April Fools Day

So our agency emailed me last night to say that the dossier will be on its way to Washington DC later today and they were wondering how close I was to getting our 171. ( the 171 is a very important form from the US govt. allowing you to bring your child home and apply for citzenship. Cleveland's office is notoriously slow, and since I have done this before I applied at the end of Jan. They need 3 elements to process your appliction. 1) your money- they don't waste any time cashing your check. 2) fingerprinting done on a federal level. (We reported on Feb 20 when they requested for our fingerprinting) 3) A valid homestudy which they would have recieved on Fri last week as well. So all this and somewhere in 3 months time you will recieve a magic piece of paper which is the US allowing you to parent a foreign child. Now I'm crossing my fingers that we will have that piece of paper by the beginning of May so then we will be ready for travel when Ethiopia is ready for us. you see International Adoption is not for the faint of heart . It takes alot of coordination on behalf of 2 Governments and your agency, and your own self. The amount of organization needed is incredible as well. And this has forced me to get alot more organized and start files on everything, email, paperwork, social workers paperwork, medical reports, not to mention vaccinations to travel, and packing lists.