Fingerprints in the DTW

Two weeks ago, on a Monday afternoon, I recieved our fingerprinting appotinment in the mail. The appt was for both Matt and I in downtown Detroit on 4/29/11. Being the non patient woman that I am, I prompty convinced 1) matt to drive to downtown Detroit on a whim to see if USCIS would let us "walk in" 2 weeks early to do our fingerprints and 2) my dad to ad hoc take Lexie to school the next morning.

We were out the door by 7 am the next morning.  On the way into Detroit, I said a silent prayer to God that this would all work out and I would somehow be deemed a genius by my husband for figuring out this 2 week shortcut to the process.  25 mins into the ride, traffic got really bad.  30 mins into the ride, I realized I hadn't eaten anything and I was starting to get nauseous. An hour into the drive we realized we had missed the exit. Given traffic was so bad, we hopped off the highway at the next exit thinking we would just drive right back a few blocks to the USCIS office. 

I severely underestimated what is going on in downtown Detroit.  Now I know why my parents won't take us back to see where they grew up if the sun has set. This was not a pretty place and I told Matt I didn't think anyone should have to live in that type of neighborhood (see B and C below).

After a 15 min detour and a few terse conversations between Matt and I, we ended finding the USCIS office on Jefferson just fine (thank you iPhone). The agent working the desk was not happy to see us 2 weeks early. She walked back to "talk to her manager" and came back to tell us that she wasn't going to "promise anything" but would let us wait to see if they could "fit us in". Given there were only 2 ppl in the room aside from us, I was pretty confident that was her way of saying "I guess so". 5 mins later we were getting our fingerprints done and10 mins later we were driving back home.  Great news (or so I thought)!

Fast forward 2 weeks to last Friday afternoon when I called USCIS for an update and was told that an agent still has not been assigned to process our paperwork. Essentially, this means that our paperwork and fingerprints are sitting in a queue waiting to be approved.  So much for getting ahead of the curve!!

In any case, this week we realized that we could have our paperwork to China in June and potentially have a referral in July.... just 3 short months away!  The fingerprinting is our last approval in the US before getting our paperwork to our agency for authentication and certification. The agency will then send the dossier paperwork to China. So keep your fingers crossed the approval comes this week!