FINALLY!

Our home study is DONE, DONE, DONE!  yippee! :)

So tomorrow I plan to send out the paperwork for our I-800A to the United States Immigration Services asking for permission to adopt a child from China.

I am now working on paperwork for our dossier and the picture is about how I feel these days. :)   Each state has it own requirements for certifying documents for the dossier. In Tennessee, a document is notarized by a notary public.  The document bearing the notary’s signature must then be verified by the county clerk, then submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office for certification.

I had to send Jason's birth certificate to the Louisiana Sec. of State and his employment letter to the Texas Sec. of State. because that is where their headquarters are and where the notary lives that notarized the letter.  The rest of our paperwork will get certified in the good ole state of Tennessee. :)  So, all of the Tennessee paperwork has been notarized and later this week, I will take it to the County Court Clerks Office to certify and then drive to the Secretary of State. 

Once I get the paperwork back from TX and Louisiana, I will then mail everything off to Washington, DC together to be federally certified.  It seems like alot, but, I hope to have these things done in 2 or 3 weeks.

I have been worried about this part of the process for about a week now.  It just is not an easy part of the process to understand.  Our agency sent us a fairly thick booklet about preparing our dossier and then each state has a different info or a pamplet on their requirements and preparing your documents for the dossier.  So to me this was overwhelming. I just decided today was the day I would sit down and read it all again and figure it out step by step what needed to be done. Thankfully we only have to deal with 3 states....counting my blessings there.

So thats what we are up to on the paperwork end.  It is getting to the more exciting part and things are beginning to happen quicker from here on out.  The next step (after we get approval of our I-800a) is sending our dossier to China and at it is taking approximately 4 months from that until we will probably travel.

The time is going by fast really.  One thing that is really getting me through the waiting is knowing Charlotte will be joining us soon and will be with us FOREVER. :)  We will look back on these few months we have had to wait and realize how short a time it really is when we have forever out ahead of us.  We love you baby girl and pray every night that you some how feel our love all the way over in Wuwei China! 

Sending everyone love!
Kendra