Paperwork Pregnant!

In adoption circles, we are considered "paperwork pregnant."  In other words, we have collected all of the official documents required for our adoption dossier.  For those of you who are new to this journey, imagine tracking down your birth certificate, your spouses birth certificate, your marriage certificate, state and federal police clearance letters, tax returns, letters of recommendation and doctor letters.   Just when you let out a BIG sigh of relief, you learn that each document must be notarized by a local notary public and then appostiled (don't even ask) by the Secretary of State.  Finally, you put all of your ORIGINAL documents (gasp!) into an envelope and FedEx it to a courier in Washington, D.C. who personally walks it through the authentication process at the Ethiopian Embassy and the U.S. State Department.   At this point, the adoption agency send it to Ethiopia where it is translated into Amharic (the national language).  Most families then wait to be referred a child or children.   Since we have already accepted the referral of "H" and "F" we get to bypass this step (Yea!).  Instead, our wait is for a court date to officially adopt the girls.  We  really hope this will happen by the end of 2011.  But then again, in the adoption world, time moves slower than a high-school study hall.  Remember those?