Dossier Drama

*WARNING* This post is a little whiny; I just really needed to vent about this process a little!

So we are down to needing just three more documents for our dossier to be complete, and we are having a lot of trouble.

1) We need a letter from our health insurance provider stating that we have coverage and that we can add our adopted child to the policy. I don't see why this is such a big deal. We have coverage, we pay a substantial amount each month for this coverage, and legally they have to add our child once the adoption is finalized. The provider, however, states that they are not allowed to provide such documents or make those claims for legal reasons. We have been fighting with them for over a month now, and have spoken with the supervisors, supervisor, supervisor, and so on. They will just send us letter after letter stating that we are "eligible" for coverage with a computer-generated signature (not a real ink signature). There are over 2,500 adoptions from Ethiopia each year, all of which require this statement, surely we are not the first to make this request; our provider is a national brand.

2) We need a local police clearance letter. This is a letter from our local police department stating that we are not criminals. I don't know why this is needed since we have already had a state background check, two FBI clearances, and child abuse and neglect checks, but it's an Ethiopian requirement. Our local police also refuse to provide this letter stating that they cut that service a few years ago. So, we have been cleared to have a Kentucky State Police (tell me how that's different than state criminal check and FBI?) clearance as a substitute for this requirement. We sent this form off yesterday and are hoping it doesn't take long to process.

3) Finally, we need a letter from Warren's life insurance provider stating that he has a policy and the value of that policy. So far they have sent this 25 page confirmation packet that no one will ever be able to translate into Amharic....We're just looking for one simple paragraph with a letterhead and signature.

So needless to say we are a little stressed. Everything else is falling into place - we should get our fingerprint appointments for USCIS (yet another FBI check) soon with our approval by October. At that time, given the three above documents come in, our dossier will be complete and sent on for authentication in Washington, D.C and then to the Ethiopian Embassy and finally on to Ethiopia!

We are so eager to have our Abijah (or Selah) home! We have been told many times that our lives are going to change once he arrives: yes we know, and we can't wait!!!

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, they mean the world to us!

Moving On

We have "officially" had our home study approved!

Because our home study has been completed for a while, just working on wording that Ethiopia likes more, we have already started our Dossier. This is a huge packet of information that will be sent along with our home study to Ethiopia. We are working hard to get all these documents together, but since they all have to be notarized by the person we are requesting them from, it is taking much longer than we would like.

We just finished our paperwork for USCIS (immigration paperwork to bring orphan into the US) and are waiting on our notarized copy of the home study to send along with it. Really hoping that it arrives before the end of the week. Once USCIS has our paperwork, they will notify us of our appointment for FBI background checks, which we will have to go to either Louisville or Cincinnati to complete. The total processing time for USCIS is about 90 days.

We are hoping to be finished with our Dossier by the time our USCIS approval arrives.

Did I mention that this is a long and tedious process? Oy! I know that it will all be worth it when I see the sweet face our our child!