SWEET!

Yesterday I received my first set of documents back from the Chinese embassy in San Francisco. Those of you familiar with the international adoption process know that you are required to provide a notarized, certified copy of just about every piece of paperwork on you in the world to the Chinese government. This includes, birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees, adoption petitions, financial statements, guardianship affadavits, and much more!

Anyway - the documents (of mine) that were created in WA State all had to go to the Secretary of State THERE for Certification, and the ones from Colorado went to the Sec of State here. Then the WA documents were sent to the Chinese embassy in San Francisco for Authentication, and the CO documents went to Chicago....long story short - I got the ones back from San Fran yesterday! So now I'm just waiting on Chicago (should be next week, I mailed them about a week apart!) and then the ever long-awaited I-171 H (immigration form). But since I got fingerprinted earlier this week - that should be processing as well...

I get SO excited everytime I go to the mailbox and I've completed another hurdle in this paperchase. I don't think people who haven't done it would even understand how tedious this process is. Thank god I'm a person who likes to fill out forms and is completely anal about details! Thanks for all the support from my online friends - and fellow paperchasers...the dream is still alive & kickin!