We've been invited to travel!

We received word from our adoption agency last week that Wyatt's province, Ben Tre, has invited us to travel! Unfortunately, that really isn't as exciting as it sounds, since we can't go until US immigration approves his paperwork. We had to request an extension of up to 60 days from Vietnam. Supposedly, once we get approval from USCIS (US citizen and immigration services) our giving and receiving ceremony can be quickly rescheduled.

The question, of course, is how long will CIS take? The truth is that we don't know! The current average processing time is reported to be 45 days. The letter CIS sent us states that most cases are completed within 60 BUSINESS days, but they can ask for 30 (or more) additional days. So basically, the US government can take as long as they want. As a math teacher, I'm hung up on the 45 day "average." Assuming this "average" is the mean, it is very affected by outliers (unusually high or low values.) I seem to hear more people with excessively high wait times than short ones. Theoretically, this should mean that if we calculated the average without those really long waits that it should be less than 45 days.

We are now on day 32. I've just begun counting. Up to this point, I think I've been pretty relaxed about when this would actually happen. Likely, this is because Isaac, almost 4, keeps us so busy. With his adoption it couldn't have happened fast enough and I feel for all those first time parents waiting for their children in Vietnam. Overall, the 9 months since we were first "introduced" to Wyatt have gone quite fast. I am now anxious for the wait to be over.