Trenton update: I say "PAIR!!!" you way "waaahhhh??"

Okay adoption junkies, it's time for class. What is this "PAIR" that I keep speaking of? It stands for:

Pre-
Adoption
Immigration
Review

aka PAIR. Back in the olden days, you would get a referral. Wait around weeks/months for all of your "stuff" of your file and kiddos to be put together and submitted to Ethiopian court. For Ben in 2010 this took 2.5 months. Then you receive a court date. For Ben, that was 4 months post referral to appear before the court in Ethiopia. At that time you hope that all of the stuff is at the right spot at the right time for you to pass. This was when Ben's process went all wonky and we were in limbo for another 6 months before we finally did pass 10 months post referral. In his case, we were submitted to embassy quickly after, and just happened to "clear" quickly. For other families in recent history, that wasn't the case. They would go through the entire process with Ethiopian court, only for the US Embassy to find fraud in their case and deny the child a visa to the USA (as should happen when fraud is found, but how heartbreaking for all involved).

It was after those fraud issues occurred that the United States decided to shake things up last year. Now, with PAIR, all of the investigating is done BEFORE things are submitted to court. My dossier and all of Trents stuff are sitting in Ethiopia right now at my agencies office, waiting for the magical "PAIR" letter, which states that the USA found no fraud and green lights for all. That investigation is what is happening right now for Trent.

I was able to get through to my immigration officer a week ago Monday to verify that she did indeed have my file, and that I would be ever so helpful in any way I could should she need anything or have any questions. It is normal(about 80% of the time) for folks to receive an "RFE" which is a Request for Evidence. I have received 3 in total in my adoption experiences for a few tiny little things that held things up and resolved. I spoke to her on Monday July 14th, and she said that I was on her stack for "this week". woot woot.

I woke to an email the morning of July 16th that my documents had been uploaded to the US Embassy in Ethiopia (Embassy in Ethiopia is always at work when we are sleeping folks!). There was fist pumping. This means we didn't receive an RFE in our first round and passed through!!

Our I604 "investigation of orphan status" had begun!!

Then a bit of a downer. I awoke to another email on Thursday morning, informing me that 2 documents would need to be amended. These were small fixes and nothing to be alarmed about... they don't smell of fraud etc.. just an Ethiopian vs American calendar issue (Ethiopia runs off of the Gregorian calendar which is 7 years behind us. One doc said it had been issued in 2006 rather than 2013). So right now, an important interview of someone close to his case as well as those 2 documents are being worked on by the staff in Ethiopia.

Please continue to keep his investigation and his little self in your prayers. We hope to see some movement in the weeks to come either with the interview or these documents being resubmitted.

Thanks ya'll :-)