NVC In and Out!

Well, now that our I600 is approved, they forwarded our file to the National Visa Center. I called today to check on it's status. I've never called before. Not one single time during the I600 process. Since we received our notification last Friday, I figured I'd give it until Thursday of this week before I called and became "that parent".

Thursdays are always CRAZY busy for me. I take Andrew to preschool, go to church to pull supplies for all the children's classes that meet on Sunday, grab lunch, do school with Robert (today add that we went to Hope Market - a craft fair that we go to each year), pick up Andrew, come home for less than 2 hours, head back to the church to teach my Thursday night class. I feel like I run all day long on Thursdays.

So when we got home, I got the boys settled doing an activity and I got set to call the National Visa Center to check on Zoe's status. Well, I've never called before and I don't know how to call. Um, thank God for Mary Leigh! She reminded me that there were "hints" listed on the Korea forum and I was like "oh, stupid me, of course!!!" and I was off to call the NVC. I read the hints thoroughly 3-4 times and decided I was as prepared as I could be and I dialed the number. Busy. dialed again. busy. and again. busy. Finally, I got through. Listed in the hints, it says "press 1 and then press 5", so of course my finger was all ready to press one.

On the other end of that line was an automated system. It said "For Haiti related inquiries please press 1". Um, no, I don't think so. Did she say 'Haiti'? As in the country? That can't be right. What do I do, what do I do! I don't know what to press. I'm supposed to press 1. Click. So I call Mary Leigh (AGAIN) who this time is totally laughing at me. She was like "yes, they mean Haiti as in the country. New feature after the earthquake since so many people are calling to check on the visas of their orphan children in Haiti." Oh, gotcha. Let's try this again, shall we? Thanks for the help Mary Leigh!

I call again. Press 2 (for non-Haiti related issues), then 1 and then 5 and after waiting for about 20 minutes, a friendly man on the other end confirmed that yes, not only have we been logged IN to the National Visa Center, but we have already been logged OUT and it's been sent to the Embassy. This is good news.

Now our file has been forwarded to the Embassy in Korea for Zoe's passport. Things are moving right along.

I'd feel a lot better about this if we had an Emigration Permit, but for now we wait. We're in the home stretch now and if we had an EP, we'd be in Korea in a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, without the status of the EP, we are just very unsure. Either way, it was good news to hear that we had some movement.

This sweet girl is ready to come home! She needs her mama!