Disappointing News

Our case worker from the adoption agency called today. I could tell right away that something was wrong. She asked me to get Damien on the phone - which worried me even more. I asked if everything was ok, and the first thing she said is that Bada (she obviously still refers to her by her current name) is doing just fine. Whew! But she said that there is going to be a delay with us being able to bring her home. Korea has a quota for the maximum number of visa's they will issue to children being adopted overseas. Apparently, they have already reached that quota. She said that in past years they have been somewhat flexible at giving out a few extra for kids that are ready to travel, but they say this year they won't give any more.

Although we hoped that we would travel by the end of the year, we knew that it was possible that it wouldn't happen. The problem with this Visa issue is that it will put us about a month behind. Normally we would have gotten Sora's Visa about a week after we get our I-600 approval. So, most likely she would have gotten the Visa at the end of November. Then it would have taken another few weeks before we got our travel call. So now they say they won't give out Visas until the beginning of next year. So let's say they give it to us the first week of January. It will probably take another four weeks until we can travel. So the social worker told us to expect it to be the beginning of February before we can go pick her up.

It could be worse. She said there is another family that already has their I-600 approval and were about to get their child's visa. They will now be on the same time-line as us and not be able to get their child's Visa until the beginning of the year.

The social worker also said that there is a possibly (although she said that it's unlikely) that they may decide to give a few more visa's. If so, it could be 1 or it could be 5 or 10. Who knows. We still don't have our I-600 approval anyway, so we're still a little ways away from even being eligible.

So, like I said, disappointing news. I'm glad Damien was on the phone to talk because I cried a little. I'm not good at talking while trying to hold back tears. I felt a little foolish crying over a few weeks. But I was hoping that she might come by Christmas. Even though I knew it was most likely not going to happen, it's sad to know it won't now for sure. Plus, when she said February that just seemed like ages away! I am thankful for the holidays coming soon because hopefully that will keep me distracted for at least a month!