Montgomery Again!

This past week Holly and I found ourselves in the car headed back down to Montgomery. This past Monday we were lying in bed (still not up by 9:00, sorry everyone) when the doorbell rang. It was the FedEx guy bringing us a portion of our dossier that had been sent off to be certified at the county level. Having these papers in hand at 9:00, we were in the car by 11:00 headed down to Montgomery. The goal for the day was to have a few documents certified at the county level in the Montgomery county courthouse and then to head over to the secretary of state's office to have certification from that office. We were so happy that everything happened just as planned. All the documents were certified and sent within the hour to the consulate of Guatemala in Miami. The dossier had to go through the consulate to be authenticated before being sent down to Guatemala. The whole authentication process went much quicker that what we had originally thought. They received our dossier on Tuesday and had it authenticated and sent back out that same day! The dossier is now going through final review and will be sent to Guatemala (hopefully) next week! WE ARE NOW THROUGH WITH THE PAPER CHASE!!! One of the employees at our agency has told us that we are at the point where we will feel that we have hurried only to wait.

Here's the way that the rest of the process will work (I think). Once the dossier is in Guatemala, we will be put on the list of approved families to adopt. However, we are still waiting on our paper work to be cleared through USCIS. Once we have this approval we can actually be placed at the top of the list and allowed to receive a referral! Following the referral it is only a matter of weeks before we will hopefully be on an airplane down to Guatemala to see our baby girl!!! They say that this is the worst time of the adoption because, after the USCIC clearance is received, you are just sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring. Even as I am writing about this, I find myself wanting nothing more than to at least see a picture of my little girl. I know that it will happen soon, and when it does, it will be the greatest moment of my life. Still, the anticipation of that moment is incredibly hard. They say that during this time you should pick up a new hobby or learn another language. I think I'll learn Spanish (which I have planned to do anyway) because, after the adoption, I can no longer afford hobbies! It won't be long now Isabella! We're through with the paper chase!

Shalom.



PS While in Montgomery, I was finally able to take the time to go by the Dexter Ave King Memorial Church which was once pastored by Dr. Martin Luther King. It was a great experience.