Ethan's birth certificate arrived today, amazing! We found out on August second that China wouldn't accept his certified copy that was issued two years ago. I'm not sure what facts changed concerning his birth since then, but we needed a certified copy that was no older than six months since its issue date. They had told us it could take months for it to be issued, (the last one did) and the caseworker expressed concern that it might hold up the process. The application was even rejected once because something was left out of the request. Look at the date, folks! It hasn't even been two weeks! I'm super happy to have that one in our file! What is the absolute safest way to send these documents to Seattle? I would rather prefer to drive them there myself!
Our homestudy agency called, and they received the fingerprinting, FBI and child abuse clearances.
We received all of our education certificates.
I called for the fire safety inspection really hoping to get that form in the file too, but I have to be patient just a little bit longer. The inspector is scheduled to come at 1pm tomorrow. There are four adorable little girls playing at my house today, so I hope they are feeling tidy! I'd prefer to not have to clean the whole house again. Really though, I'm thankful that Tikvah has a group of girls in the neighborhood to play with, so I won't complain TOO much if they make a little mess.
My project this afternoon is to write ANOTHER letter to the Chinese officials. The first one that was sent for our pre-approval was just a short one limited to a couple of paragraphs that stuck strictly to the facts. In this one for our dossier, we are required to explain WHY we want to adopt a child, and promise about a half a dozen things to them regarding her care. I always wonder how those documents look translated from my words to Chinese. It would be interesting to see sometime.
When Ethan gets home it will be time to hammer out a few more forms that we just haven't gotten to. In theory we should be able to use information from some others we did a few weeks ago, so they shouldn't take too long. The biggie is going to be him finishing his autobiography. If you know my husband, you know he is a man of few words. Writing something like that is difficult anyway, but I think for him it may be extra hard.
We are getting so close. Our goal is to get everything for the homestudy and the dossier in before we go "on vacation" (to remodel a daughter's bathroom) at the end of the week. We're throwing in that trip to Chicago to see Jack on Wednesday, so I'm feeling a little pressure.
How can you pray? Today there are two things that I would consider to be most urgent:
1. Ethan's employer to cough up the employment letter that he requested.
2. Its a really long story, but in a nutshell, my new physician here put in (old) extra information on my medical form. She has agreed it requires no treatment and that I'm healthy and a good candidate to adopt. However, she insists she needs to add these little notes as extra details. To my horror she even put notes in the margin with an arrow drawn down the page. The translation to Chinese is complicated, and they need the facts to stay simple. This has the potential of really gumming up the works and requiring extra visits to a specialist in Indiana who dismissed me from treatment over two years ago. THEN HE would have to submit a statement, have it notarized...you see the problem?
Thanks for remembering us!
