The Paper Work Pregnancy Continues

I am up to my ears in adoption paperwork, but I'm making a ton of progress. I've completed virtually everything I can get done by myself and I'm just waiting on some documents others are getting to me. Here's a list of things we've done over the past two weeks.

DONE:
1. Personal History Form (for both Andy & me)
2. Signed Releases of Information (2)
3. Certificate of Identity
4. Financial Information Forms (one for home study/ one for dossier)
5. Guardianship Form
6. Reviewed and signed Discipline Philosophy and Policy
7. Education Agreement
8. Receipt of Complaint Resolution
9. Both Andy & I got two set of fingerprints done
10. Employment verification for home study
11. CIS Cover Sheet
12. I-600A document
13. Medical insurance/ life insurance/ disability insurance info gathered
14. Copied last 2 years of tax returns
15. Printed last 2 bank statements
16. Wrote Application Letter to Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs
17. Wrote Letter of Non-Employment (for myself) to MWCA
18. Ordered/ Received an updated copy of my birth certificate (who knew those things get outdated?!)
19. Sent Post Placement Commitment to home study agency
20. Made copies of Andy & my passport
21. Had 2 passport photos taken
22. Prepared Family Photo Pages

STILL WAITING ON:
1. Andy's birth certificate to arrive
2. Our marriage certificate to arrive
3. Physical exams for both of us (scheduled for Friday morning)
4. 3 letters of reference to be written and returned to me
5. Policy clearance letters (to be attained and notarized on Friday)
6. Andy's Passport Photos (to be taken Friday)
7. Notaries on lots of document (Friday)
8. Need to complete 10 hours of "education"

On Friday I will have all of the necessary documents to be sent to our home study agency. They will then begin the review process, interview us several times, and write a report. Once the report is written and approved, I can send all of my dossier documents to be county and state certified. Then our adoption agency will review the final product and ship it off to Ethiopia.

I'm not sure how long the process listed in that last paragraph will take. At that point, it's really out of my hands. However, I feel like gathering all of the documents has gone much more quickly than I anticipated. We mailed in our application to AWAA on October 5, one month ago. We heard back from them 2 weeks later, and now I'm almost done with my end of the paperwork! (The end reward of this adoption process is highly motivating to me!)

Once the dossier is sent to Ethiopia, we will begin our official "waiting" for our referal. I heard this week that the typical wait time for a boy toddler is 5-7 months. Wow! I am getting super excited!!!

Below are the pics I sent in for our Family Photo Pages. You have to have one of the outside of where you live, one of the room in your house where you spend the most time, and 6 family shots.