Sigh of Relief

In one's journey to adopting you spend endless amounts of time acquiring paperwork. Certified paperwork!!! Everything has to be signed by a notary, certified by the Secretary of State, and then finally certified by the Guatemalan consulate in the US. Well, all together, hubby & I had 15 documents.

Today, we received 14 back!!!! Now, we wait on one more. Mine. Because I was born in another state. The document has to be certified in that state.

This just brings us one step closer to Guatemala!!! Please pray that we receive our letter for fingerprinting from CIS soon!!!

John 15:7 - If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it SHALL be done for you.

WAHOOZLE!!! - Homestudy OUT

Just received notice!!

Our homestudy has been sent to CIS!!

So, hopefully we will go in the next two weeks for fingerprinting!!!

3 Parts to Adoption

In my own opinion there are three parts to the adoption process:
1. Pre-Work (the stage we are currently going through-almost finished)
2. The WAIT (waiting for a referral, waiting to visit, waiting for DNA, waiting for PGN, waiting to go pick her up)
3. THE PICK-UP (You are approved and you pick up your precious gift from God)

As I mentioned above, we are currently in the pre-work phase of our adoption. You get letters saying you are employed, healthy, mentally stable, etc. You also have to obtain "certified" copies of your birth certificates and marriage certificate. Once you have obtained all of the above it has to be notarized and then certified by the Secretary of State.

The point we are exactly at: waiting on our agency to send our approved homestudy to CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) in Dallas. This will put the following things into process:
1. Receive a letter telling us when to get our fingerprinting done in OKC.
2. Wait for approval - the I171. This tells us we are approved to bring a foreign born child into the US.
3. Anxiously wait for our Agency to send us a referral (a child that has become available for adoption)
4. Accept the referral. Then enter phase 2 - The WAIT.....

I will post more about that when the time comes.....

Online Scrapbook for Analise

This will be our online scrapbook to share with friends and family. We will share the ins & outs, ups & downs, and all around adventure of adoption.