This is a very exciting day in our house! After what seems like an eternity (although in reality it has only been a few months total), we received a very special e-mail from our Adoption Placing Agency today-our dossier (the official mound of documents and application) was sent to Ethiopia on Thursday! 
Yep,on 11/13/08, all of the hours, days, weeks of work (applications, education, visits with the Homestudy Social Worker, personal and employer references, numerous e-mails, local criminal background checks, physical exams and lab work, etc, etc), all of the hard work was condensed into a package that was sent to Ethiopia. We are DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia)!!! Now the "Official" wait begins. We still need to clear what used to be known as "Immigration" (now known as USCIS). This is THE background check that will (hopefully) yield the coveted I171-H (the authorization to adopt a child internationally). We have our fingerprint appointment next week. The process is actually two-fold. First, your fingerprints have to "pass" a QA check, meaning they are good enough to be analyzed.
Then, if the quality is sufficient to allow an analysis, they are checked against a HUGE database (kind of like you would see on CSI) to determine that you have NO criminal history.Whew!
Is anyone else exhausted?? I know I am!!! In fact, I feel a lot like Alina Jayne looks in this picture!
I am lucky (in more ways than I can even begin to count), I have "met" a lot of really great people from our Adoption Placing Agency who are in the same place as we are right now in this process. It will be great to share such an awesome journey with them! We met some wonderful people when we adopted Alina Jayne; people we will have a life-long bond with. I can see more life-long bonds forming on this journey too.
Check back often-we'll keep you posted!
