Big News!

In the past month and a half, Michael and I have been very busy gathering the final documents to complete our dossier. Two weeks ago we were THRILLED to receive our I-171H from the USCIS (permission from the U.S. Government to adopt internationally). It came in the mail much earlier than we anticipated, and we still had a few other documents that we needed to have notarized. We spent the following week getting those taken care of, and then sending some of them off to the Pennsylvania State Department for certification. Essentially what that means is that the state verifies the notary.

This past Saturday, we received those two documents back from the state, and we are VERY excited to report that as of today, all of our dossier documents are now out of our hands!

We had to gather the roughly 30 notarized and certified documents and send them to a courier in Washington D.C. called the Assistant Stork! They will then take our documents to the State Department for authentication. At this point they will bind everything, legally speaking, into two documents. A Power of Attorney (granting our agency the ability to act on our behalf) and our Dossier. Once the State Department is done authenticating them, the Assistant Stork will then take the documents to the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, D.C. When they are done, our dossier will be sent to Ethiopia and we will OFFICIALLY be waiting! We are told the process in D.C. will take about 7-10 days. I pray that the U.S. Postal Service treats our package with care and that it arrives at the Assistant Stork intact!

Now to the part that will have us feeling like kids counting down to Christmas...the waiting! Once our dossier arrives in Ethiopia, we will officially be put on our agency's wait list. At that point we just sit back and wait for a referral. We've heard from a lot of adoptive parents that this is the hardest part. I think for the time being I won't mind it, as it means I am not busy chasing down paperwork, but I know I will get antsy too!

I admit, I have been turning into a bit of a sap the older I get, and there is a song out now by Christina Perri that makes me smile and get a little misty eyed whenever I hear it. It definitely makes me think of the little one we're so close to being blessed with! 

"I have died everyday Waiting for you 
Darlin' don't be afraid,  
I have loved you for a thousand years  
I'll love you for a thousand more
And all along I believed I would find you  
Time has brought your heart to me 
I have loved you for a Thousand years 
I'll love you for a Thousand more"

I am sure I will be humming along to the radio as our wait continues! I will also fill our waiting with more updates and information on Ethiopia, adoption and tell you about what we're doing to prepare!