5 Months 26 Days All Lead to Today

Today we are DTE! For those of you who aren't down with the lingo that means: Dossier to Ethiopia. What is a dossier you ask? Well the dossier is essentially all the documents that are required by the Ethiopian government to review our petition to adopt. As I am sure you can imagine it has been quite the process to gather all the necessary documents. Just to give you an idea of what all was included here is a list of everything that was included:

1. 4 - Family Photo Pages
2. Copies of our Passports
3. State Certified, County Certified, Notarized Power of Attorney
4. State Certified, County Certified, Notarized Dossier Cover Sheet
5. Application Letter to the Ministry of Women & Children's Affairs in Ethiopia
6. Copies both our Birth Certificates
7. Copy of Marriage Licence
8. Notarized Copies of Physical Exams for both of us
9. Notarized Proof of Health Insurance (including proof that insurance covers adopted child)
   
10. Notarized Proof of Life Insurance for both of us
11. Notarized Financial Statement
12. Notarized Employment Letters for both of us
13. Notarized Home Study
14. 3 - Notarized Letter of Reference
15. Notarized Background Checks (Local & State)
16. Notarized Copy of our I-171H Visa
17. Notarized Post Placement Commitment
18. Hague Adoption Training Certificates for both of us

As you can imagine we needed every day of the last 5 months and 26 days to get this point and we are ECSTATIC to have our dossier finally sent to Ethiopia (yes we will anxiously be checking the tracking number every day until it arrives safely in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!). What now? Well, we wait! We will eventually receive a "waiting number" and of course will let you know what that number is as soon as we can. So don't go anywhere! We'll be here with lots more updates and information about Ethiopia. We THANK GOD for bringing us this far in the adoption process and know He has our son safe in his arms.