Paper chase is OVER!!!!

We are DONE!!!  We are finally DONE!  We received our I-171H form on May 20th.  Yesterday, we made the trip to Springfield to have our documents state sealed.  Of course, we couldn't do it without a little bit of stress!  Our notary's stamp included her middle initial and her signature did not.  We ended up having to go to the Lincoln Library to retype the two documents and then to the Circuit Clerk's office to have them notarized.  We got it done though!  Just a little bit of stress for me!  LOL  I was a nervous wreck.  We drove home from Springfield, went straight to the bank to get our money order, and sent our dossier off to the Assistant Stork!  We are officially finished with the paper chase part of our adoption journey.  I am so thankful!  It was not anything too difficult, but it stressed me out!!!  I'm glad to have it all done.  Waiting is not going to be easy.  I am so ready and anxious to get our new daughter and maybe son too.  At least, I can wait in peace!  No more dreams about notaries and documents and Dr. appointments. 

Fingerprinting

We received our fingerprinting appointment last week.  It was set for May 14th at 9:00 am in Indianapolis.  We decided to take a chance and go for a walk in.  We went to Indy Wednesday May 1st and they let us in!  We were fingerprinted a whole 14 days early!  That is fantastic.  Want to hear a funny story about that?!  Well, its funny now but at the  moment it was kind of scary!  I told Jason as we were getting out of the car that I was only taking my ID and appt. form in with me.  It says on the form not to bring in phones, radios, pagers, etc.  We had to go to the Office of Homeland Security.  It is a big government office.  Anyway,  he just went in like normal.  We get up to the 4th floor and had to empty our pockets.  I, of course, left everything in the car.  Jason, on the other hand, emptied his pockets.  The lady immediately yelled, "Get that out of this building now!"  Jason and I looked at each like what?!  He had a small knife in his pocket.  She yelled it again.  He started to toss it in the trashcan.  She yelled again, "No, out of this building!"  He did as she said and took it back out to the car.  When he came back in she said, "I'm sorry, but I did not want to see what you had.  I did not want to cuff you in front of your son."  Wow!  We went to prove we are not criminals and Jason about became one!  Oh my!!!!  It was quite an experience which we are laughing about now.  That will be something to tell our child someday.  LOL!  We are now just waiting to receive our I 171 H form.  We will then make a trip to Springfield to have the Great  Seal put on our documents.  Our dossier will then be ready to be sent to the Assistant Stork, US embassy, our agency, and then off to Ethiopia!!!!  We will officially be on the waiting list soon!  

More news.....we got our monthly update this week.  There were 15 referrals in April!  That is a lot!!!!! They had told us the average is 1-4 referrals per month.  They have a possible 15 referrals coming up that they know of!  This is amazing!  Right now the waiting list has 43 families ahead of us.  Our wait is still estimated to be around 12 months.  It has been so exciting to see all the families receiving referrals and a couple that have met their children.  There should be several families traveling in the next month.  I love seeing and hearing all about their trips and their beautiful children.