Apologies from Dept of Homeland Security

I got an email today that my corrected I-171H would be in the mail today and that they were apologizing for their mistake. Yahoo! That feels so good but before I celebrate, I'll wait and see which country they put this time!

What's next? Well, I copy the I-171H and have the copy notarized, send that to Richmond to get certified like I did all my other documents. Once I have that back in my hands, I UPS everything (along with a BIG check) to CHI where they will "bundle" it. Bundling means it is made into one document (except my power of attorney because this needs to be separate) which means that there will be less fees because there are less "documents" to worry about. This can be bad because if one little thing is wrong--the "bundle of documents" can be kicked back. That is why everything is checked a million times. After bundling, CHI sends the dossier to D.C. where a courier takes the it to the US Dept of State for authentication and then the courier takes the dossier to the Ethiopian Embassy for authentication. This step will take about 1-2 weeks and then the dossier is sent back to CHI. CHI sends it on to Tsegay in Ethiopia who takes it to be translated and delivers them to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOSLA) and then I wait for a baby.

Where does that put me? By the end of next week...it will all be out of my hands (literally and figuratively!). I'm learning a lot about faith and the lesson is about to intensify. Thanks to everyone in my Yahoo chat group (esp. Stacie and Jenni!) who are always telling me that everything will come faster and easier than I moan about (they are always right). It has been wonderful having total strangers become your cheerleading squad. Hopefully one day, we will all get to meet and laugh about what an "easy time" the dossier prep was in comparison to motherhood!