Progress of sorts...

Well, today was definitely an eventful one. Since we are approaching the end of our anticipated timeline, we are all getting a bit anxious to get home to family, friends, and familiar things. That said, we had some mixed news today. I had called our agency this morning to ask about getting their help in extending our visas which expire Saturday (Troy and Kasey's expire the 25th) since it was looking like there is no way we will be leaving until our regularly scheduled flight next week. There was some chance that we could have left on Saturday, but our meeting would have had to happen today to get our visas for the kids tomorrow. Anyway, agency representatives stopped by around 2pm to discuss things and help Martine and I get the extension in progress. Somehow, it was communicated that our visa appointments were at 2pm today over at the US Embassy and we were already late. So, cautiously optimistic, all six of us (both families) piled in a cab and made our way through the chaotic Hanoi traffic to the US Embassy. Upon arriving there, we found that there was some sort of confusion and there were no appointments today. A bit dissapointed, we headed back to the hotel to discuss our options. Once getting there, we dug into our visa issue and also called around for updates on our case with both our agency and the US Embassy. Our agency contacts called in an immigration specialist and we should have our Vietnam visas extended on time.

Around 4:30pm we got word that the Noah's US visa paperwork had been approved and our 2nd appointment had been scheduled for 10:30am Friday morning, but still no word on the Olivia's appointment. We called the embassy and learned that the US CIS office in Ho Chi Min City was still processing Olivia's paperwork and there is a chance that we will get it cleared up tomorrow. We are really hoping this can work out as we would like to keep our travel plans in place and go home together. Despite everyone's somewhat fazzled nerves, everyone at both our agency and the Embassy has been extremely nice and dilligent in helping us get through this process. It is pretty amazing these things can come together given the number of details that need to be processed and the added complexity of working with two different governments in two different languages.

To clarify for those not intimately familiar with this stage of the process, the US visa for each baby is the last document we need in order to go home. In order to get it, we needed many forms including each baby's Vietnamese passport, all adoption paperwork, and a current medical evaluation (all accurately translated to English). We need two interviews with US officials to get a US Visa for the babies; the first was completed last week, the 2nd will be to review all of the materials and get final approval. The visa is issued 1 business day after the 2nd interview is completed. So, in order to leave Tuesday, we really need to have our interviews by Friday so we can pick up the visas on Monday.

I really hope things come together tomorrow so we can relax this weekend and prepare for our trip home next week. We hope everyone is doing well at home. We are all fine and hangning in there. Wish us luck!