moving along...

Well, we got our fingerprint appointment for next saturday for USCIS and our premilinary home study report came today, awaiting still bill's dr report and 2 rec letters. But things are on the move.! Elijah, we're coming slowly but surely! In other news, we took emilia to the aqwuarium today to see her beloved hippo and our friend wendy and baby delaney. Then, dinner with daddy downtown at Parc, a really great french bistro. it's so darn cold though-- spring, hurry up!!

Then a miracle occurs

my wordier earlier blog got deleated so here's the low down:
10 simple, easy to follow steps left till our family grows and God blesses us with a second "greatest gift!"

1. finish getting 2 final letters of recommendation
2. get bill's dr letter notarized after 3 failed attempts to get dr to fill form in first place!
3. get fingerprint appt w/ USCIS and approval of fingerprints. shouldn't be hard, since 2 other vast computer networks already have "approved" my fingerprints...
4.submit remaining documents to social worker for homestudy
5. get USCIS approval
6. send dossier to Rwanda embassy for notarization
7. send dossier to Rwanda
8. get approval from ministiry of gender and referral from orphanage
9. then a miracle happens!
10. Baby!

Home Study over, sort of...

Well, I'm a little behind but we did have our homestudy on the 29th of December with Megan Rasmutten and it went very well, but she did say we have too many pets (is 3 cats and 2 dogs too many? :) But I think it's ok :) But we didn't have all of our documents together yet so we need to get her more things before she can write our reports. Bill's state fingerprint clearance arrived about a week ago, which was good. The homestudy was WAY less involved than I imagined. We cleaned frantically and installed missing cabinet locks (that we should have anyway!) before she came, but she really just wanted to meet us and see our motivations for adoption. I'm feeling sluggish in the paperwork again. I have to go get a money order for the I-600 and I've been waiting to do it for almost 2 weeks now. I also need to : Get my midwife to sign off on all my test results, get A letter from E's pediatrician saying she's healthy and receives regular exams/care/etc, write my autobiography, write a letter of intoroduction to the Rwanda minister, dig out two of my recent paychecks, get Bill to get 2 letters of reccomendation, pick up my notarized letter from my regular physician, bring bill's physician letter back to the doctors since she never signed it either, and also arrange the notary to come and notarize it, go get the money order for the 1-600, and i think...thats....it....for....now. You can see this is A LOT of paperwork. I get so overwhelmed instead of doing one or two I want to do them ALL, then that is too overwhelming so i do NONE. Sigh. I need some motivation!
In economic news, i'm sad to say I think we;re going to lay off our nanny and put E in day care to save some money and pay off bills. Yuck. now she's gonna get sick all the time. If you know any nice, cheap :) nannies in philly, let us know!!