My sister has been extremely ill. She has been in the ICU in New Orleans and until yesterday, I had been there with her. She has been diagnosed with a fairly uncommon disease that was not easily diagnosed and before we had a definite diagnosis, we nearly lost her. It was awful seeing my normally sassy sister so still. I had to leave the office suddenly when she made a turn for the worse and fly down to her. I didn't get a chance to say "goodbye" to Jaden and it was the first time I've ever been away from Katie. I am incredibly blessed that I have a husband that said "go" without thinking of what I was leaving him with...an office already short-staffed by one provider in the middle of flu season and 2 littles at home. I am also very blessed to have an awesome mother-in-law and staff that jumped in to help however they could. It really does take a village. After a few days and lots of prayer and good medical care, my sister had taken a definite turn for the better and so I was able to get home in time to keep our planned fingerprint time.
We had a bit of a good news/bad news situation with our Supplement 3. Since our current paperwork was valid until Jan 5th and our prints until Jan 8th, we had two goals...to get our supplement 3 acknowledged before it expired on the 5th and to have it approved by the 8th. The good news was that we did get it in early enough that our time was extended and we didn't have to start completely over. And the bad...Had it been approved on the 8th, we would have been sent an approval the next day. As it turned out, she didn't get to review it until the 9th at which point the prints had expired and so she couldn't approve it. I think in sympathy, she did get a relatively quick appointment for us just 2 weeks later (1/23) but that meant adding on the 2 weeks until the appointment and then however long it took her to pull our file and approve it. SOMETIMES, they will allow you to walk in early to print but it is totally dependent upon who is working security that day. The official policy is that you are to come only at your appointed time and date. We already had today (1/16) scheduled out of the office for my birthday and so we decided to try to shave some time off the wait and try to avoid rescheduling a full day of patients for both of us. (I have to throw in here that we are also incredibly blessed with understanding patients...they have been very supportive of the time we have been away from the office due to adoption related things) So, off we went to the USCIS office in OKC at 8:00 am. I was so afraid that they would say no that I was shaking. The security guards took our papers from us, handed them back and told us to continue through security. (Now, whether they noticed that we were a week early and were being kind or just didn't notice, I just don't know or really care! Either way, we were off to be printed!) So we went to the back, nearly giddy with relief. We got in line and hoped that the printing ladies either wouldn't notice or wouldn't care. I went first and the lady (Elsa, btw) was super nice and didn't say a word. Tim, noticing the ease of my interaction, changed lines to get my lady also! :) We were numbers 1 and 2 for the day and back in our car by 8:20. Smooth, easy and what a relief! (For the last week, I have been OCD trying to keep my hands moist and cut free as they will not print you if you have the smallest paper cut. After we left, I wanted to go play with knives. hehe) Wonderful birthday present number 1.
Very shortly after we left, I found out that my sister had been extubated at the hospital! Whoot! She didn't really want the tube in the first place; I was relieved that she had it less than 48 hours. Wonderful birthday present number 2.
About 10:30, I called our officer at USCIS, ostensibly to let her know that we had been printed early but also in hopes that she would have pity on us and not wait until Tuesday to pull our file. She put me on hold for a minute, pulled up our prints on the computer and came back on the line to tell us she was approving us as we spoke and she would try to get the approval letter out today! Wonderful birthday present number 3.
Then we drove our 12 year old Honda Odyssey van to Bartlesville and finally purchased to new Odyssey that I have been drooling over for many months and got a wonderful deal. Wonderful birthday present number 4.
When I got home, I found out both of my big kids would be home for the weekend! Wonderful birthday present number 5.
All in all, I can't imagine a much better birthday. It has been an exhausting, emotional roller coaster that I fully understand will continue for months to come but at least for today, the ride has come to a stop.
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