Adoption Update

Pam ~ It's been a busy past week, so I missed updating you all on a MAJOR milestone in our adoption journey.

OUR I-171H CAME IN THE MAIL!!!

Last Wednesday I had a half-day at school {because of Thanksgiving being the next day} so I got home before Nathan.  I never get the mail, but since it was cold and dreary weather, I decided to go ahead and get it so that Nathan wouldn't have to when he got home.  And there was the envelope from USCIS!!!!

I am so thankful for having heard from fellow adopting moms that the I-171H isn't a very obvious document.  It's "official" title is "Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advanced Processing of Orphan Petition."  Can you see why we all call it the I-171H form?????

Anyways......
The only place on the form that I-171H is written is the very bottom right corner in very tiny letters!!!!!!

I texted Nathan right away to tell him that it came in the mail.  Just NINE days after our biometrics apt.!!!  Praise the Lord!!!

The last "paperwork" item for our dossier is putting together our photo pages.  I don't know why this has been a stress to me, but it has.  I finally made myself sit down tonight and go through our photos.  We have to have 2 "formal" photos of Nathan and I {facing the camera, smiling, etc.}, 1 photo of the outside of our house, 1 photo of the main living area inside our house, and 4 "casual" photos of Nathan and I {with family/friends, "hanging" out, etc.}.

Would you like to see what I have come up with????  {minus the photo of our main living area ~ it's still on my camera}

I'm really hoping that these will be okay.  Now all I have to do is get them printed, and put them together with some journaling on card stock.  I'm open to suggestions from any adoptive moms who've BTDT!!!!

Productive

WARNING: This is a loooooooooooong post!!!!

Pam ~ We were soooooooo productive yesterday!!!!  It felt GOOD!!!!  Both Nathan and I had taken the day off work because we had our biometrics appointment in the morning.  At first, I was just going to take the morning off and then go into school for the afternoon, but I decided to make it an "adoption day" and took the whole day off.  I'm glad I did!!!

7:00 - Wake up {Hooray for sleeping in!!!}

8:20 - Leave for Des Moines

8:35 - Arrive in Des Moines and try to find a parking spot

8:45 - Walk into Federal Building

8:55 - Fingerprinted

9:10 - Leave USCIS office

9:20 - Arrive at Capital Square and try to find the right building

9:35 - Walk into the Secretary of State's office

9:40 - Talk to a nice lady about getting our two papers notarized and state certified

9:45 - Talk some more, sign, and wait

9:50 - She tells us her fee is $575!!!!!

9:50 - Laughter!!!!  It's just $10.

9:55 - Leave with certified papers!!!!

10:10 - Arrive at Walgreens

10:15 - Photos taken

10:25 - Purchase M&M's along with photos :-)

10:30 - Heading home!!!!!!!

It was such a blessing that everything went so smoothly.  We really didn't have any sort of a wait to speak of at any of the places and we got everything accomplished by 10:30 a.m.  The only part I am worried about is two of my fingerprints.  Apparently my right hand ring finger, and my left hand pinky don't make good prints.  the lady said that she "hoped" they would accept them, but if they didn't I would get a letter in the mail.  I am praying that I never get that letter!!!!  Will you pray with me that they accept ALL my fingerprints?????

The majority of the rest of our afternoon was spent working on grant paperwork.  We finished all the paperwork to submit our application to God's Grace Adoption Ministries, Inc. and it should be in the mail by tonight {Nathan is taking it to be weighed and mailed after work today}!!!!  We have our application for Show Hope all done except for a letter from our agency that we are waiting for and we are hoping to be able to mail that application by the end of this week.  And then we started the application for Lifesong.  The hard part of that one is done and now we just have to gather the other needed documents.

We made soooooooooooo much progress and it was so much fun to just be able to spend the day together.  The dossier paperwork is almost done!!!!!!  I keep intending to post a list of the documents we have been working on, but since I often type these posts at school during my students' nap time, I never have the list in front of me.  Maybe I'll get that done tonight????

Please continue to pray along with us that God will bring in the rest of the money we need to be able to submit our dossier.  I am fairly confident that we will have all the paperwork {minus our I-171H form, unless it comes quickly} done by the end of November, and we are praying that we will be able to mail it before the end of the year.  We still need $2700 in order to do that. 

PLEASE PRAY!!!

Biometrics Appointment TODAY

Pam ~ Our biometrics appointment is TODAY!!!!  We are getting ready to head out the door to our apt. and are excited to have the whole day off work to get LOTS more paperwork done.  We have our biometrics apt. at 9 a.m., and then are heading to the Secretary of State's office to hopefully get two papers certified.  Then we are getting passport sized photos taken, and then it's home to continue working on grant paperwork!!!

Biometrics Appointment

Pam ~ You may remember a few weeks ago when I told you that we had mailed away our I-600A form.  {Click here}  Our letters with our scheduled appointments came in the mail today!!!  They came much faster than I thought they would so I was VERY excited!!!  Our fingerprinting appointments are scheduled for November 15th at 9:00 in the morning.  I guess we will each get to have to take the morning off work in order to make our apt :-).

I have heard that we are allowed to just show up at an earlier date for our "appointment" but have to be willing to wait a while if they are busy.  But since we are still working on dossier paperwork and don't yet have the money to send our dossier in, we aren't in too big of a hurry.  Although, if we don't start making major progress on the remainder of our dossier paperwork, I think I might go crazy!!!  Our lives have been nonstop for the past few weeks, and we are both ready to have things calm down so that we can get crazy busy on paperwork!!!