Continued from the post earlier today....

Whirl Wind
I was bound and determined to be the fastest person ever to complete a dossier. My portion of the dossier was done with in a month. Unfortunately, we have to wait for little things like a home study and authentications to be done by other people. While in the middle of the home study portion, we received a referral. Yes, you read it correctly, we received a referral for a beautiful 3 and 1/2 year old boy. Since we went the waiting child route first (Holt got to know us very well), and we were looking for an older child, we received our referral before we even have our dossier finished. HOLT contacted our social worker to be sure we would be getting a favorable home study and to see how far along we were in the paperwork. Currently we have seen the home study on email but have not gotten it in our hot little hands. It still needs to be printed on our HS agency's letter head and notarized and authenticated in their county. As soon as we get it from them we can send it along with a power of attorney paper to be authenticated in Albany. When it comes back the dossier is done and we can send it to Oregon (HOLT). They will send it to Washington DC, and then it will come back, and then they will send it to Ethiopia to be translated. Next we should get a court date, if we pass court we will be told when to travel. Everyone asks how much longer. We have no idea. Each of these steps could take a great deal of time or could go quickly. With recent changes in court requirements in Ethiopia, we may not pass court on our first try. My estimation is anywhere from 5 months to 2 years. I'm praying for months, not years.