sign, sealed and DELIVERED!

As I mentioned in the earlier blog AWAA sent us this warning letter of all the things that could go wrong during the process of the delivery of our Dossier. It was all common things that they fully expect to happen and it would clear up and eventually our Dossier would get there. Well get this... in less than a week our Dossier has been delivered without a glitch! 

traveling Dossier (part 3)

Dubai, AE

the traveling Dossier (part 2)

paper Zoe has landed in Paris, France.

the traveling Dossier

As most of you know, we went DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) on Friday, September 24th. That is the first major milestone in the journey of Zoe! Our Agency has given us a tracking number, so we can be informed as the Dossier travels to Ethiopia. It was quite funny the email that they sent. They went ahead and wrote all the possible things that could go wrong while being sent over there and as they seem wrong it is really normal. At least they prepare you for all of the possibilities, so we don't freak out!

Currently our Dossier is in Germany.

One of the major networking tools that our Agency uses is a yahoo group. So, everyone that is in the Ethiopia program with AWAA belongs in the group. Someone in the group takes it apon themselves to create a non-official list of everyone DTE and puts it in order of referral. So, we are number 32 for a girl 0-12 months. This is another addicting thing to watch as our name moves up the list. AWAA will inform us when we are "on deck" meaning in the top 10.

For those of you that have the question, "when are yall getting her." The answer is I have no clue, but I can guess. It MIGHT go like this:

DTE: September 24

Referral: April

Trip 1: May

Trip 2: June

Now that all of the paperwork is done, we will be moving on to painting and decorating a PINK room. Being that there isn't an ounce of pink in this house, fixing up her room is a MAJOR thing for me. I just hope I can get what is in my head to actually appear!

We will also start reading some adoption books... there are lots of recommended books.

COMPLETED!

I am filled with so much joy and excitement. A LOT has happened just over the weekend. I know most of you have heard bits and pieces. 

On Friday night, we joined seven other AWAA families who all have or are currently adopting through the Ethiopia program. Yes, we brought all of ours kids, so it was rather crazy! It was great meeting everyone just knowing that all of the feelings and emotions you have or had, all the people in this room "get it". There was no explaining yourself. It was a lot of fun. We made some great friends that I can't wait to continue our journey with. 

Well, earlier Friday I took our entire Dossier to make all of the copies. You have to have 3 copies of every document. I made sure the whole thing was ready and waiting for one more document to come in the mail. So, I put everything in order and slipped in yellow papers where the last form belonged. That way when (in 3 weeks, so I thought) I would receive that one document, all I would have to do is go copy it and slip it in place. I was just preparing a head of time. Little did I know, I was not preparing for ahead of time. After we got home from our dinner with AWAA friends, we checked our mail (it comes at 6:30) and the ONE document came in. We could not believe it. I thought it would be a couple of weeks before receiving that document. We were SO excited.  

On Saturday we got the document Notarized and we slipped it in place. Our Dossier was COMPLETE! 

Sunday, we made sure everything was in order and Brian wrote the check!

Monday at 3:00, I took the Dossier to fedex and $52 later, I shipped our paper pregnancy off.  I game paper Zoe one last hug and it was over. The paperchase was DONE. 

This morning at 10:30 I received an email from our family coordinator: I received your dossier this morning and it is beautiful and complete!  Thank you for sending it.  It will undergo two staff checks and then be taken to the US Department of State and the Ethiopian Embassy for certification/authentication.  Assuming that all processing goes according to plan, your dossier will be sent to Ethiopia this Friday, meaning your official DTE is 9/24/2010.