Victoria’s walking, but not out of the country

Victoria has really started walking. She’s come a long way from being really developmentally behind to being pretty much a normal 14 month old. We had a friend over this weekend with her 15 month old twins. They were walking, but other than that all three of them looked about the same. Victoria is walking and climbing and in general getting into everything. Be careful what you wish for.

But we’re not so sure about going on vacation out of the country. We have a trip planned for the Dominican Republic. We are in the process of getting Victoria full citizenship and a U.S. Passport but that takes a while. Right now she has Permanent Residence status.

But they mailed her green card to our old address. That type of mail can’t be forwarded. So we didn’t get it. She came into the country on an IR-4 Visa. That lasts six month which means it expired about a week ago. So while she has legal status, in terms of the actual paperwork we have in our hands, she has a valid Guatemalan passport and an expired Visa.

So we could go to the Dominican Republic, but Victoria couldn’t come back. Not so good.

We talked to Immigration and they’ll resend the green card. In a month or so. Not so good.

Finally, the lawyer we are working with to make her a full citizen (the process is called re-adoption) suggested that we call our congressman. We had to do this once before during the adoption when some paperwork got stuck in the process. I called our congressman’s office and I talked to the same guy and he thinks we can pull this off. If he does, I will owe him big time.

It’s no wonder that everyone hates Congress, but loves their congressman…