It's a process

Everyone always asks questions about the paperwork process and when we will be going to get Noah and how it all works so here is the lowdown on the general process .

We officially committed to baby brother in  mid November but that really only matches you on this side of things. As far as his country is concerned you are not matched with him until your entire dossier  (that's what the entire paperwork packet is called ) is submitted to their government ....hence the urgency to get it all done ASAP .

Well ASAP is a very hurry up and wait term within adoption paperwork. There are times when I am able to move things along on my end and when I can I do so with extreme urgency , but there are also many other parts that require government officials, doctors, notaries, people at the capital to apostille , social workers and agency people to wait on. 

The dossier is compiled of lots of documents including info about home ownership, medical docs, passports, employment docs, lots of petitions to adopt, a home study , government approvals of different kinds , fingerprints , background checks, various forms that have to be completed very specifically and then notarized and reviewed and then each document is taken to the capital to be apostilled (basically a seal of approval and certification that costs money lol) 

So where are we in this "paper pregnancy "? 

We are done with the majority of the paperwork (awaiting approval to be apostilled ) and we are now done with the home study visits (the home study takes the longest to accomplish and is the keystone to the dossier) and are awaiting reviews and final draft of the home study . I am super anxious about this step because having the home should done is a huge piece of the puzzle! So my stress and anxiety level is high this week trying to await finalization . As soon as we have the final approved draft in hand, we send that to the US immigration approval (uscis) and we wait for what they call the "golden ticket" because once that approval comes through then the dossier can be completed and mailed to Noah's country for submittal . The golden ticket takes a few weeks to come back so we are still a month or so away from having the dossier complete. Once the documents are all ready to go, we take them to the capital here and get them apostilled (a big fee for that process ) and it takes them a few days to get them done. Then we will pick them up from the capital and mail them to his country . Once the country reviews and submits the dossier, then his file is matched to ours and they give us an appt date to come to their country and accept the referral for this child. That is our travel date! Usually the travel date is about 4-6 weeks from when the dossier is submitted but as with everything in this daunting paperwork , there is never a for sure timeline, so prayers help 😊😉.

Once we travel there are plenty more papers to deal with but the dossier is the big one because it gets us a travel date to meet our boy!!!!

We have run into some stressful hold ups and new unplanned fees the last few days so please pray things come together quickly and we can submit our dossier in the next month!

We just have to keep remembering that at the bottom of the work pile is a little boy counting on us to keep jumping the hurdles for him!