Another document setback

I was hoping that my next post would be to say that we were DTC, but it was not to be. I got a call from our agency today, the Chinese Consulate would not certify our marriage certificate because it was too old. It was issued less than three years ago. So, I called the Greene county recorder of Deeds, and convinced them that, instead of me having to either mail a written request, or going in person, to do a verbal request for a new certified copy of our marriage certificate and let my mom pick it up. She picked it up and sent it FedEx so I should receive it tomorrow morning, then I can drive it to Jefferson City for the state certification, then I'll FedEx it to DC to the courier that our agency uses who will take it for the federal certification and to the consulate. Then it can be sent back to our agency and they can forward it on to China.

Things to pray for:
1. That our marriage certificate can make its rounds and get all the certification it needs quickly.
2. That we can be DTC quickly and that the wait time won't get any longer, hopefully shorter, and we can travel and bring Ethan home before Christmas.

Kudos to Minnesota Secretary of State

My state certified birth certificate came back today from Minnesota! I was not expecting it so soon. It arrived at their office on Monday morning, and they had to have mailed it back on Tuesday because it arrived today on Wednesday. Now the only thing we're waiting on is our homestudy which I should be able to pick up on Tuesday and if I get it early enough, I'll take it to Jefferson City that afternoon for the state certification, otherwise it will be Wednesday morning, then FedExed to our agency. One step closer to being DTC.

Also, yesterday I received another picture of Ethan from a mom whose daughter is from Ethan's orphanage.

The paper chase continues

Friday, we went to Jefferson City to get the state certification on all of our paperwork except for the homestudy which should be done on the 21st and in our hands on the 22nd. They recognize us when we walk in now, we had our Ukraine dossier apostilled three times there, and now our China dossier certified. We were told that they can not certify my birth certificate because it is a Minnesota birth certificate. I didn't even think about double checking all the policies on certification, because they've apostilled the same birth certificate three separate times, but now say that they wouldn't have done that because it's not from Missouri. At least we found this out now, instead of after we had all of our other paperwork ready to send to China. Saturday morning I sent my birth certificate and a request for it to be state certified, via FedEx to Minnesota. Hopefully it won't take them very long. I'm praying that it comes back by the time we get our homestudy, that way both can be sent to our agency in order to be sent for the federal certification at the US Secretary of State office, then to the Chinese consulate for their certification. The majority of our dossier should arrive Monday to our agency so that they can look it over then send it on for the federal and consulate certification.

It seems hard to understand how I could be patient for three years waiting on Ukraine, now I'm having trouble feeling very patient waiting for all our paperwork to be finished so I can sit back and wait again for our TA.

God knew that Ethan was supposed to be our son long before he was born and long before we decided we wanted to adopt him. He will work this out in his best timing.

Things to pray for:
1. Ethan will be health and safe until we can bring him home.
2. We can get the rest of our dossier together in a timely fashion so that we can be DTC.
3. The wait for our TA will be short so that Ethan can come home as soon as possible.

Home Study

The wait is over for the 171H, but we are still waiting on our homestudy. We were able to do an addendum to our old homestudy from when we were pursuing Ukraine so that we could go ahead and file for our INS approval. In the meantime, we've been having our homevisits for our official China homestudy. Since we didn't think we were in a rush for it, we didn't push to get it done really quickly, and didn't worry too much when we would be pushed back because of something else that the social worker had to work on. But now, we are in a rush, and there is nothing to do but wait. Our homestudy is done, and waiting at the homestudy agency to be signed by the director of the agency. Technically only the social worker that does the homestudy has to sign off on it, but the policy of our homestudy agency is that the director sign also. The problem is, he's on vacation until August 21st! So we wait. . . Impatiently. I have to keep telling myself that it's all working in God's best timing. There's still a chance that we can bring Ethan home before the end of this year, but it's too early to tell for sure. The average wait from LID to TA is currently around 80 days. We'll see how long it takes us to get our dossier authenticated and sent to China then logged in (LID) Then we can start counting down the days.

I-171H

WOW! I was heading out of town and checked the mail as I was leaving and our INS approval came! They said it should take 90 days but it has been taking around 2 months for processing. Guess what, our application was filed on June 28 and we were issued approval on July 29th and it came in the mail today! Now we have to get our homestudy which should be done in a few days, then we can get everything apostilled and authenticated.

We've been praying that INS would come quicker than expected. God answered our prayers!