Our I-171H has arrived....finally

Today we received our I-171H in the mail!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!! So excited!!! When I opened the envelope my eyes were seraching it all to make sure it was the real thing. On June 5th we received a letter from them saying they needed the orginial letter from DCFS, not the copy that was sent to them in May. I thought it would say I-171H real big across the top, no- its teeny tiny down in the corner. After I realized that this was the paper we have been waiting for since we applied for it back in February, I started to cry. I felt like we were never going to get to this point in the process, so that we finally had all the papers we needed and we are able to send our Dossier in made it all real to me. I don't even know how to describe all the emotions I was feeling this afternoon. I was so overwhelmed with a wonderful feeling and felt like we were moving in the right direction-forward!!!! Something of ours will be in Ethiopia soon!!!!!

So I sat down to make sure all the papers were in order and ready to be mailed off. I realized that we needed a copy of the orginial notarized, so I rushed off to our church to get it notarized- thank you Wilda!! I was crying all the way there and thought I needed to get it together before I get to church, ha!

Here are all the papers we needed to submit our Dossier. We have been collecting these and waiting for different pieces to be approved and come in since the begining of January. We are happy to let them leave our house!!

Brad has come home everyday for the last month checking the mailbox for an envelope from USCIS, but today Brad was coaching volleyball this afternoon, so I checked the mail. I sent him a text message that said , "Hurry home...I have an important job for you to do." He thought I wanted him to clean up a mess from our cat or dog or something...lol. He said once he pulled into the driveway he thought it might be about our I-171H. He came in was so excited that it was here and that he didn't have a mess from an animal to clean up!!! He made the last copies we needed then took the box to UPS while I had to go coach tennis. We sent the Dossier to AWAA overnight for $48.84...wasn't expecting that. Oh well its been submitted and it feels great!!

Finally tonight we celebrated with pizza and a walk and we keep talking about how excited we are to finally get our Dossier all turned in and that we are that much closer to our child!!!

So now we wait to hear from AWAA if it was all approved and then it will be translated and sent to Ethiopia within 1-3 weeks. Then we will get our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) date and be on the waiting list to be matched with our child(ren). Our request is an infant 0-6 months either gender, or siblings-one an infant 0-6 months and one under 4years old, or infant twins 0-6 months. We will just wait to see who God has planned to be a part of our family!!