His fingerprints are what?

So just when we think we are going "on the list," we get a wonderful phone call from one of the social workers who helped with our homestudy. It is obvious in her tone of voice that she has very bad news. Nearly three weeks ago the state of Michigan fingerprint info was completed and returned directly to her. She was on vacation and we were waiting for FBI paperwork to be completed in order to get the home study completed and on it's way to our agency. The clearance info sat on her desk until yesterday when she turned over the form to find that Bob's prints came back as "NOT VIABLE" You have got to be kidding me!!! I felt so bad that Renee had to call me to let me know that she never looked at the back of the form since the same fingerprint card came back just fine last December during home study number one. Are you thoroughly confused yet? I know we are. Keeping all this straight is ridiculous and if the United States government had even one agency linked to another this would not be such a giant problem. It's completely nuts that we have been fingerprinted four times and cleared through the Dept. of Homeland Security when we were adopting through Nepal, but yet nobody can simply pull up Bob's prints and complete the background check. Yeah let's go back to our local Sheriff's Dept and do the old archaic way of rolling the fingers and then make people wait for weeks only to tell them that the fingerprints will need to be redone because the fingers were not rolled just so. For real?

So I spent another hour of life today figuring out where and when Bob can go to do the machine type Livescan fingerprints {what should have been done the first time}. Now we pay $65.00 and try and rush the review of the prints. Meanwhile I begin working to convince the agency to use the old print clearance {from the Nepal H.S.} so that we can get "on the list" and in line with all the other families wishing to adopt through AGCI. My patience is shot and believe me when I say that I may come undone if one more person remind me that this is just like a new adoption and all of this is just part of the process. Well no kidding but could we learn a bit from some of the many challenges we have faced in muddling through this system? Might we change it up a bit to be more user friendly, more error proof and just all around simpler? I wish I could make it easier on the next family hoping to adopt.

Deep breath......... Whew! So needless to say it has been a long couple of days and we are back to the waiting game. We just want to be on the list people- on the list! Please God grant us patience and give us the ability to find humor in all these little hurdles we have faced. Finding her will be worth every little step. We are certain of that!