Where are we now???

So once I finally decided to stop trying to stall this adoption I attacked the paperwork with a vengeance.  During the month of April and the first week of May we had 1 in person training session, 1 home inspection, 2 interviews at the agency office, 3 physical, fingerprints and filled out stacks of paperwork (I mean STACKS!).  We had out last interview for the home study the first week of May.  It took 3 weeks for us to get a draft to review and approve and then another 3 weeks after that for our social worker and agency to rewrite and edits and approve it again.  Currently our home study is with DCFS for approval (in Illinois all adoption home studies have to be approved from the state : )  They have had it for 2 weeks and 3 days, not that I am counting or anything.  We are hoping to get our home study back this week so that we can send off our next set of paperwork which is for immigration.

About 10 days ago I was browsing an advocacy site and found a woman talking about her birth certificate not be authenticated by the Chinese Embassy in D.C.  This raised a red flag with me, b/c  if you will remember with Konnor's adoption we had a HUGE problem with Mark's birth certificate.  Well come to find out this woman does have the same birth certificate as Mark.  Long story short, Mark was a military kid born overseas and his birth certificate come from the Department of State.  Apparently there is a disagreement between the DOS and the Chinese Embassy regarding a signature on this form.  Really!?!  You would think after 3 years they could get this issue fixed.  Anywhooo, it seems that some peoples forms are not being approved, but somehow others are getting theirs to go through.  So we are currently waiting on the DOS to get us a new copy of his birth certificate and we will immediately send it for authentication.  I am trying not to stress about this, b/c I know that it will all work out exactly as God has planned, most days this works.

So that is where we are right now.  At present we are just waiting, but things are moving along.  Feel free to stop by our current fundraiser at www.justlovecoffee.com/hendricksadoption for wonderful (and I do mean it is yummy) organic fair trade coffee, hot chocolate and apparel.