Let the Wait Begin!!

On Wednesday June 2, I went to Kinkos and mailed off the dossier!!! Yay!!! The Dossier should have made it to the Ukraine Tuesday June 8, but I am not for certain when it arrived.  So now the next step if for us to wait until our name comes to the top of the list. When it does, we will get a call saying that we can head over to the Ukraine!! The wait is hopefully only 6-8 months but with adoption you never know. It could be shorter or longer depending on a lot of things. I am so excited that everything is moving forward!! The Lord is so good!! 

 Me with Mrs. Kathy sending off the Dossier. Next stop, Ukraine!!! Mrs. Kathy has been the one to help us get everything together and sent to the Ukraine.  

The Dossier

So...my life has been in chaos for the whole month of May and up until now. Let me update you with all that has gone on in May!! You might even want to sit back, start popping some popcorn, and enjoy the ride because let me tell you, you might be sittin for a few minutes. OK, now, where do I start??

It all started with the long-waited-for piece of paper that arrived in our mailbox the first week of May. Let me tell you! I had been waiting forever feels like, for that piece of paper!! This piece of paper (known in the adoption world as the I-767C Notice of Action)  lets the hopeful adoptive parents know from US immigration whether they are accepted/declined to adopt internationally. When you receive this document, you can now start the dossier process (Dossier = a lot of paperwork that will get sent to the Ukraine). Whoo hoo!! Well we get this piece of paper in the mail and it felt like the day Ken and I got engaged. Weird, I know, but hang in there with me. It's like you are very involved in the process of dating and you know he is going to propose but you don't know when, and when he finally does, you are so excited you go crazy but try to stay composed, everyone you know gets a text or call and you cant stop talking about it. Well that is kinda what went on this day. I seriously read the thing over and over to make sure we could finally start the dossier process. What an exciting day in the Lovett household for sure!! So we got the letter on a Wednesday and that Friday we head down on the long trip to our home state to get our marriage license and then the long drive to the capital to get it apostiled. We then headed back home that Sunday. Fun times!

 

Where we picked up our marriage license.

Getting our marriage license apostiled!

Two apostiled copies of our marriage license, check. 

While we are here we might as well take pictures of the state capital!!

Documentation that we were at the capital. 

We were able to meet my dad for a shake on the way home. 

Eating breakfast before all of the festivities begin at the BEST restaurant in town, Spot of Tea!!

Eating at Blue Gill with my brother-in-law (Greg) sister-in-law (Karen), 

niece (Annabelle) and nephew (Greyson). I love them!

We also made trips to the doctor to have checkups for the medical form, sent off a variety of paperwork, and oh yeah and remembered in the process of all the craziness that I had not changed my last name on my passport when we got married. I was like great!! This is very important and takes the longest amount of time to get sent back to us!! We were even told to make sure this was one of the first things we sent off for so when the time comes, we will be ready to send all of our paperwork off. We were even going through all the checklists of  what we needed to do and every time we got to the passport, we would skip over it. I was like of course I had my passport, duh, it's right here. Well, we learned really quick that it was going to set us back a few dollars in order for us to have it in time to send everything off. When we had all of our paperwork together, this is what we had:

1. Petition for adoption from Ukraine
2. Letter of obligation
3. Medical statements
4. Doctor's license
5. State police clearance documents
6. Employment letters
7. Marriage license
8. Certification of BCIS
9. Home Study
10. Home study license
11. Social worker license stuff
12. Passport copies
13. Powers of attorney
14. Certified copy of our rental agreement
15. PVA (property value ___) records
16. Most recent income tax forms
17. Interpool clearance document

Each group of paperwork then needed to be notarized, authenticated, and apostiled. Authentification of the document meant each notary had to be checked, by the county clerk, to state that the notary was indeed a recognized notary. Then once you have all of it authentificated, you head to the state capital's Secretary of State to get everything that has been authentified and checked, apostiled at the office. So once you get everything notarized, it is then authentificated and finally apostiled. Well I kind of forgot a step in the process.  I ended up in the capital without everything being authentificated, whoops, so back home I went. The next week I went to apostile everything and I was super excited to have everything done!! Whew!

The state capital where all of our documents were apostiled.