No Stamp.

Sent a pack off to Austin for apostilling last Saturday.  26 documents ranging from last year's taxes to a copy of  our health insurance section stating adopted kids are covered right away.  Only one snag though, one of the documents didn't have the notary stamp on it.  Whoops.  Well, we've got to send another batch when the HS update is completed so we'll catch it then.

We are still waiting for our Qatari friends to send back our police clearance from there.  Hopefully there won't be any issues and it'll come back fine...sure hope it has some sort of authentication attached.
Back to work now.
J

Home Study Part Dva (Deux) - The Sunday Funday

Well, today was Part Dva (Deux) of the Home Study.  Since our Home Study is expiring in August, we needed to have it updated.  Same social worker, same family, same house, same questions but the home inspection was far more rigorous.  Mainly because she went to inspect...wait for it...the Master Closet (where we keep a crib for A to nap in).

Hopefully we'll get everything updated and get this part out of the way for when the referrals and court dates start rolling in.

I think the worst part was B telling me how the house wasn't clean enough.  Everything went fine and there was no need to stress after all.

Do svidaniya.

No one said this would be easy...but it is worth it

A few weeks ago, we kick started our paper chase for our Regional Court Dossier.  I didn't post anything back then because I think I was still mentally (and somewhat physically) exhausted from it.  Here's how that week went:

Thursday -

• Talked with adoption coordinator about questions/concerns regarding the next set of documents we needed to start on.  (Basically, this court dossier isn't needed until after our first trip but there are many documents that we can start on ahead of time to get them going.)

Friday -

• Ordered our daughter's birth certificate 
• Requested our marriage license (still waiting on that one; need to call again)

Saturday -

• Got new passport pictures taken to send to Qatar in order to get our "Certificate of Good Conduct" from them (need police clearance from all states/countries we've lived in the last 10 years)
• Got cashiers checks for Qatar Embassy
• Tried to get prepaid envelope from UPS for Qatar - unsuccessful

Sunday -

• Painted our daughter's new room to get it ready for her to move into it since she is going to share with the new child (not related to dossier, but adoption-related nonetheless)

Monday -

• Went to county clerk's office to get the deed to our house
• Attempted to get appraisal form filled out there as well but ended up driving 30 minutes away to the Appraisal District Office to get house ownership verification
• Prepared "Certified Copy of Original" forms for multiple documents

Tuesday -

• Well-baby checkup for my son and tried to get Pediatrician's Doctor's License (required to send a copy of current children's Dr's license) and could not get it (they are very reluctant to give a copy of that out - still working on that one.)

Wednesday -

• Went to Qatar Consulate in Houston to have them check over "Certificate of Good Conduct" documents such as passport copies with residency pages, cashier's check obtained on previous day, and a letter explaining what we needed (it was never fun dealing with their government while in Qatar and this experience was no better), the lady at the consulate found many things "wrong" with our paperwork - According to their website, the documents had to be addressed to their Embassy in Washington DC but since we live in TX, we were to address it all to their Consulate in Houston.  Not something that can't be changed.  Additionally, for some reason, we weren't allowed to get three copies of the final report like we wanted.  All those changes meant refunding the other cashier's checks and getting a new amount, changing our letters, and just a general frustration after dealing with an 18-month old who did not enjoy being along for the ride! 
• After all that in the morning, I had a checkup with my doctor for my diabetes in the afternoon.  It was actually a new doctor for me since I have not been happy with the care of my previous one.  I am now going to the same doc as my hubby and it is just outside our neighborhood, which will make visits much easier.
• Rewrote letter for Qatar Consulate

Thursday -

• Went to bank to refund previous checks and get new ones issued
• Mailed UPS package full of very important (revised) documents to Qatar Consulate in Houston
• While in parking lot outside the UPS store, as soon as I shut the car door after putting the boys in their seats, I get a call.  Samira (lady from the Qatar Consulate) was calling to say she needed the pages from our previous old passports that were considered destroyed as far as the US is concerned - and at the time, we considered lost.  Luckily, we were able to find them after some serious searching, so we sent an additional UPS package to her the following week.  The next day, I get a call from her again telling us that the second set of checks were addressed to the wrong place as well - I guess we need to be held by the hand when doing government paperwork for a foreign-already-confusing country.  So....after changing the checks for the second time to be addressed to the Consulate and not the Embassy (!?) we were able to get all that confusing documentation to her and hopefully that paperwork is on it's way to Qatar right now.  This is the part of our paperwork we are the most nervous about since it takes 6-8 weeks to hear anything back from Qatar.  In the end, I realized the Consulate lady was in fact being VERY helpful.  She was genuinely concerned that our paperwork get sent overseas correctly.  I was just frustrated at the time and did not enjoy the interaction - although everyone was quite pleasant, myself included.

Friday - 

• Had it on my list to call the county in Indiana where our marriage license was filed but to be honest, I still haven't done it.

Saturday -

• Took the whole family to the fingerprinting place to get our police clearance for Texas.  That was so easy.  We're already "cleared" and have our letters from them.  Yeah, United States of America!

Sorry if a lot of that made no sense and wasn't very easy to read.  It has been very confusing to me, as well!  Just take away from this post that we had a rather paperwork intensive spurt all of a sudden after months of doing nothing!  That means things are progressing and it's becoming real!  Yikes! ;)

We are now at a point where we are just waiting for the paperwork to roll in so there is not as much that we can do, except for a few minor things.  The rest of our court dossier needs to wait until after our first trip because several documents only have a 3-month validity.  But after so many months of doing nothing and just waiting, this was a stressful and intensive week for me (and J too, but I did a lot of the paper chasing during the day between school drop offs, missed naps, and with 1 or 2 boys in tow).

Sometimes in the back of my mind, I wonder (especially in the middle of a week like that) - "What if all of this is going to fall through and all of this will be for nothing.  So much frustration and yet what if we don't end up with our child?"  What I had to make myself realize, a midst all of the frustrations, is that GOD FINISHES WHAT HE STARTS!  So why should I let the frustrations discourage me and make me feel this isn't going to happen?  God has started this.  He wants this for us.  Why wouldn't he?  So trust that He will finish what He has started!

(By the way, the word WAIT is in the bible 141 times.)

About time for an update...

Wow!  Told you the posts would be few and far between!  We are now coming up on the end of 6 months of waiting for our referral.  We called our family coordinator to see if there has been any behind the scenes progress she could tell us about.  She told us that we should expect to hear something between now and June.  That at least shortens our possible (originally 6-12 months) referral wait time by a couple months!  Yeah!  The reality of it though is that we will be traveling to meet our child sometime in April, May, or June!  That seems so soon all of a sudden.  My biggest worry isn't about all the logistics of traveling that far or any of the stuff on that end.  My biggest worry is just organizing and planning what the other three kiddos will be doing.  I know they will be fine though. 

A few days after we called our coordinator, she sent us specific document information that needs to be filled out prior to our first trip - Krasnoyarsk Regional Documents - aka "court dossier".  Must mean we are actually getting close to referral!  Those documents are a little overwhelming just as they were when we were putting together the first dossier.  There are certain documents we can start working on now but most of it can't be done until we get the actual referral because the validity of them is 3 months and we don't want them to expire too soon.  But it's very complicated because this needs to be done before this and that can't be done before that and doctors need to sign off on certain things in a certain way...Please pray for this paperwork to go smoothly!  Any errors on our end could slow down the entire process. :(

The reality of the fact that our child is not just on paper anymore and based on the age we are requesting he/she has most definitely been born is really hitting us.  OUR child is having undesireable experiences somewhere beyond our control.  That's hard to think about.  But we have to remember that God has a plan for our child's life!  Just one of those times where we really have to give God time to work His plan!

Please just continue to pray for loving hands around our child!