Hooray! We have a new case worker (Elaine) who contacted us with some good news. Let me back up a bit though. Just after our old case worker left, we were informed by a temporary worker that our file was missing both our HIV tests, and that it couldn't be sent on to the Ministry until these were located. Weirdly, Mike and I went for our blood tests separately, way back in April. All the other test results were in the file, but both our HIV tests were missing. I wish I had known that they would be on completely separate sheets of paper. But since we received our blood test results from our doctor, we attached them to our file without realizing that the HIV results were not part of the regular tests.
So for the next several days we played phone tag with our family doctor who ordered the blood test, the lab who took the blood and the Health Unit it was sent to. The doctor told us they had nothing on file and would call the lab. The lab told us they only took the blood and had no idea what happened to it once they sent it on. They couldn't even confirm that the HIV test had been requested. The Health Unit refused to provide any information at all, except to the doctor. This rigmarole continued for a few days until we were told we might as well just go in and get retested, and that the results could take several weeks, putting us off another month or so.
But today we talked to Elaine who said that we don't need our HIV tests on file until everything goes to Ethiopia. So they are going to send our file into the Ministry early next week and we have the next 12 weeks or so to sort out this HIV test while our file sits on someone's desk at the Ministry. Still, we are one step closer. As soon as all this is out of the way, we are waiting for a referral. It's starting to feel a lot closer!
