A small bump in the road...

Last night, Jeff was able to call the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to confirm that they had all of our paperwork for a smooth visa appointment. Amazingly, they said that they had everything, including our updated fingerprints which were only done on May 7. Go, USCIS!

Then, this morning I received an email response from AIT (I had also emailed them just to be extra careful). The email again confirmed that they had all of our paperwork. Unfortunately, they think Christian is a girl. More specifically, our paperwork is for one healthy FEMALE child 0-12 months. Boo, USCIS!

So, here is what we have done:

(1) Jeff called the National Visa Center. They said that they have nothing to do with assigning gender to cases and that was done by immigration. They gave him a phone number to call.
(2) I called the national immigration number. I talked to a nice lady there that said this would have been assigned by our local USCIS. She gave me a phone number to call.
(3) I then called our local USCIS. The phone number said to email them or use their web site. And then it hung up on me. (Note that this seems to be the modus operandi for all government agencies.)
(4) So, I went to the web site and scheduled a physical appointment downtown tomorrow at 8:10am. Hopefully, we can straighten this out.

Additionally:
(1) I contacted our social worker and we may have to physically pick up our home study update (which clearly states EITHER gender) and drive it back down to USCIS.
(2) Jeff called our congressman's office to see if we can get a little bigwig help here to speed up our case.

So, I think we've done everything we can do at this point. We'll see what happens tomorrow. And there's always Plan Z: dress up Christian like a girl and brazen it out.

UPDATE (6/13): We had our appointment with our local USCIS this morning. The immigration officer was surprisingly helpful and accommodating (praise God!). So, to make a long story slightly shorter, he allowed us to write a letter on the spot requesting a change in gender on our visa 37 (an internal document that is sent to AIT - apparently the source of all of our problems). So...with any luck, the change will be made and we will be on track. Seriously, we are so, so grateful to everyone who has helped us out with information and advice.

UPDATE #2: Unfortunately, heard from Officer Bryan (our immigration officer this morning) - we have to formally file a motion to have our file reopened. We're going back to USCIS on Monday and hopefully get it straightened out for good!

UPDATE #3 (6/16): We again saw the wonderful Officer Bryan this morning for our appointment. He is trying his best to help us out and we are so appreciative. It sounds as though once they receive our updated home study, the changes will be made. Jeff drove to Sunbury this afternoon and met with our social worker to physically pick up our update. He then mailed it out immediately. They should be getting it on Tuesday. We really hope that this is it!!