A huge sigh of relief...

Today in the mail...I received...yes, you guessed it! Our homestudy report is finally in our hands! I am so relieved. I cannot even begin to explain the relief.

I'm so thankful that this part of our process is over.

Next step...mail our I600A form to Atlanta and await our fingerprinting appointment.

I'll have our dossier in the mail to AAI in the next few days.

Then we're about halfway there. We just need to pray that we get our fingerprinting appointment quickly. It could take us anywhere from no time up to a few months for that part of the process. I would love to have this part finished before Christmas.

After USCIS stuff, the wait for a referral begins.

This is really happening!

YIPPPPEEEE!

If you can't tell, I'm just a little excited! Why, you ask? Well, 30 minutes ago, I emailed the OK to our homestudy agency for our report draft. And that, my friends, is such a load off.

What's next, you may ask? Hopefully next week we will have 3 copies of the report in our hands. One report for AAI, one for the USCIS paperwork, and one copy for us. Our dossier is just about completed (with the exception of final notarizing, and a few more passport-sized photos) then we can mail off our end of the process.

Our I600A application will be mailed off to USCIS next week, as soon as we have our homestudy in our eager little hands.

Then the wait begins.

So that's all I know for now. I'll let you know what I know when I know it!

The end is in sight!

Well...the end of the homestudy process anyway! This part has taken longer than we expected. Like 3 months longer. I received an email this afternoon from our new caseworker. Bless her heart...she has been so bogged down with extra homestudies that she shouldn't have had to mess with...but praise the Lord, she's about done with ours! So after several phone calls to the DFCS office (those people are near to impossible) and a couple of visits (to DFCS) for our last paper, the light is getting brighter!

Hi Shana,

I have the DFCS clearance! Technically this is supposed to come from the DFCS office fax (rather than the family) so I will need the original one by mail. Please put that in the mail today, ok?
I am not about to ask you to have them fax it to us again under the circumstances.

I am off the hook for jury duty today. My plan is to finish your homestudy tonite – but I may have a few questions so if you can, please check your email periodically. I will email you if I have any questions. So, look for a few emails from me and/or a draft copy to review.

As soon as the draft is approved by you, I will print several copies and get them in the mail to you. Please let me know if they need to be notarized. Assuming Im on jury duty tomorrow, that may be hard for me to take care of immediately, so just let me know.

Thanks!
S****

I never thought I would be so glad to see anything finished. Of course, this just means that we're on to the next step of waiting! But that's okay...one down, a few more to go!

We're coming sweet girl!