Some of you already know, but...

Our Dossier is on it's way to Ethiopia! We still have quite a wait ahead of us, but we're moving forward! Praise God!

Simple Solution

I wish things were as simple in real life as they are in Elizabeth's sweet mind.

Out of the blue, she mentioned that she wishes Jose could come to our house. (Jose is the little boy in Guatemala we were previously matched with.) I told her that I wish Jose could come to our house, too, but that the government will not let him. She asked why. I said that there are some things with his paperwork that the government in Guatemala does not like, and so they won't let him be adopted. She smiled and said, "Well, we could get his papers and draw funny faces on the back. The man in the government would like it and laugh and laugh. Then he would let Jose come!"

Why didn't I think of that! All this worry about proper notorization, state seals, and all we had to do was draw funny faces! ;-)

We caught them all!

We have no more papers to chase for our dossier. We received our amended 171-H today! I want to jump right up and have it notarized and send it to be state sealed, but that will have to wait until Monday. I really wasn't expecting to have it yet, but I am SO excited that we do! It won't make it to Ethiopia by the end of March, but hopefully it won't be TOO long after that!

It's Here!

It's here! It's here! Praise God! In my heart I'm doing a happy dance. (Yes, I said IN my heart. So, NO! There are no videos ;-)) My birth certificate is finally here. I guess I can forgive the lady for not calling me back this time. Of course it comes THE DAY I send the rest of the dossier to our social worker, but I won't complain now. It's here, and I don't see any mistakes.

The UPS guy probably thought I was crazy because I accosted him as soon as he came up the driveway. I let him know that he made my day more than he can know. He laughed at me, but that is all right with me! ;-)

Still Waiting

So it has now been over two weeks now since the lady told me she would be sending out my birth certificate, and I still don't have it. I called week ago and left a message--she never returned my call. I called yesterday and spoke with her. She seemed like she had no idea what I was talking about and said she would look and call me right back. I still have not heard from her. I even tried speaking to someone else about it, and they all say I need to talk to her.

I was hoping she would just say that she accidentally didn't get it sent out, but she found it and was sending it right then. What does it mean if they can't find it? Does it mean someone has it who shouldn't, and what would they use it for?

I'm going to call again tomorrow and hope someone knows something. (Did I mention how much I REALLY dislike calling people I don't know well?) If I can get no information, I guess I will just need to pay the astronomical fees again and order another copy, then pray they don't lose that one, too. Any other suggestions?

I know that this will not keep us from the child or children God has for our family. It's just frustrating now because everything seemed to be going SO smoothly this time and, other than a new I-171H, this is the ONLY document left for our dossier. All the other documents have even been state sealed already.

Still no birth certificate--the tracking information doesn't even show that anything has been picked up yet. :-( Maybe for some reason they sent it by another method, but I don't know why they would have.

We did get our state certified documents back from Maryland today. A receipt from USCIS saying that they received our form also arrived today. I'm a little concerned because it says that if you have not heard about a decision on the case in 180 DAYS to contact them. (Oh my goodness, I hope it doesn't take any where near that long!)

Practicing Thankfulness

I am thankful...
...after about ten calls and leaving messages this morning my birth certificate should FINALLY be sent out today
...that someone in the NC SOS office actually returns phone calls! (That kind of practice could revolutionize the government!)
...that after almost a month someone finally figured out that they haven't been able to match my records up because the name on the order was my married last name, and the name on the certificate was my birth name. (Never mind that in all communications, I have given them BOTH names. And it's not like I have a first name they see all the time.)

Okay, okay! I know that is not having a thankful heart. I have finished my rant, so now I can share...

~I am truly thankful that I was able to speak with someone to get this figured out.
~I am truly thankful that it has happened now, so we were not just waiting on this one document to have our dossier complete.
~I am truly thankful that we have had so few problems in gathering our documents this time
~I am thankful for another lesson in patience and God's timing!

In the Mail

Our home study update was approved February 5! We received it in the mail yesterday. This means we are ready to move onto the next step--asking for our USCIS approval process to be changed for the new criteria...Two children under the age of four from the country of Ethiopia! Hopefully, things will move quickly!

We only have a few more things to have notorized, then we can get everything state sealed for our dossier! I'm probably being too optimistic, but I'm hopeful our dossier will be out of our hands before the end of February.

We also finished our Hague compliant training in January and received our certificates in the mail today!