Running in circles

I feel like everything is happening SO fast! We were locally approved Wednesday and had our first meeting with the director of the agency Thursday. They still have to send our file up to corporate headquarters for final approval, but they didn't see any reason why it wouldn't be approved. We went ahead and mailed our I-600-A, which is the government's form for adoption. It can take 3 months for them to do their part. Here's how it all should work:

The government (CIS) gets my request for adoption. In the meantime, I get my homestudy done (a couple interviews, an in-home visit, lots of worksheets and papers to gather), they send it in to CIS to go with my request. CIS sends us an 'invitation' to get fingerprinted downtown. Then they send me a 171 approval form. Once I have that, I compile a stack of paperwork called a dossier. I can't start working on the dossier yet because nothing can be dated older than 6 months, and CIS may take 3 months from now before they get their part done.

So, once I have my dossier compiled, everything has to be notarized. Then I have to send it all to the Secretary of State and have it certified. Then I have to send it to D.C. to have it authenticated. Once everything is notarized, certified, and authenticated, I send it to CHI and they send it to Vietnam for translation. Shortly thereafter (weeks), we get a referral. This will consist of a picture of the child they have chosen for us, as well as medical information. If we accept, we will travel 3-4 months after that to pick up our baby!

To speed things up, I requested they start our home study ASAP. No problem! We have our seperate interviews on Monday and our in-home Tuesday morning. For the home study, we have to have employment letters, police records, medical statement, financial statement, copies of tax return, life insurance, medical insurance, auto insurance, and many other things. So, it's been hectic.

I spent yesterday visiting our doctor for a statement of health, the police department for a criminal background check (and since Chris wasn't with me, I couldn't get his!), then pawing through my files looking for all the necessary paperwork. We stayed up until 10pm filling out worksheets. We got up at 5 and started working on our autobiographies. Mine took about 4 hours and consisted of 10 pages (single spaced). Chris hasn't finished his yet. Then we took the dogs to the groomer for baths and haircuts. Then we spent the rest of the day cleaning the house. It's sparkling now. All we have to do is keep it that way for 3 days. Tomorrow, we work on the yard (just mowing). Tomorrow should be much more calm. We're pretty much done with the paperwork, except a couple things that have to wait until Monday.