We've been Approved!!

For those of you who have still not yet checked out my new blog at www.myculturedbaby.blogspot.com, check it out!  

On there I have told the story of our recent Visa Approval.  My husband was approved officially on July 26th and we just found out on Monday.  It's a great victory for our family!  We are still finalizing paperwork so it could still be a while until he returns to the States, but atleast we know he is returning for sure.  Again check out www.myculturedbaby.blogspot.com for all the exciting and heart-wrenching details.  Let's be honest here...immigration is no walk in the park!

From the Beginning

I'm so excited there have been a lot of new visitors to the blog lately!  I have had a lot of questions about how my family's immigration process began.  I've pretty much blogged about it from the point of when we decided to go to El Salvador.  It was on a different blog though and I still have yet to merge the two.  Feel free to check out www.toelsalvadorandback.blogspot.com to read about how the process went for us in the beginning. It also chronicles our 9-day trip driving from Indiana to El Salvador.  I hope you enjoy and for those of you in El Salvador or going through the process, I hope you get a laugh or some comfort in knowing you are not alone in your experiences :)  Then come back here and share your comments!  

One of the greatest gifts I have gotten over the past 3 years is this amazing online community I have formed through this blog, the Immigrate2us forum and on Facebook.  I know it's my purpose now to support and share my experiences with others the way so many have helped me and have been able to show me the light at the end of the tunned when there was none in sight.  Thanks to everyone for that :)  I will never stop fighting for immigration reform and immigrant rights!!

Our Waiver is Approved!

We found out on Monday that our waiver has been approved in El Salvador!  Yay!!!  I know so many people have been right there with us through this process and praying for us and with us through all our struggles.  I want to thank everyone for that.  Without this blog and all of our online support in particular, I don't know how I would have gotten through the past 3 years of this immigration "nightmare".  

Our waiver was officially approved on July 26th, 2011.  

We are now waiting for the next step in the process.  It's not over yet!!!  It won't be over until I see my love walking towards us in the airport.  

We are waiting for the embassy to send us or call us with a checklist of documents that may need to be updated.  Since our waiver was officially approved in under a year, we may not need to update many things, hopefully just the solvencia (police report) and his birth certificate.  Once we find out what we need then we get his last appointment date to turn those documents in and they do one last interview with him.  After that, they will send the passport with the visa stamped in it to our house in El Salvador.  Once Eduardo receives that passport, I will book the tickets for him to fly home!  

Now getting all these last things wrapped up can take weeks or months. I am praying it will not take long.  PLEASE let Eduardo return in a couple weeks!!  PLEASE!!  

Sunshine Daydreams

Is it Monday yet??  I keep asking myself this.  Fortunately I am keeping myself busy with work and playing with the cutest little girl in the world until Monday morning.  But being busy certainly isn't keeping me from thinking and daydreaming about the future.

For a long time I surrendered to our state of unknown about life.  I gave up on trying to figure it all out and about constantly wishing for the future.  I had to stop daydreaming about what life would be like once we were all back in the States together again.  

Well since Monday the daydreaming is back full force.  It's been hard today not to get carried away in how everything is going to be.  I'm a doer and an organizer and planner.  I like knowing what's going on at all times.  I think this is the biggest growth I have had since living in El Salvador.  Learning to let go of CONTROL.  If you are involved in the immigration process in any way, you know that you have absolutely no control.  For the control freak like me, this has been a good learning process for me.  It hasn't been easy, but I've had to find a balance in life.  

Today I just couldn't help myself.  I found myself on the phone with Eduardo trying to plan our future.  I wanted to know where we are going to live when he comes back, where he will work, where we will get the money for the place to live, what we will do in the meantime during the wait until he actually gets his social security number and on and on and on.  My mind when crazy for a minute with ideas and questions.  

Thank God I have my husband to bring me back down to earth.  We discussed some of my questions, but it wasn't really going anywhere.  He finally said to me very nicely that he wasn't going to entertain any more of my daydreaming until after Monday.  He said after Monday, he will discuss anything in the world that I want, but not before then.

I can understand where he is coming from.  We don't really know what's going to happen on Monday and it really is fruitless to keep trying to answer questions there are no answers for.  I just have to be patient and know that it will all work out like it has up until this point.

I never imagined I would do so well coming back to the States on my own for instance.  But it's been a good learning experience for me and everything that has happened has just happened.  There hasn't been too much to plan.  Opportunities just seem to present themselves.  That's where I get to step back and allow things to happen.  

Luckily my Grandma is coming tomorrow and will spend the night and we will see my aunt on Saturday.  Hopefully with all that and my markets and making veggies this weekend, I won't have too much time to daydream :)

The Verdict is in...

BUT they haven't revealed what it is yet! 

On Monday I was doing my daily check-in at www.immigrate2us.net and I saw that someone on the El Salvador forum had their waiver approved.  The exciting part was they turned their visa waiver in the EXACT same day as we did!  I got so excited I could hardly breathe.  I knew our turn would be next and I was determined to find out if the embassy had received the additional hardship evidence I had turned in.

You see last Wednesday I finally compiled all my new documentation of my current hardships now that we are living in the U.S.  I kept feeling this urgency to get the papers to the embassy and my attorney was not being any help.  I decided to scan everything and send it by e-mail.  I kept wondering if I should fax it as well, but I kept hearing that it was really expensive to fax internationally, like $5/page and I had about 22 pages.  I emailed my attorney about this and once again didn't get any feedback.

So back to Monday.  I decided I would call the embassy and find out if they received my additional evidence.  I searched everywhere for the phone numbers.  I probably called about 10 different numbers to all different places to find out what I could.  I finally found a number that worked.  

I got right through to the exact person I needed to speak with directly at the embassy.  She was very nice and helpful.  I told her I was checking to see if they received the evidence for my husband's case.  She asked for his name and looked up his file.  She told me that they did not receive the evidence, but that a decision has been made on our case!  I was in shock.  I repeated what she said.  BUT, she then said she couldn't tell me the decision or any details on the phone.  That I have to either wait for the letter or have Eduardo go into the office next Monday.  He could have gone today, Wednesday, but of course they were closed for holidays today :(  I asked again if they had taken into consideration my additional evidence and she said there is no record of receiving that, but they did make a decision on the case.  Ugh!!  

So I'm not sure how to feel at this point.  I was flying high on Monday.  I seriously felt like I had 10 shots of espresso in me and didn't know what to do or who to call.  Thank God Eduardo made it home and we were able to talk about everything.  We are both worried about them not knowing I am living in the States now, but hopefully it doesn't matter.  Hopefully they approved us anyway and we can move on.  

Since it's under one year since we filed our waiver, we hopefully will not have to do the medical exam again and provide the current taxes and some other documents.  Those things seem to set people back even after the approval.  My mom and stepdad are our co-sponsors and they haven't even done their 2010 taxes so I'm praying to God they don't ask for them!!  

So stay tuned to what happens next.  Will it be an Approval or a Denial???  Let's all pray for the best :)

Good news is that even if it's a denial, I recently found out that it will actually be a NOID, which is an Notice of Intention to Deny.  They send you that and give you 30 days to send in additional evidence that may help your case and eventually end up with the approval.  So either way it comes out, I feel hopeful that it will work out for us.  I would then be able to send my documents in again at that point.  

But again, let's hope it's just an approval!!!  I'll let you know what happens on Monday...

The Promise

I'm not even sure what I want to say about this.  I just know that I absolutely LOVE this quote.  I found it posted by someone on Facebook and I just had to share it will you guys.  This is EXACTLY where I feel I am at right now.  I see who I've been and who I want to be.  I am trying to live less from habits and more from my intentions...exactly like the quote says!  There's nothing more to say...

Missing my Husband

I have refrained myself from blogging on this topic since I have returned back to the States.  It's really something that goes without saying, but it's really so much more than what isn't said.  

The words "I miss you" don't really begin to describe the aching in my heart for Eduardo.  It's not something I ever thought could be experienced.  I have missed people before, but this I've never felt.  It's literally like a rock is weighing on my heart.  

I find I can't talk about our situation too much anymore with people.  After 2 months of separation now, the pain is all too real.  

I have to keep busy.  It's the only thing that works to not break down.  As long as I am busy and going all the time, I am fine.  

Last week I found myself with a lot of spare time somehow.  I didn't have appointments, I had plenty of veggies already made and it was a super long week with just Liliana and I.  I wish I could say I enjoyed it more than I did.  To make it worse, Eduardo was staying in the city for the week working so I couldn't even call him or Skype.  Then everytime we spoke I would just break down crying.  I tried so hard not to, but it would just come in a big wave.  I tried to be strong for Liliana, but it was hard.

This week is better, but it's hard not being able to talk with Eduardo as much as we want since his work hours are so long now.  Sometimes I wish he would just quit and I can send him more money so at least Liliana can talk and see him whenever she wants.  

But we'll make it through.  I hope these next few months will go really quick and then he will be back.  I pray I will never take my husband for granted again and I promise to always appreciate everything we have been through to be together.

A Summer of Markets!

Most of our summer here in Indy has been spent focusing on Cultured Veggies and Esperanza Imports.  When Liliana and I are not making veggies, I am at a farmer's market selling them.  Right now I have 2 markets I am doing each week and I'm trying to get into a couple more.  I mostly focus on selling CV's, but at one of the markets I get to have a small table of my Artisan stuff.  It's pretty fun.  

I have done a couple other fairs/festivals and have a couple more scheduled for August.  I'm really glad that this is how I've been blessed with being able to work :)  I'm not a 9-5 kind of gal and I insist on spending my days with Liliana so it works out perfectly.  I hope to get into even more markets before the end of summer, but we'll see what happens!

Waiver Processing Times

I realized it is the end of July and I have only blogged once!  I think I've been trying to figure out what I want this blog to be, but I need to just keep being myself and let whatever comes out be how it is :)

Well I have GOOD NEWS!  Yay!  I was checking my immigration forum the day before yesterday and something signficant was posted.  The U.S. Embassy website for El Salvador updates their site for which month or months they are currently processing visa waivers.  The date posted on the website has been at April 2010 for a while now.  BUT it is now changed to OCTOBER 2010!!  This is huge for us because our waiver was submitted in October 2010.

Now this doesn't mean we are going to be getting approved in the next week or anything, but it's a big step.  Our case was submitted at the end of October so we probably have to wait a while.  I was told on visit to the Embassy in May that October was their biggest month for waiver submission so they will be working on October for a while.  Even if that is the case, at least they are working on October.

I now have to get all my additional evidence sent over to El Salvador ASAP.  I have decided to put it together and send it myself as to speed along the process rather than involving my attorney.  I will send her copies as well so she knows what I have done.  I am just waiting on one thing to come in the mail so I can use it as evidence.  I plan on faxing and emailing the documents and then I will call to confirm they received them and also can check on our case at that time.

This is all so exciting.  Eduardo could be home sooner than later.  I'm praying for that to be the case.  Please keep our family in your prayers for a speedy approval time :)

Update on Liliana's health

I am happy to say that my little ball of energy is doing well.  We went for a doctor's visit today and she has gained another pound, so the docs are happy.  We also went for our required visit down to Riley Children's Hospital for additional "testing" with a specialist and just as I knew it would be, there was nothing "wrong" with her.  Thank God!  She's just on the small side.  If any of you have ever met Eduardo's family, this would come as no big surprise.  They are all on the small side.

I am however going to use this evidence as part of my new hardship letter since Liliana basically didn't gain any weight during the year we were in El Salvador.  I think it was a combination of factors including lack of variety of foods, sanitation and lack of money for food.  Hopefully it will help our case.

We also found out in the tests that Liliana is allergic to egg whites.  It was hard at first to take those out of her diet, but I've still been fixing her the egg yolks, which are really good for the skin.  And would you believe it...her eczema had completely cleared up!  Like completely gone.  I have never seen her skin looking and feeling this good before.  I'm so happy for her because she must feel so much better.

She's also still enjoying the new house and even told me how she doesn't like the old house anymore.  lol.  It's pretty funny.  She has been sleeping a hundred times better here and that makes both of us feel better!  I'm so glad for that.

We finally are Skyping with Eduardo now and Liliana is completely stoked about it.  She lives for those talks with him in the evenings.  I think she is starting to miss him more by the day though and I am too.  Things are getting good for us here, but I think it only makes us miss Eduardo even more.  We want our family back together :(

I think the biggest thing Liliana misses from Eduardo is all the rough-housing.  They were always tickling and rolling around on the floor laughing together.  It was the best thing to watch.  I've read how important those connections are for the children and I think she is missing that.  I think that's why she seems to have gotten more violent with me lately, hitting and biting me for no apparent reason!  I will have to start wrestling with her more and find other ways to get out all that pent up energy.

So that's us.  I know I've slacked in the writing lately.  I will write more about why in a different post :)