Many of you who have read my blog from the beginning know that I was kinda depressed and had a hard time getting into the holidays this year because I'd hoped to go home to Toronto and visit family rather than stay here in SC but there was a little hurdle - Robyn was rejected for her green card when immigration determined that despite the fact that we had formal custody for 8 years, she wasn't officially adopted and only adopted children could gain green card status when a parent got it...
So we rushed through the adoption process with a fab attorney who went above and beyond the call - and if you ever need a good family attorney, Cindy Floyd and her staff are GREAT!
We got everything together under the deadline they set (which was November 7th) and waited... hoping that we wouldn't have to cancel Christmas plans to be home with everyone... and finally made the difficult decision at the end of November when we'd heard nothing... to stay here and have my in-laws come to us.... and just to celebrate vicariously with the rest of the fam...
Just before Christmas we got more bad news... they wanted more 'evidence', because the adoption decree wasn't enough apparently - they now needed copies of Robyn's birth parents official death certificates... and of course I couldn't establish standing to get her dad's in the time allotted to get it... so I appealed to her dad's relatives to order it for me and send it down to us.... fortunately they supported both the adoption and Robyn staying in the US with us and worked quickly to get it done...
With the holidays and mail, we barely made the next filing deadline... January 7th and prayed that that would be the end ....
So when I got a phone call from the immigration attorney last night I knew it was either going to be great news or reduce me to tears....
It did both...
Robyn is now officially able to stay in the US as a permanent resident and within 3 weeks should have her ID card so that she can apply for a SSN and we can all breath a sigh of relief that this odyssey is over... at least til we all consider whether to apply for dual citizenship in 5 years :)
