We have been fingerprinted a total of 3 times now! Well, actually I've been printed 4 times because one of the cards came back unreadable after 5 weeks of waiting for clearance. This time (Monday) at the USCIS office we were fingerprinted digitally, which was really quite fascinating and hopefully will result in better prints. Although several of my fingers had to be redone numerous times.
Besides getting our fingerprints on Monday we went to the Secretary of State to have 14 of our documents authenticated. Authenticated means that the Secretary of State acknowledges that the notary who notarized the document is indeed a notary with an active commission. Wouldn't you know it, 4 of the documents had problems! The notaries had written their commission expiration wrong. All I can say is it's a good thing we did a trial run before we are in a hurry to get things done. We will go back to get the remaining documents authenticated once we receive the I-171H.
I don't have an accurate time estimate to receive the I-171H (immigration approval), but I'd like to say it should be around a month, give or take a bit. In the meantime we are busy tying up loose ends with our dossier. It's mostly complete. Besides the I-171H, we have to finish writing our letter to the Ethiopian officials stating why we want to adopt a child from Ethiopia. Every time I start this letter my mind goes blank and I have no idea where to even start. I have started writing this letter so many times. It is such an important thing and I don't want to mess it up. I've had since July to think about it and now it's really the last piece we need to finish.
