Adoption Update

Well, we appear to be in a holding pattern at the moment. We are waiting to receive our home study approval from our agency. When that happens, we will sign and return the agreement to them along with our fee. They will then send us a copy of our home study that we will then send to Indianapolis with our I600 form. That will then be returned to us along with an appointment to be fingerprinted to complete our I171. Once we receive the I171 back from the government, we can submit that with our dossier and off it will go to our agency and then to Ethiopia.

In the meantime, we have an appointment with the Indiana Secretary of State's office next Friday, Dec. 12 to have our dossier 'sealed.' In simple terms, the Sec. of State's office will notarize the paperwork that has already been notarized. A notary of the notary, at least this is my understanding of it. Later that same day, we'll meet with our agency and they will review our dossier with us to make sure that everything is correct. It is likely that we will have some paperwork to re-do ... there is so much about this process that is very precise ... so this will give us time to re-do anything that needs to be redone without holding us up too much.

And since we're going to be in Indy, we're hoping to finally make it to Abyssinia for an Ethiopian lunch! Mark and I are both trying to be patient with the process and the time that it takes but are feeling anxious to officially be on the waiting list. We're looking forward to learning more about Ethiopia, trying to cook Ethiopian foods, and preparing for our baby to come home by looking at child care, pediatricians, etc. while we're waiting for our referral. We'll post another update when there's more to report.