The dossier has landed

What else is there to say? :-) I just got a note from our translator... he has all our paperwork and is working on the final preparations to submit it to the SDA next Tuesday.

The final form... I think

Today’s adoption news is BIG news. Dan received an email this morning that our immigration paperwork had been approved and he was allowed to pick up the official form from the USCIS office this afternoon. That’s the FINAL U.S. approval we’ve been waiting for. What happens next? On Friday he will take our documents to Tallahassee to be apostilled and then ship them to Ukraine. That should allow our translator plenty of time to translate the documents and submit them to Ukraine’s State Department of Adoptions (SDA) on our submission date of October 27th. At that time they will review our file and hopefully issue an invitation to come to Ukraine… or tell us something needs to be corrected, updated, etc. Please keep all of us in your prayers as we wait on God’s timing and direction.

A note to other families in this process... I read on someone else's blog how after all their waiting the actual I-171H form was not what they expected. She was so right! For all its importance and the process required, it deserves some sort of special paper... or at least a very official signature. :)

Fingerprints

We found out yesterday that the money order we sent to USCIS (Immigration) had cleared and our file had been forwarded to their adoption officer for review. PTL! This morning, Dan received an email asking if we could be fingerprinted tomorrow. His immediate response? "Absolutely!" Actually, if we could go to the office before 3:00, they'd do it today. God's timing is always amazing. Tim is normally in school until 3:00, but today he had a 1:00 appointment with his neurologist. (BTW, keep him in your prayers in that area. He's participating in a drug study for a new anti-seizure drug and we'd REALLY like to see it start working.) We were finished at the doctor's office by 2:00 and made it to the fingerprint office with plenty of time to spare. Tim, incidentally, thought the process was hilarious. Every time they put his fingers on the scanner he laughed... he says his fingers are ticklish. :) So... Dan, Timothy and I have all been fingerprinted and Dale will go first thing tomorrow morning. As you may recall from the last post, we need to have our approval form in Ukraine before October 27th, so this is great progress. Please continue to keep us all in your prayers - we truly appreciate it.