in waiting

We recently were fingerprinted (3 weeks ago) with USCIS (US immigration) for our i800a application. This application with its approval says we can adopt and bring a child into the US from another country. A caseworker will review our home study and our criminal background and then grant us this approval. We got our fingerprinting letter appointment weeks ahead of when we thought we would. WEEKS. We had a glimmer of hope that perhaps this part may go faster. Then we heard from several people and our agency that it's been taking 7 WEEKS for approval. It is only supposed to take 2-4 weeks.

So we wait. And stalk the mail.

Once we have this approval in our hands, it will go to the state to get apostilled. Think to notarize something that has already been notarized, but at the government level. We are fortunate that our agency will take it to Olympia on our behalf. Then this baby gets sent off to Bulgaria to get translated and gets submitted with our dossier. It is the last piece that we need to accompany our dossier (ALL OF OUR PAPERWORK). Then it will get accepted by the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) and then we get travel dates for trip 1!

We are not exactly sure when trip 1 will be... I *think* it will be March. I HOPE it is sooner.