DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!!!

Ta-da!!!!!

I am happy to report that our final paperwork will be sent to the adoption agency headquarters in St. Louis tomorrow!!!!! Yay!

We did have some last-minute drama, but what else did we expect with this round of crazy paperwork! We just found out that we have to complete another "Self Assessment." I ordered it yesterday, so hopefully we will get it soon. It is supposed to be completed prior to us sending in our paperwork, but they are supposed to waive that for us as long as we get it completed in the next few weeks. Oh my...

Each document and form that we completed for our dossier had to be notarized. So, along the way, we have had notaries sign and notarize our paperwork. After everything was notarized and checked by the adoption agency, we then had to have the notaries confirmed by the county in which the notary is from. Then, the state had to confirm that the County Court Clerk is who he/she says he/she is. So, Philip did that today for us. He took the paperwork to the Davidson County Court Clerk to have all of the notaries confirmed from Davidson County. He also had to do this for a notary in Williamson County (That took 2 trips in itself b/c the notary accidentally wrote her incorrect expiration date on the form, so it had to be re-done.). I called yesterday to let them know that I had 5 to confirm, and she told me that would be fine. I also had everything paper clipped together with post-it notes saying what to do with what. (For those of you who know me, you can imagine.) When he got there, the lady complained the whole time he was there that he had so many, even though someone told me yesterday it would be no problem. Then, she couldn't find one of the notaries. After waiting there for over 35 minutes, she found what she needed, finished the project, took his $, and sent him on his way. He then went to the Tennessee Secretary of State to confirm the County Court Clerks. This required each document that was notarized, then confirmed by the county, to be put in a blue sleeve with the state seal and authenticated with a letter. This took approximately 40 minutes, but there was no drama there; thank goodness.

Tonight, we compiled everything in order and will mail tomorrow. After the CHI HQ receives the paperwork, someone on their team will look over everything again to make sure that we didn't leave anything out. They will then send to the Missouri Secretary of State to be authenticated by them. The paperwork will then go to the US Secretary of State (Condoleeza Rice)'s office to add her seal. After that is complete, the papers go to the Ethiopian Embassy in DC to be confirmed as well. After they are confirmed there, the paperwork goes back to St. Louis and then on to Ethiopia to be translated into Amharic (their language). Only after this point will we actually be "logged in" to the system and the "wait" officially begins. Let's just pray that the paperwork is all complete and does not get lost!!! The current wait time is 6-12 months from when the paperwork is logged in to referral.

We are so relieved to have this part over with and just pray that everything is in order and that nothing has to be re-done. This set of paperwork has been highly scrutinized and more difficult than the paperwork for China. For anyone who is not persistent and organized, completing the adoption paperwork has got to be unbelievably difficult. It is difficult for us, and we are pretty organized people!

We are blessed with a wonderful opportunity coming up in a few weeks. The director of the program in Ethiopia for our adoption agency is coming to Nashville/Brentwood!! He will be the one to take our paperwork to court and represent us when they decide if we will get these children. We will have the opportunity to meet him in person and explain our situation; therefore, hopefully helping to answer any questions that the judge may have about why we want children from Ethiopia and China. Remember...this is a huge risk we are taking here, and anything we can do to help the situation, we will. Please say a prayer for our meeting.

I will close for now and want to thank everyone who has helped get our paperwork finished. From everyone who wrote letters of recommendation, to those of you who prayed and sent words of encouragement, we appreciate you and are blessed to call you our friends and family. We look forward to introducing you to our children.