Light at the end of the tunnel

I think I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've been thinking this for a little while but my theory is that if you think you see the light at the end of the tunnel you should give it just a little time to make sure it is not just another train coming. :)

The light I see is the end in sight to all of this adoption paperwork. Today both of our managers signed letters stating that really do have jobs and we really do make the salary that we said. I also finished prepping our remaining documents so that all we have to do is sign them in front of a notary.

There are 2 parts to adoption paperwork. Here is what we have left for each:

For the homestudy: (This is the US side of getting approved.)
- Wait for our homestudy to be completed. (We have done our part, just waiting for the social worker to complete her report.)
Then...
- Once the homestudy is done the agency sends an immigration form to the US government so that we can get pre-permission for our kids to immigrate.
- Once we get the immigration approval we go on the wait list to find our babies.

For the dossier: (This is the Ethiopian side of getting approved. You don't have to do a dossier if you adopt from the US but any international adoption requires it.) This part doesn't have to be done in order to get on the wait list but it does have to be done before we can go get our kids so of course I am doing it now.
- Redo 1 form from the police dept because we didn't ask to have it on letterhead the first time around. This was a time consuming the first time so a little painful to have to do again but not the end of the world.
- Wait for the postal service to deliver 2 reference letters that friends have done for us.
- Sign about 6 or 7 documents in front of a notary. (I have them all ready to go.)
- Send all of these prior listed documents to WA state to have all of the notaries authenticated (confirming that the notaries really are notaries).
- Send the one friend's reference letter to KS state to have that notary authenticated (confirming that her notary really is a notary in KS). All of this authenticating might sound crazy but in some states you have to have your documents authenticated by the county and then the state. And unless you were both born, married, work, and have all your friends in the same county you would then have to send to all of those different counties. So we have to count ourselves lucky to not be in one of these states.
- Send all of these documents to Ethiopia.

This might sound like alot left to do but if you look at my post back in May when I shared our "checklist" you can see that we have made some serious progress.

I have heard that the waiting list part is the most difficult. I hope that is not true because I have found the paperwork phase to be pretty stressful. I keep thinking that my kids are sitting all alone in an orphanage somewhere because I can't or won't move fast enough to go get them. I would like to think that once we have done our part I can feel some peace about that and know that once we are on the waitlist it is about us waiting for them and not them waiting for us.

I have plans that once our paperwork is done and once I have finished school in December, I will vent my energy on projects. Our house is plenty big enough for 2 of us but it will get alot smaller once we have 4+ people living here. So my idea is that if I do projects to make efficient use of our space we will feel more comfortable. Installing extra shelves in some closets, cleaning out junk, etc.

I guess I am never happy unless I am tackling something big but I am pretty excited to finally see some light at the end of this tunnel.