Secretary of State visit

When I updated last week I have to admit I was freaking out a little bit about getting things verified for our dossier before the state shutdown starts on Friday. Today I am feeling relieved that our documents are verified, and also a little bit foolish.

Yesterday Scott picked up the final document we need to have verified. I also called the Ethiopia coordinator at our agency to see if I was bringing in all of the right documents. I found out some interesting things from M.

Now, I don't know if I have ever mentioned that we are not a part of the Ethiopia program yet, and we won't be accepted until after our homestudy and all other documents are complete and at the agency. I found out that we don't go on the waiting list until our immigration paperwork is approved by the government, which has been taking about 2-1/2 months (or 75 days from the time it is turned in). The immigration paperwork cannot be turned in until our homestudy is completed by the local agency and is approved by the international agency. Our homestudy won't be complete for about 2 months. We are waiting to hear from S., our social worker, to set up a homestudy visit. Once that is done we wait while she writes the homestudy document. That could take 1-2 months. Now, our dossier doesn't have to be sent to Ethiopia right away when we get on the waitlist.

So, the documents we had verified today probably won't be needed for at least 4 months, which is why I am feeling foolish. Oh, well! One less thing to do later, I guess!