At Last!

I spoke to our agency, and they have our dossier! It arrived safely, and everything appears to be in order.

So, what happens next? A copy of our dossier will be shipped to Kazakhstan. A translation of the dossier will be emailed back in about 2 weeks. Then, the dossier will be sent to the Kazakhstan Embassy in NYC. Once it clears there, it will travel through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Education. At that point, we will be issued a Letter of Invitation, which will allow us to get our travel visas. In the meantime, the Sisters will be working on a court date for us.

It appears that there is still a chance that we will travel at the end of February, but March at the latest. Amazing to think that we might be in Kazahstan exactly two years after we were there adopting Cameron. We would never have dreamed of such a possiblity back then!

All Apostilled!

We all drove up to Atlanta yesterday to get our documents apostilled. We first had to stop and get Tom's birth certificates. We arrived safely at the GSCCCA. I stood and sweated as Jack went through the documents checking the notarizations to see if they had been correctly. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when he told me that everything looked fine and to go sit down and they'd be ready in a few minutes.

We went to have lunch, then returned to pick up Tom's birth certificates at Vital Records. Then, it was back to GSCCCA to have them apostilled. We had spotted a Kinko's on our way in, so we made a stop there to make the requisite 5 copies of the entire dossier. 258 pieces of paper later, we were ready to try and hand deliver them to our agency.

We drove through a driving rain storm, only to find no one at home, or at least answering the door. We didn't want to leave our precious documents on the porch in the horrible rain, so we head home.

FOUR hours later, we had completed a normally two hour trip. It was a very long day, but we had our completed dossier!

This morning, we dropped it of at Kinko's/FedEx. It is due to be delivered Friday morning. When they receive it, they will send one copy to Kazakhstan for translation. They will email the translation back and it will be added to our original dossier and copies. And then the wait at the Kaz Embassy and our travel dates will begin.

Here at LAST!

We checked the mail this morning, NO 171H. I was crushed. I was too mad to mail the package I had brought with us. So, we went home and I left the package in the car.

I decided to go back to the PO this afternoon, mail the package, and check the mail one more time.


IT WAS THERE!!!


The agent had used our street address, instead of our PO Box, so the postal carrier had to bring it back and look up our box number. Thank goodness he/she did, instead of just returning to sender!

So, we're off to Atlanta tomorrow morning after a stop at the credit union to get the 171H notarized.

I'm hoping everything will go smoothly and we can get all the copies made and hand deliver our dossier to our agency in the afternoon. (They are in Lawrenceville, 20 miles from where we're getting the apostilles.)

It IS in the Mail!

I spoke to the Adoption Unit Agent at USCIS, and she mailed our new I-171H Approval yesterday! She's notified Almaty of our approval too. It hadn't arrived when I checked the mail this morning, but maybe tomorrow!

I can't get over the wonderful service we have been getting from USCIS this go around.

KJ, sweet girl, we're coming to get you!

It's in the Mail?

I spoke yesterday with our home study agency. Our home study was being mailed priority to CIS and we were getting our copies too. They're charging us the lowest fee possible for the update, for which I'm extremely appreciative!

On Monday, we received a refund check from our China adoption agency, CCAI. They refunded about 2/3 of our agency fee. What a blessing. It will almost cover our dossier fee, which we have to submit with our dossier to World Partners.

I've been learning so much from other parents who have gone before us, everything from clothes, to toys, to food, to just living and growing with an older adopted child. I'm so thankful for the Internet!

Are We Done YET?

Yesterday afternoon, the home study agency emailed me the narrative to review and sent it also to World Partners. I made two corrections and emailed the changes back. Gosh, I hope this means it'll be ready to mail to USCIS today! I want to get our dosser in before Thanksgiving!!

The lady taking the photo album to KJ leaves in January. I hope that means KJ will have it only a month or so before we get there.

Are We There Yet?

On Friday, our SW received our home study back with requested edits. We also learned that we needed another reference. The SW was able to make all the changes over the weekend and we got our good friend Kelley to write a quick reference letter. Everything was emailed back to our home study agency early morning.

I think that means they now have everything they need to process our home study out. I'm on pins and needles hoping it gets to USCIS this week.

We received the blank medical forms on Saturday, so off we went on another trip to the doctor's office. They redid them, and we picked them up yesterday afternoon.

We have all our documents except the home study, post placement agreement, and of course, our new I-171H.

I couldn't help myself, I did some more shopping for KJ. She now has Hello Kitty bedding for her room. We plan on getting her a new twin size bed. I just couldn't resist the pink and the sweet kitty face.

Paperwork, ARGHH!

The paperchase continues! We finally have our supporting documents to our home study agency, I'm now waiting to hear that the home study has been approved and is on it's way to USCIS.

I picked up our medical forms at the doctor's and noticed that there was a "yes" where our agency wants to see a "no." So, I'm waiting for new blank forms to take back to the doctor's office. I'm hoping he'll understand and make the necessary change.

We're so close, I can smell it, yet the finish is still out of reach.

On a brighter note, today is Tom and my 4th wedding anniversary! To think we're going to have a daughter who was born before we got married. GU!