Monday, January 23, 2012

WE ARE DTC!!!

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  I have had two field trips with the girls to Harrisburg to get our paperwork state certified.  They were excited for the first one--not so much for the second.  They did amazing though!!  After getting the state seals, we sent our documents Fed Ex to Legal Ease in New York to have our documents sealed at the Consulate.  We received them back Wednesday, I have to admit I was looking for some really cool seals.  I opened up the package and saw that they had put the seal on the back of sheet with the state seals.  I was excited to see the package no matter what--just thought it was going to be different that is all.  Regardless, I don't think I have ever been so excited about seals, no matter what they look like!!!

State Seals


 Seals from the Consulate

After reviewing the seals, I took the documents to Staples where I made more copies.  Got it ready and sent it to our agency Holt International so they could review it.  When I went to look at the tracking information there as a notice in red, "IMPORTANT!!  Severe Winter Weather in Oregon and Washington may cause some service delays and disruptions today."   I opened the link to review multiple zip codes and thanked God that our zip code destination was not on there.  We just prayed that our documents would get there safely and that God would get it there in his timing. 



We are so excited to say that our documents arrived at Holt on time by 10:30 AM the next day.  Thank you Lord for watching over our documents!!  After our documents were reviewed by our agency, our paperwork was ready to be sent.  Holt mailed out our Dossier Friday January 20th!!!!   The Dossier is a lot of documents that we have been getting together over the past few months.  It is a set of paperwork that includes all of the necessary information that is required.  Once they receive our paperwork and we are logged in, our agency can start to look for our daughter, which means we can be matched at anytime.  It seemed like for a while that we had lots to get ready for our dossier.  It is amazing to be able to say that soon we could know who our daughter is.  We are just praying as we wait that God prepares our hearts for who he has in store for us and that he is preparing Piper's heart for our family.  Please pray as we wait for God to reveal our daughter that we would just trust in his perfect timing. 

Our family decided to celebrate this adoption milestone with a delicious cake!!  I didn't tell the girls until we had the cake and received the call from Holt that yes our paperwork was mailed!!!!  It is their New Year this week and everything is shut down.  Our paperwork will be logged in soon after they reopen.

Happy New Year!!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

We Recieved our Approved I797 in the mail!!!!!!

We mailed our I800A on November 1st.  We have been counting the days of how long it was taking for our I797 to come.  Monday, I was talking to Jon and told him I need to go get the mail.  He said "you say that like you are going to get the 797 today."  I went out to the mail and saw a big white envelope.  I pulled the mail out and knew right away it was there.  I excitedly said "It's Here!!!  It's Here!!!"  He said, "stop messing around!"  It took a little bit but finally he believed me that it was there.  So after all of that--I quickly made a copy that afternoon, got it notarized and drove to Harrisburg with the girls to get it state certified.  See, last Wednesday I drove out to Harrisburg with the girls to meet my friend Audra to get our documents we had ready state certified.  I thought it was going to be awhile before we would recieve the 797 so I went out to get the rest started.  I even called the USCIS to see if they were working on our I800A yet, they said no.  It was processed the very next day!!  I have to admit it was better being surprised then knowing it was on its way!  Well, all of the documents are now in NY being authenticated at the Consulate.  Once we recieve the documents back our Dossier is ready to be sent!!!!  It feels so good to say that.  It seemed like it would be a while until we reached this point and we are there!!  We have been working on our paperwork for a few months.  It is so surreal that we are at this point already.  We are SUPER excited and cannot wait to see who our little girl is.  Please pray for us as we continue our journey.  It could be soon that we know who our little girl is.  We think about her often and pray for her everyday.