know when we could meet her and start getting our visits in. Ummm how about tomorrow I thought?!?! I didn’t want to wait at all. Well she needed us to get fingerprints before coming to our first meeting. This would be for DCFS approval even though we weren’t really going to be approved as foster parents. What?!?! This is so confusing. First of all these fingerprints are different than the ones we just send money to CIS for and what was she talking about DCFS for? Well it turns out that in the state of Illinois in order to get your homestudy approved for adoption you go through the process as if you are going to be approved as a foster parent and then your name is withdrawn at the last part of the process so you aren’t actually on ‘the list’. Ok, so where can we get these prints done? Well low and behold God opens yet another door for us! The very next day in Macomb, on WIU’s campus, they were going to have their last fingerprinting station set up. They usually do this for pre-service teachers and whoever else needs them. How cool is that?!?! So Tuesday we were introduced to Carole on the phone, on Wednesday we were fingerprinted for DCFS approval, and then on Thursday we had our first meeting in Peoria with Carole. The ball was really rolling fast ---- for awhile….