The Paper Chase is Over!!!

We got this email today:

Dear Ababa and Mama,

Your dossier is on it's way to Ethiopia right now!

So...now we wait...and pray...and wait some more...and pray somemore...

Our agency said that it will take about 4 weeks for our dossier to be translated, combined with B's paperwork, and submitted to court, and another month to get assigned a court date...and that assumes that the "slowdown" doesn't really go into effect...

So, we will try to stay busy until mid-June before we get antsy for a court date. (In reality, I think we'll be doing really well if we stay chill until Memorial Day...)

We are still praying for a court date in June, July, or early August...pretty much anytime before the court closure!

In the meantime, we are going about life as usual...registering for classes for the summer semesters, finishing projects around the house, work stuff, church stuff, trying to visit family and friends, and waiting for the imminent arrival of our little niece or nephew any day now...

Oh, and I bought two really cute things for B's room today:-) The name decal has the initial in white and his name (both his American and Ethiopian first name) in grey.  The animal decal is the same grey.  The walls in his room are a lime green that Ababa picked out:-)  Sometime in the next 8 weeks we'll get B's room done and post some pics...

Dossier ready but whew, what a day!

I'll post more tomorrow, for now, here was our day:

Ababa drove me to work so we could get our I-171H and final dossier docs notarized, the car stalled in the middle of West End Avenue. We missed our notary appointment, had to push the car out of the middle of the road, and had to have it towed back uptown....in the rain...

I walked the rest of the way to work, Ababa joined me after "Tool" (our car) was hooked up to the tow truck.

We spent 2 hours getting the final papers notarized and making copies and double checking that everything was in order.

Ababa went down to the county clerk office and the new york state department office to get our affadavit and power of attorney certified.  He spent 3 hours waiting in line and then learned that he needed to be in another line first and they were closing at 3:30 today!  He sweet talked his way through the other line, "please, my wife and I are adopting and this is the last paper we need and it has to be certified today..." and all these jaded New Yorkers tapped into their inner kindness and LET HIM CUT THE LINE!  He made it back to the other line and got certified with just minutes to spare.

On his way home Ababa was on-track to drop our dossier in Express Mail with the requisite money orders (and to check on the car at the mechanic) BUT...he was stuck underground on the subway for MORE THAN 2 HOURS!  Because...there was "an unauthorized body on the tracks" (yep, someone died!) and they shut the power down to the whole subway line!

So, he missed the express mail pick-up and the mechanic.  We'll try again tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, I was at work trying to do 8 hours worth of work in 4 so that I could leave on-time to take a midterm at school, and now I am supposed to be writing a final paper for another class that is due tomorrow.  Oh, and the State Department released another statement today saying that even though people seem to be moving through court quickly right now MOWA is still holding firm to the 5 cases per day once this backlog is cleared.  So, who knows when we will pass court for B!

We are taking things one day at a time and moving forward in faith that God will bring this sweet little boy into our family in His time...we just wish we knew what that time was...:-)

So, back to the paper for school, but suffice it to say, today was one h*ll of a day, especially for Ababa!

It's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Were you blinded today?  By a flash of light?  A ray of sun...nope...that's the gleam from my ear-to-ear grin...I can't stop smiling...OUR I-171H ARRIVED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  God is so good!

I have a midterm tomorrow and a paper due Wednesday so I'm trying to work on those things, but Ababa and I are combing over our dossier one last time, have an appointment first thing tomorrow with the notary, and then Ababa will get the last few documents certified by NY, pop the whole thing in FedEx to DC to get certified there, and hopefully our dossier will be in Ethiopia next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please pray that this all goes smoothly, that B's lifebook and paperwork are all ready to go, and that we can be submitted to court as soon as our paperwork arrives in Addis.

Super craptastic day...

Well, after several hours in the auto-phone system and on email with USCIS it seems that our I-171H is not close to being issued...every prospective adoptive parent I have talked to in the past 3-4 months has gotten their I-171H within about 2 weeks after fingerprinting.  Apparently not us...

We are now well into 3 weeks and no sign of our I-171H so I reached out to USCIS.  After a bunch of run arounds for a receipt number that was not on our fingerprinting receipts, we learned that our case has still not been assigned to a case worker and that USCIS is estimating 75 days from receipt of I-1600A to processing (and approx. 30 days from receipt to be assigned a case worker).

The first reps I spoke to online said the number we had couldn't be tracked in the online system and was being processed by the local center, but I was under the impression that all I-600A applications were being processed through the central processing center.

Also, our receipt number starts with SIM (which the caseworker on email said all of their case receipts start with) but the USCIS site it specifically says: The 13-character application receipt number can be found on application notices you have received from the USCIS.  It begins with three letters such as (EAC, WAC, LIN, or SRC).  When I called the first few times they specifically said only those letters were what could begin the receipt number. Our receipt number with SIM doesn't work in the online system either...


Shocker, there seems to be an issue here...I wish that USCIS could get their story straight and get our I-171H issued ASAP!

We are at 40 days from receipt of our application and no sign of a case worker...

Sigh...!  We could really use a good break right now!!!

B-we love you and are trying to bring you home as soon as possible!

Friday Update #7

Well, after the angst of last week (ETA no pun intended, really!) we are now back to our regular scheduled programming!

Friday Update:

• Our dossier documents are all done, notarized, certified, and ready to go as soon as our homestudy is written.
• My PA clearance arrived today! Hopefully this time we'll be all set.
• We're waiting to hear from our homestudy agency about how the draft of our homestudy is going.  Hopefully they'll send our placement agency a copy to review before Christmas, but I'm not holding my breath.

We're continuing to pray for Aang and are holding out hope that perhaps we'll still get to be his parents, but we know that is a slim thread of hope...

There were several infant referrals at our agency in the past two days, so hopefully that trend will continue and maybe the family that is considering Aang will decide to go in a different direction in terms of his adoption.

Crazyland Roller Coaster

The past week has been, well, a crazy rollercoaster.

We are still processing everything that happened and honestly, are not yet ready to write about the emotional side of this yet, it is too raw.  Also, it is still unfolding, so we want to see how everything ends up.

In a nutshell, here are the facts:

• Monday we inquired about a waiting boy on our agency's site (we'll call him "Aang" on the blog b/c Ababa thought one of his photos resembled Aang from the cartoon 'Avatar: The Last Airbender')
• Aang was listed as special needs, and after much thought and conversation we decided that we we would be completely fine adopting him with his special need and began seriously praying about adopting him.
• Tuesday afternoon we were surprised to find out from our agency that in fact Aang wasn't special needs.
• Wednesday we let our agency know that we were very interested in adopting Aang, they told us there was one other family considering adopting Aang, that they were at the same stage of the "paper" process as us, and that it was only fair that we both knew about each other as it might impact one of our decisions to adopt. They said that no other families were interested in adopting Aang and that no one currently waiting for a toddler boy was approved for a child over 36 months.
• We prayed and prayed and prayed and did a lot of soul searching to determine if Aang could truly be our son.
• Thursday morning at 6 am our agency's time we contacted them to say we definitely wanted to adopt Aang (we just couldn't contain our excitement and joy!)
• Thursday morning at 9 am their time we made contact with our agency and they said a "paper ready" family had asked to review Aang's file Wednesday afternoon; they got precedence b/c they could possibly bring Aang home faster; and that they had 48 hours to decide if they wanted to adopt him, then if no other paper ready family had decided to move forward with Aang we could move forward.
• We sat by the phone for 48 hours and waited and prayed, and prayed and waited, with our hearts in our throats.
• Friday afternoon when we still had not yet heard anything I called and we learned that the paper ready family had requested additional medical testing for Aang which would take several weeks or more.
• We are heartbroken, tired, frustrated, disillusioned, and worried for Aang.
• With all our hearts we want to be Aang's parents but it looks like that is a pretty slim chance at this point.
• We are trusting God and praying that he brings Aang into the best family for him, a family who wants HIM and loves HIM--a special toddler boy with a complex background who may have special medical needs.

We do want to be his parents...but we want what's best for HIM...we are hoping and praying that our agency makes a wise decision that will place him with the right forever family for HIM.  (We understand completely that that may or may not be us and are praying to be able to accept God's will, whatever the outcome may be.)

As for our paperwork:

• Ababa is taking two documents to be certified this week
• We are waiting for my re-done PA child abuse clearance (should arrive any day now...)
• We are waiting for the final written copy of our homestudy (should be done by Christmas, definitely by New Years)...

That's it! Then our dossier and homestudy will be done!

After that we file the I-600A, get fingerprinted yet again, and wait to get our I-171H from the government and then we are finally paper ready!

Homestudy

We just had our in-person meeting for our homestudy...YAY!!!

It wasn't so bad really:-)  Lots of questions about our marriage, parenting style, family backgrounds, etc. Pretty much all the questions we already answered on the different forms for our agency.

She said it will take her 1-2 weeks to write it and it may take up to a month to have the finished notarized copy b/c our homestudy agency closes for the holidays...so, here's hoping that our PA clearance comes through fast and that we get our notarized homestudy before our agency closes for Christmas.  If not, we're looking at mid-January before we'll be on the waitlist.

Either way, at least it is forward progress!

Friday Update #6

We're in the holiday craziness already, between work, school, and getting ready for Christmas (we have 3! Christmas parties in 1 day next week:-) things are pretty busy.  But here's our current update...

List for this week/update on last week:

• HOMESTUDY IS MONDAY!!!
• Our sworn statements of no criminal history are done
• Ababa's chest x-ray is done and he's seeing the Dr. Thursday provided the notary can make it:-)
• All reference letters are done!
• All our required training is done--we did 4 hours of training on USCIS issues, 2 hours on discipline for the adopted child, 2 hours on Attachment, and 2 hours on Grief (plus, since we're nerds, we're doing three other sessions-1 on toddler/preschool transitions to a new home, 1 on navigating the adoption tax credit, and 1 on facilitating lifelong conversations with your child).  We've also read a ton of books for children and adults about adoption, Ethiopia, transition, and parenting children with complex backgrounds--we'll post a "reading list" of our favorites later this month.
• Ababa's passport arrived today
• My PA clearance was re-submitted (grrr...)
• My MA clearance was re-submitted (grrr...)

Hopefully my PA clearance will come soon b/c other than that we should be done with everything else by the end of this week!

Thanks to a big Amazon.com sale on Melissa and Doug toys, we may or may not have gone Christmas shopping for our future child/children and now have a shipment of puzzles, blocks, soft dolls, and cars/trucks on their way:-)

We're also very excited to share with you The 12 Days of Christmas (starting Monday) to give you some awesome Christmas shopping ideas that will help children in Ethiopia and/or adoptive families!


Oh, and P.S. Ababa got into school for the spring semester, so although he will probably have to fight to get registered for the classes his needs...at least he's in!

Bureaucracy and other things...

Wanted to post the details of yesterday now that I am more awake:-)

The PA form, that my homestudy agency twice gave me incorrect directions for, is a giant pain in the you know what!!!  It includes every address where I have ever lived (going back to 1975, three years before I was born!) and EVERY PERSON I HAVE EVER LIVED WITH ANYWHERE.

Um yeah...I lived with my family, then a variety of roommates in college, then a whole lot of roommates after college (in three different states) and then now I live with my husband.  Oh, and the PA form wants the names--first, middle, and last, as well as their exact age.

Right...I didn't know my roommates middle names and ages when I lived with them, 10 years ago! Why on earth would I know them now, plus I have no contact information for them...I don't even remember one of my roomates LAST names:-(

So, my amended form has first and last and approximate ages for all of roommates except for 1.  I have no idea regarding her middle or last name, my other roommate from that time has no idea either, and after two straight days of cyber stalking I have found nothing...nada...not one thing.  So yep, my revised PA form includes the line item "Ashley, Last Name-???, approximate age 39" with a footnote about how this is the last paper we need for our adoption and how I have no way of finding her to discover her exact age or middle and last names.  Please pray that they will accept my form (it has pretty much complete info for my other 20 or so roommates...)

According to our homestudy agency the MA form was re-faxed today.  I am calling Monday to verify that it is all set, and I'll continue to call every three days until it's done!

I'll save the rest of the updates for tomorrow's Friday update.

Also, on Monday, stay tuned for "The 12 Days of Christmas" 12 unique ideas for awesome Christmas gifts that will benefit children in Ethiopia and families who are adopting:-)

Grrr....

This is me right now!

We were so happy to be just about done with our homestudy and dossier and then I find this out today...
1. The PA child abuse clearance (the one I specifically asked my agency how I should fill out) was completed wrong and will need to be re-done and re-submitted (this will take at least 2-4 weeks)
2. My MA clearance has not yet arrived

Here's the thing....I specifically asked my agency how to complete the PA form and they gave me the wrong information.  I called again today to clarify and they gave me different wrong information.  I finally just said, hmmm, I wonder if I can get someone in the PA office to explain this to me.  They did....my agency is wrong wrong wrong.

As for MA all clearances through yesterday afternoon have been processed and sent out.  Since our forms were sent in in late October it should have been done long, long, long ago.

This mama is not happy.

More updates tomorrow (I just got back from a work event and am beat) but I am definitely not happy.

On the bright side, our escrow check finally arrived today (3 weeks later than they said it would!)...

Quick update

1 Police Plaza seemed to go just fine this morning, as long as they follow our directions and remember the "live signature" part we should have our letters on December 7th...and...drumroll please...we have our in-person homestudy scheduled!!!!! for December 6th!!!!!! So, if Ababa's passport and medical are taken care of by then, I think we might make our goal of Dossier in Ethiopia by Christmas!!!!! (The big variable in that is the NYS approval of our homestudy, but I am choosing to be happy and not think about that today:-)

Showers of Blessings

Wow, just wow! This whole adoption process is full of things we can't control and are challenging to deal with.  Since Friday, we've had several more big breakthroughs.  I'm sure that in time the other shoe will fall and we'll be stuck waiting for something crucial again (ahem, possibly our home study:-) but for now, we are enjoying being so grateful for the shower of blessing we just experienced!

Sunday we had two friends offer to help with our travel expenses--one friend offered financial assistance and the other (an on-again/off-again flight attendant at the mercy of the fickle airline industry) offered buddy passes provided they are working then. Wow! We are just speechless and so grateful!!!

Speaking of friends, we got two of our three reference letters (actually 5 of 6 b/c we are just waiting for 1 home study letter) best....self....esteem....boost....ever! I think every year from now on I am going to ask my friends to write a reference letter for me:-) Seriously, it's pretty incredible that we have such awesome friends and that they think (or at least write:-) such amazing things about us:-)

This morning, our homestudy agency emailed me back:-)!!!!!  It seems two things converged to slow up our case-1. they misunderstood some language in our placement agency's agreement and 2. someone was out of the office for almost a week but didn't have their "out of office" on...I am pretty sure now that things are moving forward and everyone is clear that this is a priority for us to get done and sent to Washington before Christmas if at all possible.  We still haven't heard from our social worker, but the Executive Director said the social worker should be in touch tomorrow and gave us her email--so if necessary we can start e-stalking:-)

Then tonight both my passport and Ababa's 2007 tax return arrived in the mail:-) (Plus some awesome Ethiopian-themed Christmas presents for family and friends:-)

AND, when I opened my email I found out that our placement agency is now going to be working with two more orphanages (both of which have been vetted by the Ethiopian government and our agency). So, they are expecting referrals will pick up!!!  As important as it feels to us to know that we may become parents sooner, it's really fantastic b/c it means more kids who are in need of families will get them! YAY!!!

So...if our escrow check and Ababa's passport arrive this week and if we can set up our in-person meeting with our social worker before Thursday, we will be truly be filled and overflowing with Thanksgiving!!! (I mean we will be anyway, but really, how amazing would that be:-)

Tomorrow morning we are trucking down to 1 Police Plaza to get our "Good Conduct Certificates with Live Signature" sounds exciting, right?  They'll take 10 business days to process, so we want to get that moving ASAP.  Ababa is still working on his chest x-ray/medical report, it's looking like this will happen the first week of December.

Stay-tuned:-)

Friday Update #5

Friday Update #5, some good...some bad...some...just bureaucracy....I think...

We got a huge chunk of papers done this week and only have a few left that require more effort than just going to the notary BUT we're now getting really concerned about the fact that we have not yet gotten to speak to our social worker directly to discuss or schedule our in-person meeting.  Our placement agency is also getting concerned with the delay.  I left a message and sent an email today to the home study agency to request a phone call ASAP to discuss the delay and the best path forward, but I have not heard anything back yet (I also called several times throughout the day and no one picked up.  Usually they are really prompt, so I am hoping that they are at a conference today or something, but I am definitely getting nervous about this! :-(

On to brighter news, here's the updates on last week's list:

• Get the third reference letter for the dossier notarized-I believe all dossier letters are now notarized and should be in our possession by Sunday! We are waiting on 1 homestudy reference letter (yes Pastor R, this means you:-)
• Organize all paperwork to see what else needs to be done/printed and notarized-DONE:-)
• My PA child abuse clearance arrived today (yay!) I need to forward it unopened to our home study agency for them to review, also mail them our home study reference letters-SENDING ON MONDAY PROVIDED THEY CALL ME BACK
• Get that darn criminal clearance notarized paper at our local precinct-Um yeah, turns out we're going to have to take a notary with us to 1 POLICE PLAZA, WHAT?!?!?!?! 
• (M'kay for those of you not in NYC, here's  1 Police Plaza, looks like a barrel of laughs and a paragon of efficiency, right?!?!?)-
• Mail our last non-notarized home study form (if possible, I think we have to wait so that the financial information matches our dossier financial information which includes the bank letters)-SENDING IN THE PACKAGE ON MONDAY PROVIDED THEY CALL ME BACK!
• Figure out if Ababa's unemployment letter will work for our dossier-PRETTY SURE IT WILL:-)
• Continue to push for our in-person homestudy meeting-APPARENTLY WE NEED TO PUSH HARDER!
• Ababa has to get his medical forms done tomorrow-STILL WORKING ON THIS
• Follow-up/track:
• Passport applications-IN PROCESS, they cashed my check.  Ababa's isn't in the online system yet, but we did expedited for his, so it should be here around the same time as mine :-)
• bank letters-DONE:-)!!!!!!! YAY!!!!
• notarized employment letter-Pretty sure this is all set, if not then Ababa can get it quickly
• BONUS-We also started our mandatory training:-) Cultural Sensitivity training-DONE:-)

List for this week:

• PUSH FOR IN-PERSON HOMESTUDY!!! This will entail a 3-5 hour interview at our house, the social worker writing the homestudy, our placement agency editing the draft, the social worker making edits, and then...the final version gets sent to NY State for approval which can take a few weeks...see why we're getting concerned?!?!?!?!?!?!
• Confirm Ababa's unemployment letter is all set
• Re-do our sworn statements of no criminal activity b/c we each need one, not one together like we did.
• Get Ababa's medicals done!  It's tricky coordinating the chest xray, Dr's schedule, and notary...
• Get letters from references and mail as part of package to home study agency (provided they call me back on Monday and everything is kosher!)
• Do the USIC training (4 hours) and 6 hours of additional training, we need to hear from our home study social worker if NYS has any requirements about what we should do...are you seeing a theme here? :-(
• Other than that, we wait for our last clearances and passport to come in and get ready for Thanksgiving:-)

Another great break:-)

We got two bank letters today, so we now have all three!!!!!!!  Tomorrow we will check with our agency to make sure that they are all suitable, but they seem to meet the requirements.

Full update to come on Friday, but we're happy that we have made some big progress on The Paper Chase this week!

Finally, we caught a break:-)

Yay! I yesterday I emailed our homestudy agency all the extra papers they needed...and...we finally caught a break.  Today I found out that one of my coworkers is a notary and will notarize our paperwork for free and in a really convenient time and place (at work)!  Yay!

You'll get the official Friday update on Friday, but suffice it to say that we're moving forward, trucking through the paperwork.  Ababa still has to get his chest x-ray and his notarized medical form, and we are still working on the notarized form from the police precinct, but the rest of our notarized paperwork should be ready to go by Friday!

Pray that our passports, remaining clearances, and last bank letter arrive soon, b/c that's all we're waiting on (of course besides the in-person meeting with our social worker...sigh...hopefully we can schedule that soon):-)

More paper...

We just got an email from our home study agency that they need some other documents.  I am pretty sure we sent them in the very beginning of this process, so I just need to dig out our copies and scan/email or re-mail, but urgh! it's really not so fun.  We are determined to get through everything we possibly can before Thanksgiving, so here goes nothing...:-)

Friday Update #4

Friday Update #4 (short b/c I have homework to plough through:-)

Progress on last week's list:

• Continue working on the bank letters--it took several phone calls, but all have been requested, cross your fingers that these each arrive soon!
• Have mtg with my CFO--Done.  We have the insurance info we need and as soon as I get the notary thing figured out she'll print and sign the employment letter.
• Ababa now has to get a letter from the Unemployment office for our dossier which he then has to sign and notarize the same day it is issued...we have a letter we think will work. If not, then he'll go to the unemployment office.
• Figure out how to get the notarized proof of no criminal activity form--Ababa is still working on this...
• Submit our final two notarized homestudy forms and push to schedule the in person meeting--done and we're pushing:-)
• Edit dossier documents--done
• Have our Dr's appts and get the homestudy and dossier forms we need completed (and notarized in the case of the one for our dossier)--mine is done provided I pass my TB check tomorrow (the "bump" is still flat so I should be fine:-)
• Saturday we'll hopefully be getting our reference letters from our references.  We need to figure out the best way to get their letters notarized--two are arriving this Sunday already notarized.  The third we are figuring out a time to get notarized this coming week.
• Ababa has to re-send his passport application--Done

List for this week:

• Get the third reference letter for the dossier notarized
• Organize all paperwork to see what else needs to be done/printed and notarized
• My PA child abuse clearance arrived today (yay!) I need to forward it unopened to our home study agency for them to review, also mail them our home study reference letters
• Get that darn criminal clearance notarized paper at our local precinct
• Mail our last non-notarized home study form (if possible, I think we have to wait so that the financial information matches our dossier financial information which includes the bank letters)
• Figure out if Ababa's unemployment letter will work for our dossier
• Continue to push for our in-person homestudy meeting
• Ababa has to get his medical forms done tomorrow
• Follow-up/track:
• Passport applications
• bank letters
• notarized employment letter

Friday Update #3

Hey y'all, TGIF!!!!!!
So glad that it is Friday....and today was relatively calm at work so I was able to catch up on some work stuff that's been looming over my head.  Ababa's period of unemployment before stating school is well underway and it's resulting in us finishing our kitchen renovation that was started a year and a half ago:-) YAY!  He's doing the glass tile backsplash as I type this and next week we're hoping to make progress on the two big remaining items--fixing the floor in the corner (we need to find matching tile still though:-( and skim coating the wall! He certainly isn't bored:-)


As far as The Paper Chase, here's our update.

Progress on our list from last week:

• I applied for my passport.  Ababa accidentally applied for a passport card, so he needs to reapply:-(
• Still working on the bank letters.  These are definitely the biggest pain in the rear so far!
• I emailed my CFO for a mtg next week
• We're still working on the criminal clearance thing
• Our homestudy stuff is pretty much all done except for our in-person interview and our Sworn Statement of Criminal History and our Duty to Fully Disclose Form (both will be notarized tomorrow) and our medical forms which will be completed this week at our Drs appointments.
• BONUS--I typed drafts of our dossier documents!

Our list for this week (it's a doozy!):

• Continue working on the bank letters
• Have mtg with my CFO
• Ababa now has to get a letter from the Unemployment office for our dossier which he then has to sign and notarize the same day it is issued...
• Figure out how to get the notarized proof of no criminal activity form 
• Submit our final two notarized homestudy forms and push to schedule the in person meeting
• Edit dossier documents
• Have our Dr's appts and get the homestudy and dossier forms we need completed (and notarized in the case of the one for our dossier)
• Saturday we'll hopefully be getting our reference letters from our references.  We need to figure out the best way to get their letters notarized
• Ababa has to re-send his passport application

Friday Update #2

So...here we are, somehow it is Friday again!  How did that happen?!?!?!?!?

I got my case study done last week (yay!) and have my midterm tomorrow (nay!).  We'll see how it goes, there is just something weird to my little liberal arts heart about "studying" marketing:-)

Here's our weekly update:

We've initiated the name change process on all my bank accounts, added Ababa to them, and requested the notarized bank letter for our dossier. It looks like we're going to have to print out all the statements from our checking account for the year, manually tally the amount deposited for the year, tell that to our bank, and get them to include that on their letter.  Really USAA?  You are so awesome in all other ways, why  are you our only bank that is not able to pull this data out of your system?!?!?!

Ababa's wallet arrived intact:-) He's now waiting for his NYS license (but he has a temporary license) and he applied for his passport.

We sent the notarized release for clearance form to our home study agency

We sent the briefing and info to our references and asked for their letters to be done by Nov. 14


Our list for this week:

• Apply for my new passport (will do tomorrow)
• Get all of our bank letters straightened out (including the manual statement stuff for USAA)
• Schedule a meeting with my CFO (yep, that's right, no HR department at my job...) to get my notarized employment letter and notarized proof of insurance for adopted child/children
• Figure out how to get the notarized proof of no criminal activity form (somehow we need to show up at our police precinct, bring our own notary, and get this done...yeah, that's going to be an interesting experience in NYC:-) Ababa went by our local precinct today and it was full of people getting booked...
• make sure all homestudy paperwork is done and they have submitted all of our criminal and child abuse clearances

Please pray that our passports and criminal/child abuse clearances all go through quickly!  Everything else seems to be coming together to be done by November 15th.

Friday Update #1

I think I am going to try to give an update of where we are in The Paper Chase each Friday (if nothing else it will give my procrastinating-self a deadline to get that week's stuff out:-)

This week was a little touch and go as I've been sick with a nasty sinus infection and Ababa has been figuring out his next steps following the lay-off. Also, his wallet was left at a Taco Bell en route back to NYC from Virginia last weekend, so we can't get forms notarized or apply for his passport until we have his license (we spoke to the manager 3 hours after we left Taco Bell--when we realized it was missing--and they are mailing it, it's just taking a while to get to NYC.  We're monitoring our bank account closely just in case:-)

So...here's our first official Friday Update.

1. YAY! We got an email today saying our escrow release has been approved.  This is awesome as it means we can send the next big check to our homestudy agency and apply for our passports (first one ever for Ababa and first one with my new married name for me)
2. We are all set for our Drs appts in mid-Nov to get our homestudy and dossier forms signed and notarize--the appointments are made, our Dr takes our insurance, and we have a notary lined up to come to our appointments with us.
3. All of our criminal and child abuse clearances have been sent off and are in process, I sent the final one to PA today.  (We do need to get a form notarized ASAP and send it to our homestudy agency to   release the results of these clearances to them.)
4. We sent in the request for more notarized copies of our marriage certificate today

I have a big marketing case study assignment due at school tomorrow so this will be short, but goals to be done by next Friday (provided Ababa's wallet shows up) are:

1. Mail letters to our other two banks to change my name on the accounts and to request the notarized bank letter for our dossier.
2. Apply for our passports (Ababa's will have to wait until his license arrives)
3. Send notarized release for clearance form to our home study agency
4. Draft briefing for our references and give them the info to write our reference letters

*Sigh* This definitely makes my head hurt, but I know in the end it will all be worth it!