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| Zoey and her foster mother - checking out PJ from our latest photo album! |
It's official - Zoey FINALLY received her long-awaited EP on Wednesday! We are feeling the excitement from our friends and family and many have asked what this means and how soon we will get to bring Zoey home, so here's a quick overview of what happens next…
An "EP" is an emigration permit. It is the first step in the paperwork process for Zoey to get her travel visa. It will take about 4-5 weeks for the EP to be approved by the Korean government. And unfortunately, this is the ONLY time frame we can be certain of…but we WILL be notified when this happens, thankfully.
What happens next?
Holt Korea will apply to the Ministry of Foreign affairs for a travel certificate. This can take another week, but we won't be notified when it happens. *blah*
Then what…?
Since Zoey has already had her Visa Physical performed, we can thankfully cross this step off the list. We also have received the paperwork to fill out for her "Class B waiver" - related to her PKU special need - so, the ball is already rolling on this step!
Also…
We already have our I600 approval from the government. *check!*
but we aren't done yet…
Holt-Korea will submit a P3 packet to the Embassy for Zoey's one-way travel visa. It contains a slew of legal documents and other papers which takes 5-8 business days to be approved. Unfortunately, we won't know when this happens either…
getting closer…
Zoey's foster family will then take her to the Embassy for a "visa interview". I have no idea what happens during this interview, but hopefully Zoey will say "yes" to becoming our daughter. (ha) Will she have to put one hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? hmmm…
last and most importantly…
After Zoey's visa has been issued, we will get a phone call from our agency telling us to buy our plane tickets and get to Korea ASAP. (we are required to be in Korea within a week or sooner of this call!) WHOA - I'll totally freak out when I get this call! (in a good way)
So, this is a run down of everything that still has to happen. Since this last batch of EPs was so huge (I've heard is was 80 this time), it is going to take longer than the typical 6-8 weeks that we were expecting for all of these EP families to travel. SO, we could travel as early as August or as late as October. That's a pretty big time frame. I wish we knew exactly when we were going, but one thing I know for sure…I'm not going to put off packing until we get our travel call.
Get ready, we're coming for you, Zoey!
