The Real Blair Family » Dossier

Numbers!

April — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 04:05:33 +0000

After many long months, and piles of paperwork, we finally have a number! We received the news just a few hours ago, and here it is! Our number for a baby boy is…

Our number for a sibling group is…

We are so happy to finally be at this point. There will be a lot more waiting, for sure, but having numbers makes it seem a little more bearable. Now here’s to hoping that we move up the list quickly!

Image credits to tillwe and Jorge Franganillo

Dossier

April — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 23:53:18 +0000

The past few months have consisted of the “great paper chase.” We heard from our case worker on Friday and she said everything was approved except for one of the letters of recommendation. Our friend needs to make minor revisions to the letter and resend it. After that point our case worker will contact us and we will get our NUMBERS. Even though I was really hoping for numbers on Friday, I am relieved to know we don’t have to make a lot of other revisions. Our case worker said that we are very lucky because most families have to make many revisions. The required documents included:

Letter of commitment
Birth certificates
Marriage certificate
Passport photos
Federal background check results
Local background check results
Employer verification letters
Physicals
Financial statement
Letters of recommendation
Power of attorney
Homestudy
Photos of us and our apartment

We hope to announce our numbers very soon. . .

Slowly but surely

April — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:31:37 +0000

You know those dreams where you are trying to run as fast as you can but are moving in slow motion? That’s how I have felt the last few months. We are slowly progressing though. Yesterday Nate and I had a conference call with a representative from AGCI. She reviewed the contracts we need to sign and talked about the process from now on. The call took about 45 minutes. Today Nate and I took the documents (over 100 pages total) to be notarized. It took longer than we expected but the notary was very patient and excited for us to be adopting.

So what now? I will mail out the documents tomorrow. AGCI will then send us a binder with pre-adoption information and the DOSSIER. I have been anxious to get my hands on that for a long time. The average amount of time for people to complete the dossier is 2-3 months. After the dossier is submitted to Ethiopia, we will go on the wait list and should expect to wait 3-6 months until we receive a referral (where we are matched with a child). It will then take another 2-4 months for the government to ensure that the child is an orphan and to process the adoption. After that, we will travel to Ethiopia to pick up our baby. If you haven’t done the math, we have 7 – 13 months to go. Hopefully it will feel like I’m moving faster soon!