Received Dossier Guidelines

We've been a little busy lately so it's been a while since I have updated our blog. In the last couple of weeks we went to Gatlinburg with some friends and then when we got back we went to Columbus to start looking for the area we would like to live. The day before we left we got our dossier guidelines which was pretty exciting! It was like getting a present at Christmas to go through it all and see what we needed to do. It just felt good knowing that we could start the next step to getting our baby.

Well, I suddenly realized after looking through everything that it was going to be a little more complicated that I realized. I know everyone said it would be a lot of work but I had seen a checklist and a lot of the stuff we already had from our homestudy. We have to compile all our documents and then get them all notarized in the state they originated from, after that we have to have them all certified by the Secretary of State but apparently, Kentucky is a little different from other states because before we can do that we have to get it county certified in the county that the document was notarized in. That should be fun because our documents have been notarized in at least 3 different counties. Luckily though, we can take it to the Secretary of State in Frankfort in person to be certified so we should be able to get it back right away instead of waiting two weeks. Once we get that done then we will send everything to the Vietnam Consulate in California to be authenticated which will take about two weeks. Once we get our I-171H we can get it certified and then send out dossier sent off. We are hoping to have it all done and sent off by the end of February. It's a lot to do, but it will be so worth it when we see our baby for the first time.

Things are a little stressful right now with the situation with the Vietnam adoptions. The agreement between Vietnam and the US expires on September 1, 2008 and the US is saying to be cautious because it might not be renewed. I am a little nervous about what that will mean and if we aren't going to get to complete our adoption but I just have to have faith that God will see it through because we truly feel that this is His will. Hopefully we will know something in March when the intent to renew is supposed to be signed. Our hope is that we can get our dossier in and have our referral before September...we are praying that even if they don't renew the agreement they will at least let families that are in the process complete their adoptions. We will just have to continue to pray that God will see us through and have faith. We are pressing forward with that in mind.