It has been a long time since the last post! Hard to believe we've already celebrated the Fourth of July! The month of June specifically was quite a blur for us. Lots of documentation that we had to get in order. After we completed our home study, we felt very accomplished and thought our adoption process was nearing it's "waiting period" while we waited to get matched.
Well, we were wrong. We had NO idea all of the work for our Dossier was about to begin. The Dossier is a packet of information that includes our home study, as well as many other forms, letters, pictures, etc. that describe/reflect Austin & I. We had to get tax forms for past years, referral letters from our friends and family, police and medical clearances - just to name a few. We felt as though we had already done all of that work for our application to adopt, but now we were going into even greater detail than before, specifically for our child's birth country of South Africa! It was easy to get overwhelmed at the daunting task, but Austin's calm and strong leadership skills helped us organize our thoughts, and track down necessary paperwork. We again had to rely heavily on others around us. Not only did our amazing friends and family write recommendation letters for us, but much of the needed documentation was also to be notarized. Meaning a third party had to be present when signing the required piece of paperwork. Our close friend is a notary and her help has been tremendous. Our individual doctors also have been happy to help in this crazy journey!
About two weeks ago we got our fingerprints done. That was the final step we had to take individually for our USCIS approval. Instead of ink being involved, there were scanners that just scanned our fingers, and the print showed up on the screen. It was cool to see technology used in that unique way. Now, we wait for USCIS to process our fingerprints and give us the last form we need for our Dossier. We are thinking in the next two weeks we should be receiving that. Then, we need to send all of our documents (it's at least got to be 100 pages by now!) to the Secretary of State to get apostilled and we will send it to our agency to look it over and then off to South Africa it will go. What a great feeling that will be! Our target is for that to all be done by August. Before we know it August will be here! We pray with God's faithfulness we will have that step accomplished by our goal date, if not, His plan is wiser than ours!
Meanwhile, Austin & I have also gotten to experience a couple of weddings this Summer which has kept us busy! My amazing brother and his beautiful wife tied the knot in Wisconsin in June, friends got hitched in Georgia and this weekend we are New York bound for my college roommates wedding!! Lots of love surrounding us :) Best events to go to! So much fun to get to experience them with my husband and best friend! Brings back the best day of our lives.
I hope everyone is enjoying a fun, safe summer! I'm sure it's going as quickly as ours is, summer always has a tendency to do that...unlike winter...
In His Love,
Meg & Austin
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