Finally!

We have our CIS letter!!!!
Hans sent everything else to our agency this morning, it should be there by Friday. The last step is getting this letter authenticated. By this time next week, every scrap of paper should be out of our hands and our dossier completed. Yay!

Stamped!

Today was spent in Den Haag (The Hague) getting Dutch documents authenticated: Hans' declaration that he owns his business, our legal marriage certificate and our Dutch police checks. First we went to the Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) where 2 were stamped but one was not: Hans' business declaration because....the signature of the accountant was not properly notarized (which Hans had asked about 3 times and was told it wasn't neccessary grrrrr). Anyway, over to the Vietnamese Embassy to have the other two authenticated, which was a snap.

Kerry in front of the Vietnamese Embassy :)

We are sooooo stamped

As I type, Hans is meeting the accountant to have his signature stamped. Since he's going to London tomorrow for the rest of the week for a conference, we will venture back to Den Haag next Monday to visit the MvBZ and Embassy again. The good news is that we can just about see the end of this paperchasing! Still waiting for our CIS letters of course.

Something else we have decided is that when we find out if our baby is a boy or a girl, we will be keeping it a secret until we pick him/her up. We will tell people approximately how old the baby will be, but details like our referral photo, gender and name we pick will be hush. We want it to be a surprise! Hans is not so sure I can do it, and even though it will be reeeeeaaally hard, I can be strong.

This is a shot I took yesterday morning at the end of our street. Very Dutch. Canal, beat up bike...

Monday I start my new work schedule: 4 days per week- Mondays off! *sigh*

So it's been a great week to feel free from the stressful wait for the FBI to clear our prints. No, it's not that we were worried about whether or not they would clear, it was how long it would take, if they would get lost, weren't clear enough prints, etc. But I've had fun telling people that we aren't felons when they ask how our process is going. I say, 'We are so relieved! We weren't sure how that was going to pan out.'

Now we are waiting for the actual letter from CIS. Monday we head to Den Haag (the Hague) to have 3 of our Dutch documents authenticated. Next Wednesday we speak with our agency director via skype (so we can see each other) to check that everything is in order, then off it goes to the States. The only thing I see as being a minor headache is getting our CIS letter notarized. Completing an International adoption via an American agency while married to a non-US citizen and living in Europe spices stuff up to say the least. Ah well. I think the the worst of the paperwork is over.

If you read this, please put some prayers or good thoughts out to protect the monks and other peaceful people protesting in Burma (Myanmar).

WE ARE NOT FELONS!!!!

The CIS office in Frankfurt called. My prints cleared on Friday and they are judicating our papers this week. We should get our letters soon! A weight of about a million-zillion tons has been lifted!!!!!!!

(not that there was any reason to worry by the way....)

Not my best moment

I called the CIS office today. Hans' fingerprints came back fine today but mine were rejected because I forgot to fill in my birthdate. Me, the compulsive check-everything-a-million-times-girl. How did I react? I burst into tears on the phone with CIS lady. She assured me that it wouldn't take 5 weeks again, that she already sent the card back with my birthdate and will see if she can forward my prints again via email with a high resolution copy to make it faster. Either way she promised it wouldn't be long.

I feel so incredibly stupid right now. All I want to do is cry but I can't because I'm at work.

Trying not to obsess

Another week and still no CIS letter. It's hard not to get down about it. I called on Wednesday and was told they were expecting our prints back any day now....

Something really cool: Our agency has started a yahoo group just for those of us adopting with them in the Viet Nam program. It's small, members at all stages (a few waiting for travel dates!!!) and backgrounds.

This shot was taken while cycling home from doing some errands this morning!

This is not earth shattering news, but I spoke to the nice woman Kathy at the CIS office (the one I was stalking while our papers were being collected) in Frankfurt yesterday and apparently our application is fine, they are just waiting for the results of our fingerprints.

Did I mention we are waiting?

Our application and all appropriate documents are finally together at the CIS office in Frankfurt.
Now we wait.

*sigh*

I have been stalking the CIS office for days now to see if they have received our application, fingerprints and other docs. I'm not sure if it's a good thing that the very nice (and patient) woman who answered the phone each time recognized my voice today before I was able to tell her who I was (yikes).

Anyway, they have our packet! Just waiting for them to get Hans' birth certificate and our Homestudy- I will try not to call again till friday.

Keeping busy

I called the CIS office on Thursday to see if our application and documents arrived. The woman I spoke to was very nice and assured me that even though our Homestudy and Hans' birth certificate would be arriving seperate from our application, they would not send anything back even if we were not logged into the system yet. Yesterday I tracked our package on the post site and it has indeed been delivered and signed for. No, I'm not neurotic.

We've had a chill weekend which has been nice. I didn't get any books bound but I did get some new pendants done. Not my usual round ones, but I think these came out well!

Bijna klaar/Almost done!

I mailed the English translation of Hans' birth certificate to CIS in Frankfurt today. That means that our application for CIS is done. And as long as our Homestudy arrives safe and sound from our SW's agency, we should be good to go. Just a few more weeks and we will finally be able to submit all docs for our dossier...I imagine that will be a crazy few days. For now though, we feel relieved that this step is done. Fingers crossed it there aren't any glitches.

My copy of Harry Potter arrived today! Thanks mum :)

We spent last night organizing our docs and I-600A application to send to CIS in Frankfurt for processing (the one with our fingerprints). Finally!

While standing in line at the post office this morning I took one more look at everything. Good thing I'm a little OCD because in very tiny print on the application I saw: "use black ink". Naturally, I had filled it in with blue. But for the payment form at the top said, "Use blue ink". I had completed that one first and just kept using the same pen. Went back home, found a black pen, printed out a new one, filled it out, went back to the post office and finally got to work at 12:30.

But the good news is that it's done and should arrive at the Consulate tomorrow. And it only makes sense that because our SW insisted that we send the application today, all of that happened and it cost almost 50 euro to send, that the sworn and certified translation of Hans' birth certificate would arrive late this afternoon. So, back to the post office tomorrow. Our homestudy is, according to our SW, on it's way to Germany, too.

I am leaving out all the hellish back and forth, little dramas with the CIS office, countless forms filled in again and again (such small spaces to write in!) because I am simply too tired. Let's just say it's been an incredibly trying week.

Glass of wine then bed.

Doei!

We need to get Hans' birth certificate translated with a certificate of authenticity, sworn statement and stamp by the translator for the CIS application. I found a nice agency who will do it all in just a few days.

I am feeling a little on the anxious side, maybe it's because we are so close to being done? We look forward to the real waiting period- when all the money and paper has been dealt with. On the other hand, it's going to feel like forever.

Anyway, I know there are a bunch of you out there reading this regularly and I appreciate all of the emails, etc. cheering us on. They mean alot!