Friday, September 20, 2013

Woot woot!

We finished compiling the last of our homestudy papers, our last letter of recommendation arrived at the agency, and...our BCI is in!  Mark hand delivered everything to WAI today.  Everything is done on our part and we're just waiting for our case worker to finish writing up the homestudy so we can approve it!  Exciting stuff!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Progress with the paper chase (and a cute picture)

It's been just over a week since I posted an update.   We're making some nice progress.  As far as the homestudy goes...two more letters of recommendation are completed (we have fabulous family and friends), and Mark's employment verification is finished and notarized (thanks, Brandi!).

We've gotten a bunch of things done for our dossier this week too!  In fact, here's a list of documents we have completed and had notarized this week:
  • Post-adoption commitment letter (stating that we will provide the required follow up reports at 3, 6, and 12 months post adoption and annually thereafter)
  • Power of attorney (giving Mathewos Humbamo authority to represent us in Ethiopia in all things regarding the proceedings of this adoption)
  • Our application letter (giving brief history on us and our reasons for and intentions with this adoption)
  • Financial statement (pretty obvious what that is)
  • True and Accurate copy forms to accompany the copies of our passports
  • Local criminal background checks
Whew!  Now, we found out that the notary commission expires too soon for the papers on the city police papers we had done (and they only have that one notary), so we had letters done by the county police (with a 2016 expiration) that are ready for us to pick up.

Also!  On our way to Lincoln's eye doctor appointment we stopped at the state capitol to take in our now notarized power of attorney papers to have them state certified.  Here is a picture of Lincoln holding the papers on our way in!...

So we are making great progress with the paper chase!  We need to get additional passport photos taken, and we have family photos scheduled this Saturday so we can include those in the paperwork.  We also  need to photograph our home (inside and out), wait for a few more things to come in the mail, and then do all our immigration paperwork - but that last thing isn't turned in until our homestudy is finalized.

I think our case worker (Toni) will be pleased with our progress when we have our regularly scheduled phone call on Monday.  We have a standing appointment every 2 weeks.

I know that completing the paper chase just means starting an extremely long waiting game before anything else "real" happens, but the sooner we get started waiting the sooner our baby girl comes home!!!

Monday, September 9, 2013

It's been a few weeks.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind.  Mark was gone for 9 days on a fishing trip to Alaska, home for a couple days and then off for a quick business trip to Arizona.  School started for Noah and Lincoln (with all the flurry of activity that accompanies that), and Max has kept me on my toes with some new antics of his (including taking off his diaper and smearing you-know-what all over the place when he's in his room or I'm not looking).  And amidst that we are still compiling paperwork for our homestudy and dossier.  With all the hectic-ness that life has been lately, I'm beginning to think that the bigger age gap between Max and baby girl is actually a blessing in disguise.  Of course we're anxious to find out who she is and get her home, but we have faith that God controls the timing of these things perfectly...and that age gap may just be one of many reasons why things are going to take so much longer than we would have chosen.

So!  As for any updates...
  • We were able to figure out the problem with Mark's birth certificates and received those in the mail. 
  • We were able to get our health insurance company to send a letter of coverage (which one would think I was asking something crazy with how many people I had to go through to get that to happen). 
  • Both Mark and I had our physicals and got our medical form notarized.  We just found out about additional information that we have to provide from our physician on each of their company letterhead, so we'll have to get that.  
  • I had my "employment" verification notarized (we're waiting on Mark's).  
  • We received the requested letter from our boys' pediatrician saying they are healthy and free of any communicable diseases.  
  • And...drumroll...we completed the last of the 7 required online education courses and tests, and received the last of our completion certificates today!

So!  For our homestudy to be complete we are basically waiting on Mark's employment verification letter, the letters from our physicians, receipt of 3 more letters of reference, and getting back our FBI background checks!