OFFICIALLY WAITING!

We got our E-mail today!!!  Our dossier is back in St. Louis from Washington D.C. and we are officially a waiting family!  More information to come, but I COULDN'T WAIT to share!!!

On the Way to DC!!

I wanted to share some E-mail correspondence between us and Ashley, our social worker with CHI:

This one came from Ashley yesterday, December 13th:

Dear Jennifer & Trevor Chase,



We have received your dossier and dossier fee in our office today and will be reviewing it over the next couple of days to ensure that everything is in order. If there are any adjustments that need to be made, we will contact you and/or your social worker, always keeping you informed. After we ensure that everything is accurate in the dossier, it will be sent to Washington, D.C. for authentication and bundling at the U.S. Department of State and the Ethiopia Embassy. The time frame from this point until your dossier is 100% complete could be 1 1/2 to 2 weeks.


Once your dossier is returned from Washington, DC you will be added to the referral waiting list and will become a waiting family. You will be sent an email letting you know your status at that time and the process from that point. We are no longer sending dossiers directly to Ethiopia once it is completed, as there is currently a lack of space. Instead we will be holding the dossiers in the St. Louis office until such time that it is sent to Ethiopia. Since no one reviews your dossier in country prior to you receiving a referral, there are no steps missed by having your dossier remain in our home office.


Congratulations on having this huge step behind you!! You're one step closer to bringing your child home.


Blessings,

Ashley

And then, we received this one from her today, December 14th:

Dear Chase Family-


I just got finished reviewing your completed dossier and everything looks great! I will be preparing it for authentication and it will be sent to Washington DC on Thursday. It will take 1-2 weeks to return from Washington DC and then you will be added to the official waiting list.

At this time, please confirm with me your preference for the waiting families list in regards to number of children, gender, age, and health. This will be what I use to match children with you in the future.

Congrats on being paperwork ready! This is a huge accomplishment!

So, there it is...our dossier is on its way to Washington DC to be Authenticated!  We are that much closer to bringing our babies home!!  By the way, we gave our preference for two children, either gender, 0-3 years old.

We're almost an official "waiting family"!

Out of Our Hands, But Still Completely in His!

To say the last forty-eightish hours have been a whirlwind is a total understatement!  If you know me at all, you know that when I get an idea in my head, there is NO STOPPING me!  So, when I came home on Thursday afternoon to our 1-171H (Fingerprinting Approval) and realized that we were ready for the next step in our adoption process, I was BESIDE myself.  No joking...I was shaking with excitement about what that one piece of paper meant for our family!!

So, I loaded the kids back in the Passport and headed to our bank, but...no notary still working.  Bank #2 had a notary, but since Trev wasn't with me (he was supervising a game), she couldn't notarize it.  I was afraid that my sense of urgency was going to be in vain, so I talked with Trev and devised the next day's plan.  He couldn't get off work, and I didn't want to go to Kansas City by myself, so on Friday morning, I asked my friend, Erin, if she and her daughter, Lydia, wanted to join Melia and myself on a quick roadtrip.  And, like the amazing friend that she is, she agreed (seriously, Erin, thank you so much for going with us!!).

I worked the first half of the day and then picked up Melia, Erin, and Lydia and off we went.  After a couple of hours on the road, we made it to this building...

 ...rode the elevator to the 5th floor...

...to this office...

...where the girls found Ethiopia on the globe while I filled out paperwork.

The sort-of kind gentleman told us it would be a couple of hours, so we went to Crown Center, where they were all set up for Christmas.  The girls found some things to climb on...

 ...a fountain to pose sit by and throw coins into...

 ...a really COOL gingerbread village...

 ...and, of course, some ice cream!

 On the way back to the SoS office (they were done with our documents within 45 minutes), we went a little random prehistoric.  *Note the Christmas spirit on this t-rex!*

 Then, this morning, Trev and I went and made copies of all 21 documents, laid them all out to double-check and make sure we had everything exactly like it needed to be...

 ...stuck it in the envelope and went to the CJ Post Office to overnight it to CHI!! :)

And so the paper chase comes to a close.  CHI will check to make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed and if it all looks perfect, they will send it to DC to be authenticated. 

It is SO CRAZY to think that we are at this point.  It is becoming so real that our babies will be home before we know it!!  Please join us in prayer for three specific things: that things go smoothly with the authentication, for patience for us as we wait, and that God would provide the nearly $12,000 we will need to accept our referral when it's time.  It's ALL in His timing, and it's all in His hands!