Dossier Complete!!

Hooray!! Our dossier is finally complete and we are sending it off today!! Holt should receive it in a few days and put us on the waiting list for a referral. Current referral times are anywhere from 3-6 months depending on the number of children in care and the number of families who have dossiers on file with Holt. I guess I can wait 3-6 months. It's up to 3 years for China!!

We have 2 all-day seminars coming up. One is on Sept. 6th and one is on Sept. 13th. They are in Winston-Salem. We are planning on driving up the night before and staying at a hotel. The kids are going to stay with my friend Denise both times. Thanks Denise!! It will give them a little practice for when we are away for 10 days in Africa this Spring!

Thank you for your prayers: Pray for our child's health and safety as well as for his birth mother and family. Pray for his caregivers at Holt if he is already with them. Pray that we will be able to save the necessary funds for the next part of the adoption process (due when we accept a referral). Thanks again!!

Paperwork Update

Got word from Mary Beth (our social worker) today that Holt got our home study and they approved it!! Mary Beth sent a signed original to us and also to USCIS. We are sending the rest of our USCIS documents out tomorrow. When we get our home study, we will send it to Raleigh for state certification. They will send it back to us and then we will put it with all of our dossier documents and send it to Holt. Then we wait.
It's confusing, but we are getting all the tedious stuff out of the way. Getting ready to play the waiting game - waiting for a referral, waiting for USCIS to call us and say that we are approved to adopt a child from Ethiopia, waiting to get a fingerprint appointment, waiting to hear we passed court in Ethiopia, and waiting to hear that we can GO GET OUR SON!!!