adoption update

We are getting closer! Our home study is complete and we received it in the mail this last weekend. With our home study complete we can now get busy and finish up two very important next steps. First, our dossier. Last night we were able to get every document notarized by my friend Maryanne, who is a notary! We hope to head down to the state office today or tomorrow and have our dossier authenticated with the state of Oregon and then.....(drum roll please) turn in our dossier to our agency this Wednesday. That's the plan anyway. :) The agency takes up to a month to translate and authenticate our dossier before they send it to Rwanda. Once the Rwandan government receives our dossier it's about 3 1/2 months of waiting for a referral. Could always be longer.

The other important next step is sending our home study along with an application and fee to the US CIS office in Texas. It's a part of homeland security and ya need an approval letter from these guys in order to bring our boy into the US. It can take up to a couple of months to receive this letter but because it's a US thing, it won't slow down our dossier (international) process. We need this letter before we travel.

That's where were at. At this point I am mentally tired. I am soooo looking forward to handing in our dossier and US CIS application and being done with it for a bit. I am grateful for all the support from friends and family. I can't wait to hold my son.