progress?

OK.

So after struggling to find material for guzo for the past few months, I suddenly feel like I've got a million things to share and I'm not sure where to begin. Guess I'll jump right in...

If you've already checked in since Friday, then you know the big news... we have our CIS approval!!* And while I am absolutely thrilled - we had a turnaround time of exactly one month from our finger print appointment (less than 3 weeks since they received our homestudy) and we were hearing wait times of much, much, much longer - it also means I have to fess up to the fact that I've totally slacked off when it came to getting our bank letter.

Thinking we had at least a month (and probably a few months) before we'd get CIS approval, I didn't exactly run to my bank to request a letter (clearly, I am still suffering from the miserable experience we had trying to get a letter for Simon's adoption). I know, I know... I promised I was going about a month ago (two months ago??)... but really, I thought for sure I'd still beat CIS!

Well, obviously that didn't happen. But coincidentally, I did finally put in the request to my bank on Friday afternoon, so hopefully (fingers crossed please), an acceptable letter will be in hand next week (is that too optimistic?).

And, of course, we also just learned that there is another small issue we have to deal with.

Seems that despite the fact that NJ state's law and notary public manual state that (i) attorneys licensed in the state are given full notarial powers and (ii) notaries need not stamp an acknowledgment form, NJ's state authentication office says they will not authenticate some of our documents because they were notarized by attorneys who did not have notarial stamps. Hmmm....

Anyhow, rather than fight this (losing) battle, we now have to redo a few of our dossier documents (and we will do them in NY!). Fortunately, they are all self-produced documents (e.g. certification of our passport copies, power of attorneys, etc.), so no big deal other than trying to coordinate schedules so that Ry and I can get in front of a notary at the same time to sign these again.

And so it goes. All in all, these are pretty minor bumps in the road and I would be silly to even think of complaining. We are still hopeful that we will be able to get a good bank letter and redo the other documents this week... and we can even see the waitlist in our near future.

And then the real fun will begin! ;)

*For those who didn't follow our first adoption and/or don't know much about the process, CIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) approval is one of the last major steps in the paperwork process of international adoption and, because families have little control over the timing, it is usually the last document needed to complete a family's dossier.... The dossier is the file consisting of all of the paperwork we've gathered (FBI clearances, homestudy reports, financial statements, etc.) that will be reviewed in Ethiopia for determination of our suitability to adopt. Our agency will not start the process of matching us with a child until our dossier is complete.