Waiting for Travel Dates

Jen, This may be another one where every case is different. We accepted our referral in June 2008. A few days later realized our i600a had EXPIRED, so we had to apply for the i800a. Ugh! It finally was approved on November 26th. We got our travel dates two days later (11/28/08). We left for Poland on Feb 1, 2009. Our dates would have been sooner if our paperwork had not expired. AND it happened that court district our son was in was moving from one building to another in January, so they were not seeing any cases. Luck (bad luck) of the draw. I hope you hear soon! I know how hard it is to wait - especially with pictures and information in hand! ~sarah

[FONT=Arial]This is the hardest part. Youve got the referral Җ now you depend on others to care for your daughter, whom youve yet to meet and are dying to mother. AAHHHRRRRGGG![/FONT][FONT=Arial][/FONT] [FONT=Arial]You may want to request for an updated photo or two - that helped us a bit during the wait.[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]HereҒs our Referral to Court Date Timeline[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]May 10 got referral[/FONT][FONT=Arial]June 4 officially accepted[/FONT][FONT=Arial]2 month wait[/FONT][FONT=Arial]August 10 received court date[/FONT][FONT=Arial]6 weeks to travel[/FONT][FONT=Arial]September 23 departed USA[/FONT][FONT=Arial]September 28 1st court date[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]The run around that we received was that during the summer everyone is on vacation and therefore schedules are difficult to organize. The facilitator also kept saying, Maybe this week!Ӕ If you get that, dont buy it. ItҒs not in the agency/facilitators hands, they canҒt control it, they arent there, and they donҒt know. Just pray, pray, pray![/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]We were given an adoption party a week before we travelled and it worked out great. We were ready for a break by then and weary and in need of some people being excited for us.[/FONT]

We thought the wait from the time we accepted the referral to actual travel dates was the worst part. Referral: September 10, 2007 Accepted: September 14, 2007 Initially hope for an end of October travel date, but the judge kept asking for random documents one at a time. Then hoped for an early December travel date (we really hoped to at least meet them before their 2nd birthday), but the judge did not return any of our lawyers calls and finally said she was taking a vacation around the holidays and would not take any new cases until after the new year. :hissy: In the beginning of December we were given a tentative court date for the end of January. Only to be told two weeks later than our judge was requiring an in person court date prior to granting us visitation/bonding with our girls. So instead of travelling in early to mid-January we travelled at the end of January.:arrow: We were finally given permission to book our plane tickets the week of Christmas. Preliminary Court: January 31, 2008Final Court: February 14, 2008 So if you do the math: it was 3 months (13 weeks)from the date of the referral until we had a preliminary court date. Our final court date was not given to us until the day of the preliminary court date when the judge decided whether we would need 2, 3 or more weeks for bonding. And it was 19.5 weeks from acceptance of the referral until we met our girls. Hang it there. We are praying for good news to come your way soon.

Hi Jennifer, The timing really seems to vary by region and judge. We received and accepted our son's referral Nov 30th, 2007 Got travel dates Dec 5th flew out Dec 19th arrived the 20th, met Lucas 21st, custody 22nd court Jan 10th arrived in US Feb 13th, 2008 This wait is soooo hard! I had a shower and meet the "baby" party a few weeks after being home. Good luck, fingers crossed and prayers for your family! Kelly