Going, Going, Gone!!!!

Up, up, and away! My dossier left for Ethiopia yesterday!!!

Dossier Done Dance!!!

My dossier is back from DC!!!! Lindsay says it will head to Ethiopia on Thursday or Friday!!!! YippeeSkippee!!!

What happens after it goes to Ethiopia, you ask? I copied this straight from my CHI newsletter. Once the dossier is sent to Ethiopia , it will arrive in 3, sometimes 4, days. It will be processed again in the Children’s Hope Ethiopia office and translated. The translations are taking 1 week at this point. The translations will then have to be authenticated. The dossier will remain with our in-country representative until the family is matched with a child. Then a brief summary of the documents in the dossier is written, and upon acceptance of the child, the dossier and summary is presented to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) for review. After approval of the dossier by the MOWA, a court date is set for the case to be reviewed and approved by the Judge in the court. The time frame from MOWA review to the court date is approximately 2 weeks. If there are living birth parents they will be a part of the court process and our in-country representative has Power of Attorney to represent the adopting families in court, and the adoption is finalized and is irrevocable by Ethiopian Law.
Remember, though, that the courts are closing from August 5th until Octoberish. Everything can proceed as above but halts at the point of waiting for a court date. This means that a referral could be forthcoming in the next few weeks (I'm guessing 6-8 weeks from now because it will be about 2 weeks before it gets there and translated, etc.).

Also, Congrats to Jenni and Jim--they got a court date before closure! If all goes well (and it will!), they will be traveling by the end of August!!

Heaps of clothes and big dogs

Nothing new on the adoption front. Dossier is still in DC although Lindsay said it should be back on Monday (fingers crossed!). Then it will head out to Ethiopia! I called and made my appt with the Health Department for August 3rd. I'm thinking about changing it though...maybe checking out the UVA Travel Clinic. Several of the docs at work recommended trying it, they specialize in international disease-ology (yeah, I made that word up!). The nurse at the Health Dept was not nice on the phone. She was more worried about which side of the dividing line I lived on so she could bum me off on another district. Then she informed me that I had to get "everything." Sorry...but I'm only getting a couple of the recommended shots. I am getting the yellow fever shot; it is not required but I've heard that occasionally you will be given one when you get off the airplane if the receiving officials feel it's necessary. I'd rather get it before I go. Most of the others are low risk so I'll discuss it with the docs before I proceed.



This is what my house looked like on Thursday night. My friend Deborah (Kaili's mom--see blog on right) brought over "some clothes" for me and my sister-in-law to have. After 3 hours of sorting and repacking, I can confidently say that neither my daughter nor my niece will need any clothes for quite some time. In the garage is a rubbermaid full of 24 month/2T, another even larger container full of 18 months, and also one full of 6-9 and 12 months. The 6-9 and 12 month clothes are sitting in the nursery waiting on my sister-in-law Lesa to come over and go through with me. There was everything from playclothes to dresses, snowsuits and swimsuits, boots and shoes and socks! She also brought me a diaper genie and some toys, books, bottles, and an infant carrier (something that will definitely come in handy for the trip!).

She also bought me this great giraffe artwork piece as a present. I'm thinking I may actually hang it beside the door leading into the nursery. Thanks Deborah!!

My friend Shannon came over Saturday evening for a few minutes before I went to work. She brought one of her Great Danes (Josie) for Ollie-dog to meet. This is the first time that I ever saw him truly intimidated. Of course, he's never seen a dog that is taller than my grill! My cats were also quite spooked...which is unusual for them. Mickey usually hides under the bed and Sam climbs as high as he can...they just sat and looked at Josie--never hid, just sat there with their fur puffed up. Here is a great picture of Josie and Ollie...I think Ollie was confused and didn't really believe Josie was the same species. Or maybe it was because he could reach her butt to sniff and he doesn't understand anything that he can "sniff-test."

By the way...Josie is super well-behaved and it was very cool being able to pet a dog without leaning over!

Hopefully, I'll have more news to post in the next couple of days! I'll keep you "posted!"

Update.

Called Lindsay on Wednesday (hey - that kinda rhymed!) to check status of my dossier. It appears that the mistake in the dossier has been fixed and my papers should be leaving on the fed-ex-mobile on Monday. Apparently, they kind of batch things and send them all on Mondays to DC. So hopefully they will be certified/authenicated without any problems and soon be flying over the ocean. We shall see. Have to work tonight but then I have a full 3-day weekend! First full weekend I've been off since the beginning of April. They offered me overtime Saturday and I was really tempted, but if I keep going without a break, I won't make it. So, I'm getting excited about my weekend off!

Waiting...

My dossier made it to Lindsay on Tuesday. She found one mistake (I won't go into it because it would take me 2 hours to explain it) but hopefully we can get it fixed quickly and easily without any delay (they are working on it in St. Louis). Yes, that is right...Lindsay sent my dossier on to St. Louis (the main CHI branch) for them to check. They were supposed to get it on Thursday and since I haven't heard anything, I'm hoping everything is kosher. Hopefully sometime next week it will make it's way to D.C. I'm guessing that my dossier may make it to Ethiopia by the end of the month, maybe sooner. Then I wait for a referral. I need to call and make an appt to get my shots and start working on my house. The nursery is close to being ready but I need to rearrange some cabinets to acommodate baby bottles and little bowls, etc. I also need to review the house for some child proof issues. I'll save the washing of crib sheets and clothes (all that kind of thing) until I have a referral.

Oh...and the name. I want to narrow my choices down to about 3 or 4 and then once I have a referral, I'll be able to choose. Everytime I try to narrow it down, I just add more to the list. Current front-runners include Amaya, Elena, Gabrielle (Gabby), Isabelle (Izzy), Bethany, and Emily (Emmie). We'll see.

Got to spend some time with my niece Madison (after a 3 week hiatus thanks to a busy work schedule and a contagious virus) yesterday and today. She is almost 5 weeks old and really getting a personality now. She is so pretty! I'll post pix soon. I am upgrading to DSL today so pictures will be a lot faster to upload to post.

Picked up more overtime this weekend...my schedule has gotten so messed up at work (supposed to work every third weekend and I've worked 10 out of 12) so I figured I might as well work on my one weekend off! Can't pass up the money right now...might as well pack it in while I can. Money is definitely becoming an issue the further along in the process I get (come on tax time!). I have applied for a couple grants...not holding my breath but figured it couldn't hurt to try! I have also stopped eating out (to the tune of about $100 month--which is sad considering I enjoy cooking!) and have stopped buying Coke. I know....everyone just had a heart attack! I figured out I was spending at least $20 a week in Coke products! That will buy enough diapers for a week. So, no more Coke! So sad!

That is the update for now.

Dance of the Finished Dossier

It's Done, It's Done!!!!!!!!!!

What can I say? Ahhhhh, sweet relief! Hopefully my dossier will be in Lindsay's hands by three pm Tuesday (guaranteed by UPS to be there by three). And now the waiting begins for real!

Hi

Okay--this is post #49. If I time things right, post #50 should be that my dossier is done! My last post lamented the fact that the Secretary of State (acutally the Commonwealth--VA is very particular about that fact!) had not sent back my certified I-171H yet. However, I checked the tracking Saturday morning (wishful thinking, I guess) and I was surprised to see that it was on its way...it must have been put in a drop box because it hit the tracking at like 11pm. So, hopefully I'll get it Monday and then it is straight to the UPS Store--everything else is ready to go!

Looking forward to post #50--I guess I won't blog again until that happens. Hope it comes Monday otherwise I will have blogging-withdrawal.

Still waiting...

Still no authentication on the I-171H. The SOS office was able to authenticate all my other documents (16 of them) in one day and get them back to me before I even checked the tracking status. So I am surprised that it is taking so much longer on just the one form...they recieved it Wednesday morning and still haven't UPS'ed it back. If they don't get it out before the end of the day, they will have to wait until Monday...which means I won't get it until at least Tuesday...Wednesday is a holiday. Looks like my dossier won't be getting to Brentwood TN until the end of next week...boohoohoohoohoo! What can you do? Oh well, still waiting.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Certification - $10 per document
UPS trackable next day air - $20.20 each direction
HAVING MY DOSSIER CERTIFICATION DONE - priceless!!!!!!

With the exception of my ever-elusive 171H form, my dossier is done and certified. This means all my documents are notarized and that the Secretary of the Commonwealth of the Commonwealth of Virginia has officially signed and sealed (with gigantic gold seals) that all these documents are good to go! Once I recieve my 171H, I copy it, get the copy notarized, send that to Richmond for certification and then send it all to Lindsay at CHI...she sends it to DC for the feds to check it, then onto the Ethiopian Embassy, back to CHI and then on to ETHIOPIA!!!

Yahoo!!!! Almost there!!!

I really wasn't expecting this so soon. The website said that it would take "longer than 5 days for more than 10 documents." So when I sent them on Thursday, I really didn't expect to get them back at 9:45am Monday! Let's hope the Immigration exaggerated proportionally on their estimates about the 171H.

More later...I'm heading off to play with my 8-day-old niece (practice!!!).

Busy Day and Baby Names

Today was a busy day. After I got off work this morning, I waited around for HR to open so I could pick up my employment letter (version #4--think it's right this time!). Then I went home and tried to sleep, planning on getting up around noon and getting to work. Couldn't sleep, too much to get done. So I went to the doctor's and picked up my letter (version #2--VA no longer abbreviated!) and then on to Mom's office. One of her co-workers, Jeff, has been my wonderful and patient notary. We signed and notarized the rest of my documents (all without the abbreviation VA!) and then I copied everything to send on to Lindsay at CHI. I then went to the UPS store and expressed my homestudy to CIS (Immigration) and my homestudy and copies of everything else to Lindsay. Then it was off to get my hair cut, buy new shoes, and get my passport photos for my dossier. The only glitch was that the photo place had forgot to put photo paper in the printer and then the toner ran out...they said it would be over an hour to get it all together. Since it was already 1pm and I was flagging, I decided to go home to bed and I'll pick the photos up on Saturday.

CIS should get the packet tomorrow and Lindsay gets hers on Monday. Hopefully everything will be okay with my documents and I can send them off to the Secretary of State next week for certification (I still have one more reference letter to grab first--it's written, just need notarized and put in my hands!). Once those certifications are done, I just sit and wait on my I-171H (the "magic form") from Immigration, copy and notarized and send that to the SOS for certification. Then the dossier will be done!

So that's the paperwork update. On the homefront, Lesa has a doctor's appt in the am and hopefully they will decide it's time for baby! I'm so ready to be an aunt. Lesa's mom flew in today, so they are officially ready for baby day. I have to work 3p-3a tomorrow, so hopefully I can sneak up on my lunch break and play with a baby (I hope!).

Naming the baby--wow, what a project! Mom gave me another website to look at today...not too many new ones but some had different meanings than I have seen. My daughter will keep her given name as the middle name but I'm not sure about the first name. I've always like Emily, but somehow it just doesn't seem to fit. My favorites are Amara, Amira, Amaya, Emma or Emmie, Abigail, Kylee or Mylee (unsure how I would actually end up spelling these). I also like Addison and Madeline--but these probably won't work because my niece will be named Madison so it will be too confusing to have a Maddie and an Addie or two Maddies. By next week, I'll have a whole different list of names. Let me know your favorites!

The good, the bad, hopefully no ugly.

Today was my last meeting with my SW for my homestudy. She said it will take about 10-14 days to finalize the homestudy; that is if she gets the rest of my references and my state police clearance before then. The meeting went fine, she asked some tough questions, very much like a job interview only closer to a "life" interview. But luckily, this was friendly and casual, so it didn't matter that it took me three hours to come up with some of the answers...just kidding.

On the dossier front, things are not going as smoothly. I have to redo several documents (see previous post) and I am still struggling with my letter to Ethiopia. I am supposed to put in some "personal experiences" I have with Ethiopia...which are extremely limited. Given time, that will change but I'm working on it. There is an Ethiopian restaurant in Harrisonburg (the Blue Nile) that I am planning to visit if anyone is interested in experimenting...Dad, we better start developing a liking for this so we don't starve when we go. So overall, the paperwork is not going badly, just not as quickly as I want. It is hard to read other blogs with people finishing their dossiers (Congrats to Stacie and Kevin for finishing theirs) but I have to keep in mind that I only started this process about 8 weeks ago and things are actually moving at lightning speed...most people have a lot more time invested in the process already. I am also at a great disadvantage because I do not live anywhere close to my adoption agency branch. I am working out of the Tennessee branch (which covers most of the SouthEast) so it takes a little longer to get my stuff done because I can't just walk in and get it reviewed. But they say patience is a virtue...I just wish you could buy it somewhere, cause I'm good at shopping.

On that note, I'm doing better with the shopping spree. I have only bought 2 baby items this week...a pair of lime green pants with pink embroidery (sounds like strange colors to go together but it's really cute!) and a pair of jeans with a butterfly on the leg. Still sticking to nonseasonal clearance items. I read a great article in Parenting magazine (thanks Leisa @ work) about traveling on airlines with babies/toddlers. Things about guidelines on formula/baby food, how to change diapers in tiny bathrooms, how to "con" the airlines into an extra seat without paying for it, and had lists of what to take on board and what to check. I'm going to tear out the article and put it in my "travel" section of my big BINDER (read Stacie's blog to understand the binder joke) and hopefully I'll remember it when the time comes.

So that is all that's new here and none of it's really new. The next few weeks will just be papers and waiting. Did I mention papers? Deborah, I'm not sure how you did it because I've heard that China has like 2-3 times more paperwork than most of the other countries...but when I look at Kaili, I can't help but get so excited that I can forget all about the journey to get there.

Frustrating Day

Well, I emailed all my doucments that I had ready for my adoption counselor (about 3/4 of the required ones) and they all got kicked back out to me. I abbreviated Virginia in my personal letterhead instead of writing it out. The dossier handbook we were given doesn't address this at all and all the sample letters they show all have abbreviated states on them. Argh! So now everything has to be reprinted and renotarized. Most of it won't be too bad (except from the notary's standpoint) except the medical letter and the employment letter. This will be the second rewrite on the employment letter and the lady in Human Resources, while being helpful, never looks too thrilled to see me coming. Tough Toots!

So that's my day!

Certification #1 done

My Birth Certificate has been officially ceritifed by the Secretary of State of West Virginia.

Now only able 3 million more documents to get notarized and sent to the Virginia Secretary of State to certify!

Look what came today!!!

Another piece of the puzzle is clicked into place.

I also got fingerprinted by the State Police today. That ink does not come off easily! It will probably still be there Friday when I let the Feds print me! I took a picture of my prints (they give you the fingerprint card and you have to mail it in yourself) but I decided not to post it--someone might steal my prints and use them to commit a crime...yeah, I know, too much CSI again.

Sea of papers!

Thank you Deborah for your words of wisdom! I have taken on the pile of papers. I think I have knocked out everything I have to do...the rest is waiting on others. It is very hard to just sit back and wait on others to do the work that will affect you. Have I mentioned that I have control issues? Augh!

My second home study visit went great. My SW Beth has several pets at home so she was not upset about my dog jumping all over her or my cats trying to climb in her tote bag or laying across the paperwork we were working on. The peanut-butter filled frozen Kong kept Oliver busy so it was all good. The only paperwork left for my home study is my medical clearance (Dr's appt Tuesday) and my State Police clearance. They have finally decided that, yes, I do have to be fingerprinted to do this but, unlike the federal government, I do not have to wait to be invited to get fingerprinted. I just walk in and do it...and then it only takes about a week to get back. So my home study should be done by my last home study appt on May 2.

The dossier is a work in progress. The hardest part of this whole process has been to write my letter to Ethiopia. They want a letter explaining why you want to adopt from their country and why you would be a good parent to one of their children. This was the hardest thing to get started and to formulate but once I got started, I found it was even harder to stop. Then I had to do some editing because it was twice as long as it's supposed to be. My SW Beth read it today and was very pleased with it, so I must have gotten the tone of it right. I thought it was a little cheesy but it was all true.

I'll be putting some pix on here soon. I am having trouble with the blogger not recognizing my pix...even some of the ones from prior posts are not loading and they were fine the other day, so hopefully I'll get the kinks worked out.

I'll keep everyone posted. Chad and Lesa (my brother and sister-in-law) are having their baby shower this weekend so hopefully I'll have some pix of that!

OVERWHELMING

Well, I got my much anticipated "packet" in the mail today. It has a list of all the documents I need and spells out exactly what to do with each of them. I thought this would answer a lot of my questions...it just opened so many more! I can't wait until Monday to call Lindsay (my adoption worker) and go through everything together. That may be a LONG phone call.

So, anyway. I have a list of about 23 documents that have to be filled out or obtained, each one has to be notarized that they are true and then they all have to be sent to the VA Secretary of State (except my birth certificate--it goes back to WV) for that person to authenticate that the notary is valid. After this is sent back to me, I send it on to CHI and they triple check everything and send it on to DC where everything gets checked checked by the US Dept of State to make sure that everything is kosher. Then it goes from there to the Embassy of Ethiopia to get authenticated and then back to CHI. Once they receive, it gets expressed to Ethiopia where it is translated and printed and presented to the people over there and then I wait on them. Whew!!!

If that isn't enough to make your head spin, then consider that some of the above documents have multiple components. For instance, one of these documents is the home study (which so far has been a list of 16 documents). You get the picture. So most of the paperwork is waiting on other people to do stuff...I hate not being in control!!!

That is where I am right now. My passport is in processing (should be here in about 2 weeks) and I sent my application for my 171H (the paper that allows me to go to Ethiopia and bring a child back with me) which can't be completed until my home study is done. Hopefully, the home study will be done in about three weeks.

I'll keep everyone posted. In the mean time click on the link for Stacie's blog (at the right of my screen)--she is part of my group that is adopting right now. From there, you can link to a few other websites (I'll be adding them to mine shortly)...my favorites are Ethiopia or Bust and Baby G. They are both families working with other agencies that have recently gotten referrals and are waiting to travel. Absolutely adorable kids!