Our Dossier is on its way to Ethiopia!

And this is what it took to get it there......



Mailed Application to AAI (Adoption Advocates International) early February

Home study February 23, 2008 with Randy Barlow, Adoption Pros Abroad

Received home study draft, February 29 (super fast)

Received contract from AAI- March 13 (expected end of April)

Received Texas Child Abuse Registry Reports – March 16

DHL I600A to Athens Greece – March 17 (still need to send home study and agency name and departure dates)

Wired $670.00 to US Embassy in Athens, Greece – March 18

Attempted to get Police Clearances from Doha – March 19, 2008 – we need to get letters from our embassy saying we have a clear record in the US, before they will do the local police clearances.

Lynn gets fingerprinted at local CID - March 20, 2008

March 24, 2008- Unfortunately we still have to get local clearances to finish up home study. I am going tomorrow to Embassy to see if they will write a letter for us stating we do not have a criminal record in the USA based on search I did on the internet. I’m praying they will! If not we have to send our fingerprints to get checked and that could take a while. (They would not!!)

March 25, 2008 – Bill mails contract back to AAI in Port Angeles Washington by regular mail. We will see how long it takes to get there. They will send us the dossier packet soon.

March 27, 2008 – Bill gets fingerprinted by local police station. I get everything ready to mail to Texas and to FBI for police clearances. I hope this works.

March 29, 2008 – I DHLed FBI clearances. Bill mails TX clearances later this week

April 7 American Express processed payment to FBI for record request

April 14 Texas Department cleared check for police check request

April 17 We get our dossier packet…yippee! Now I have to get to work on getting it ready, but we are still waiting to hear back from FBI and Texas police clearances.

April 20, 2008 We got our FBI clearances today. I also found out that Dr. K is out of town until May 20…eeek. Got our very official Texas police clearances, too.

April 30, 2008 Dr. K is back and I have our medicals.

May 21, 2008 We went to the Embassy to get everything notarized and the notary would not do our birth certificate copies and our marriage license.

May 28, 2008 We finally have both our letters from the Embassy stating we have no record in the US and I took them to the police station here to get a police clearance. The first trip I forgot the passport pictures. The second time I had only one picture and needed two. The helpful man went ahead and processed them and said bring the pics when I come to pick them up. The clerk said 20 days….I don’t have 20 days, so I asked helpful man and he said come back next Wednesday. If they have it ready, we will email to Randy and we will be finished with our homestudy.

Still need Bill’s employment letter, certified copy of our marriage license and a letter from our bank. Should get the employment letter on Sunday. I will get the m. license and bank letter in TX and Fed Ex it to AAI when I am home in June.

Bill got his employment letter on June 2, 2008 He needs to take it to the embassy to be notarized.

Today, I am going to pick up the long awaited local police clearances, June 4, 2008. I will scan and send to Randy and then our home study will be complete. Yahoo!

I had all intentions of arriving in the US and getting the necessary marriage license and bank letter and having everything sent to our agency by mid or end of June. Alas, our home study had an error on the last page where it was signed and dated by the notary and we had to get new copies of the home study. It took a while. Also, one of our friends had yet to submit her reference letter, which she sent shortly after my reminder. Also, we needed a letter from our accountant that stated we were filing an extension on our taxes. Well, needless to say all this took a while but I can finally say that TODAY, August 20, 2008 I got a letter from our agency that all our documents are in order and our dossier is ready to be assembled and sent to Ethiopia. Now we can be on the waiting list. Yippee! It took us about 4 months to assemble the dossier…not bad for living overseas.

We also were able to be fingerprinted in Houston for USCIS on Friday, August 15. So everything is in order for our immigration stuff.


TODAY, August 22, 2008 from an email from our agency
"Your Dossier was assembled into final form and shipped to Ethiopia yesterday. You are now on the referral waiting list. Typically families wait 4-8 months for the referral of a child under seven years of age. Those families requesting young sibling sets or single toddler children frequently wait 8-12 months for a referral. Please feel free to check-in each month regarding your position on the referral waiting list."