before we go...

Before we take off for our vacation, we thought we'd check in here one more time.

A lot of people are asking where we are in the process, what's left, etc., so we'll try to explain.

As of this week, we finally received approval from our adoption agency. This means that our initial paperwork and homestudy are finalized and that we have met the requirements for adopting a child from Ethiopia. We are now working on completing our dossier (this is the actual file that will go to Ethiopia) and awaiting approval from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) to bring a child into the US (essentially, a pre-approval to obtain a visa for our child).

We are almost done with the dossier paperwork. The dossier is, for the most part, compiled of the same documents as we needed to obtain for our agency, but everything has to be notarized and then authenticated by the state. I'm still going a little nuts trying to get proof of my health insurance in an acceptable format. I have 4 letters that don't meet the requirements, but so far none that do :( (I'll save that pain and suffering for another post.) Otherwise, we're in good shape and should be able to finish the dossier up by the end of January.

We have less control over the CIS approval process. We have filed an application and our homestudy has been sent to them for review. Now we wait for CIS to invite us in for fingerprinting. The timeframes for getting a fingerprinting appointment seem to vary greatly depending on where you live. We've heard of people getting appointments in as little as 2 weeks and as many as 10-12. After the prints are taken, CIS will review our file and (we assume) provide an approval (again the timeframes seem to vary quite a bit). Unfortunately, this is the process that will have the most impact on the timing of the rest of the process for us (oh how I hate having so little control!!)

As soon as we do have CIS approval, we will officially be put on our agency's waitlist for a referral - that is, to be matched with a child in Ethiopia. Seems like wait times are currently about 3-5 months, but things can change very quickly when it comes to the adoption process, so we're not getting too hung up on dates (at least not yet).

After we accept the referral, we wait for a court date... and then travel to Ethiopia. But no need to go into all that now, as I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to blog about all the details later.

And that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Not much for us to do from here on out, probably making it both the easiest and hardest time of the process. It is amazing to realize how far we've come, even though we could still have a very long way to go!!

But for now, we must put this aside. We've got a car coming to take us to the airport in about 15 hours and we still have a few errands to do, not to mention all of our packing. We also have to see EJ off - he's vacationing uptown at the home of his old dog-walker.

Unlikely we'll be checking in while we're away, as I don't expect much internet access in Bhutan - although I hear they have a nice HAM radio station (that's not a joke). But we look forward to catching up with everyone when we return.

Happy Holidays and a Very Happy New Year to you all!!