Recap - the happier stuff

So what's happening with our dossier you ask? Right now it's sitting in a FedEx sort facility in Frankfurt, Germany. It's been there for a couple of days now. The estimated delivery date is July 4th. That has got to be the most frequently checking tracking number ever issued by FedEx. I've almost got it memorized.

Since I last left you.... we took our entire dossier to a notary on a Saturday. We signed our lives away and made copies (of the papers - not our lives). Scanned and e-mailed everything to our agency for a fast review before hitting the road to Austin. There was one speedbump in that we were missing one form from the agency. Got that on Saturday... found a notary open before noon on a Sunday (that's a big deal in this town!). Hit the road Sunday afternoon for the state capitol.

Spent Sunday evening chatting with a yahoo group friend who lived in Uzbekistan for two years. We went through photo album after photo album and sipped tea from an authentic Uzbek tea set. I loved every minute of it. It truly made it seem more like a real place with real people than all of the websites I've been looking at. I can't wait to see it for myself.

Monday morning I headed out to the state's certification/apostille office. Mapquest lead me astray with a wrong way turn onto a one way street. Thankfully the building was on the corner and I just found a parking space and hoofed it the rest of the way. The process took just a few minutes. It was well worth the drive though when the woman "bundled" two documents that weren't supposed to be. I had listed them separately on the office's form and had not stapled them (everything else was stapled into bundles), but she bundled them because they were from the same notary. Not acceptable!!! I had her redo it and then our dossier had grown by about another six pieces of paper.

Tuesday I received the last packet from the adoption agency. Slipped that into the dossier and overnighted it to the courier in Washington D.C. (Caring Hands.... Highly recommend them!!!). By Wednesday our dossier was in our nation's capitol and headed to the Department of State the next morning. Friday afternoon it was back on its way to our house after getting an extra page of "official looking" stuff from the Dept. of State and an unintelligible stamp from the Uzbek embassy.

Monday afternoon it was back with FedEx and headed to our agency. Tuesday afternoon it was again with FedEx and on its way to Uzbekistan. That poor stack of paper must be getting dizzy after being whisked around the country so many times.

And now... we wait. I don't know how the referral process works from here exactly. I think it's going to involve some waiting. While I'm waiting... I think I'll check that FedEx tracking number again. It's been at least five minutes now.

Eating Frogs

I read an article in our local newspaper a couple of weeks ago where the author talked about sayings her grandmother used to have. "If you have to eat a frog, don't spend too much time looking at it before you have to put it in your mouth." and "If you have to eat two frogs, eat the largest one first."

Well, I've got a lot of frogs all lined up. We found out a couple of weeks ago that Mike is going to be deploying to one of those rather nasty middle Eastern locales. He'll be gone for almost nine months. (To anyone who might know or speak to our kids... they don't know yet!!!)

Next frog, our dog (who has been a part of my family longer than my husband) has been diagnosed with cancer. She's having surgery this week and we'll know more after that.

It's been a long couple of weeks. Adoption news has been a bright point in our lives, but still everything is overshadowed by the impending absence of my husband. How will this affect the adoption? We're not quite sure yet. Part of the reason we chose Uzbekistan is because we could still adopt if only one of us could travel. This was a worst case scenario we had at least considered. My questions now are how it will affect the paperwork and especially the re-adoption in the U.S.

So, for any military families considering adoption, bookmark this blog! We'll walk you through the process of adoption during deployment... or at least we hope to!

It's HERE!

'nuf said!

Friday - Nothing again...

Just came back from the mailbox. Nothing but a real estate flyer. We usually get a LOT more mail than that. I truly wonder if the postman decided not to "sort" mail today or something. Guess there's always tomorrow. :(

Advice to all prospective parents

I know it's tempting to register for all of those really cute little outfits at your favorite stores. The matching bedding/valences/stuffed animals just look adorable. Skip it all. What you REALLY need is a carpet steam cleaner! It is worth its weight in gold.

How have I spent my morning of waiting for the mail? I spent a large portion of it dealing with the aftermath of a 2 year old trying to feed a plastic giraffe 24 oz. of white grape & peach juice out of a 2 oz. plastic cup. Did he open the refrigerator on his own? Did a big brother leave the door slightly ajar? I may never know. Why in a house filled with tile flooring did he choose to use the bedroom carpet as his "pour location"? Ugh! Sticky! Sticky! Sticky! (On a positive note, at least THIS time he didn't use the water from the toilet!)

Of course, you can't JUST clean that one spot in the carpet. That one spot leads to the high traffic area in the hallway... the spot that was under the couch but isn't anymore because you moved it and finally just most of the living room because you've got hot soapy water left in the machine.

It's soon time to go to the mailbox... wish 75% of the family wasn't still in their pj's. Oops!

Another futile trip to the mailbox

You're probably wondering why I haven't updated recently. There's just not much to report. I'm still running to the mailbox every day with the great anticipation that surely TODAY will be the day that the I-171H will be there! Today I was so confident that I actually left the I-171H notarization cover sheet open in Word so that I could print off that very last page after I had the official information. But, alas, still nothing from the USCIS. The USPS must have the slow pony running the OKC to Dallas line or something.

Otherwise, after two very LATE nights, I have completed all of our photo pages and other dossier forms. Everything except that one form is complete and waiting for notarization, copying and authentication.

I feel like I'm that horse at the starting gate. I've got my riding gear on, at the starting line and just waiting for those doors to swing open. As soon as they do, I'll be running as fast as I can. If that silly form arrives tomorrow or Saturday, I have a carefully thought out (ok, developed this morning after 4 hours of sleep between pouring cereal in bowls and cutting pancakes) plan. It includes a trip to Austin on Sunday afternoon to meet up with a friend I met through a Yahoo! Group. Still haven't met in person, but she actually lived in Uzbekistan for two years. I'll be so excited to hear all of her stories and see any pictures she might have. Then it's off to the Secretary of State's office first thing Monday morning and home again in time for Mike to make it to work.

Did I mention I don't have a good backup plan yet? Maybe during breakfast tomorrow one will come to me! Does anyone else in this country get their mail delivered between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon???? Everywhere else I've ever lived, mail was a morning thing. I don't think I ever cared before now, but I need those extra couple of hours for notarization.

Let me leave you with the new family photo that we just did this past weekend.

Immigration JUST called!!!

I just got a phone call from someone with the USCIS. She said she needed copies of our child abuse clearances faxed to her and then everything would be complete and approved for our I-171H. Wow!!!! I called our wonderfully sweet home study social worker who has probably already faxed them by the time I finish this post.

The person from USCIS went on to say that our I-171H should hit the mail by Monday or Tuesday. So, now I have to get really serious about selecting photo's for our family photo pages and coming up with a plan to get to Austin in about a week. Again, wow!!! I can't believe how well everything is falling into place.