One of the first things people in the know ask when they learn I'm pregnant is, "So are you still pursuing your adoption?"
The answer, of course, is yes. I just don't talk about our adoption all that much because it all taking so long and basically, until we receive our referral (estimated to be months and months and months adding up to over a year from now at least) there really isn't any news to share.
At the moment, we've been waiting so long (since April of 2007) that our orphan visa is set to expire, so we have a few hoops to jump through in order to renew it. As part of this process, we recently needed to re-submit our fingerprints to both the Department of Justice and the FBI. Mr. Pear went first as he needed to get back to the office. From the waiting area, I could hear the technician praising him, "All "A"s! That's what we like to see!"
I soon found our what they were on about. Fingerprinting no longer involves an ink pad and a little card upon which to affix your grubby prints. These days, they use fancy little touch screens and submit your prints digitally. There is also a rating system so you know immediately whether or not your prints are acceptable. Turns out that mine almost aren't. I got "D" after "D" after "D". We tried over and over again with each digit to see if we could do any better. I got a "C" once, on one of my pinkie fingers.
The technician shook her head, "Well, at least the agencies can see we tried several times and it's not just an error. Some people just don't have good prints..." and then she paused, "...but we don't usually see this outside of construction workers."
Little as my hands may be, I got manly paws! I suppose I'm not surprised. Construction worker I'm not, but my poor fingers have seen their share of plaster, soil, clay, turpentine and various other fingerprint degrading substances* in my love of manual labor in all forms. All I can say is, let's speed up the adoption process please, because if I need to do this in another 18 months, I'll have done that many more sink loads of dishes.
* I know I could wear gloves, but they are usually a very bad fit and I inevitably get frustrated and hurl them off in a most un-zen-like rage. Until we rescind child labor laws, I doubt I'll find them in the right size.
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