adoption update

i added a "timeline" on the right side of the blog.

pat and i are working hard on all our homestudy paperwork.
we are making progress.
we both finished our autobiographies this past weekend (whew! that was some work!)

we just have a couple things left...but they require appointments and pat taking off work...which we're doing next week (we each have to get physicals - with a notary present, and we have to get fingerprinted at the police station). we're doing all that on the same day as the kids parent-teacher conferences. what a day it's going to be! :-)

our goal is to have all our paperwork for the homestudy to our agency by the end of October.
i think we're going to make it.

then they will schedule the remainder of our homestudy visits.

once our social worker is finished with our homestudy, we submit it along with a very important form to USCIS (our government's immigration services) and wait 6-12 weeks for them to send us a very, VERY important document that shows that we are approved to adopt internationally!

we send that very, VERY important document along with lots of other paperwork we'll have to gather all together (in what is called a dossier) to Rwanda. {the Dossier prep takes 3-5 months}

once it's submitted to Rwanda there is a 3-6 month waiting period to be approved by their government.

then a 2 month waiting period until we receive our referral (telling us who our actual children will be!)

once we accept them(!) it will be about 4 weeks until our court date (which our agency stands in for us...so that we don't have to travel twice).

once the court declares our children "ours"...we travel 2-3 weeks after the court date.
we will be there 2 weeks (1 week in Rwanda, 1 week in Ethiopia to get visas, etc.)

i'm not going to do the math on all that.

it's just a long time.
a long, LONG time.
too long.

but all i can do is what i can do today.
so that's what i'm focusing on!