Fingerprints are done and more documents certified

We survived our USCIS fingerprint appointment today with both kids in tow! They even managed to get my fingers all on the scanner, in spite of my shorter pinky fingers (this caused BIG problems at the local fingerprinting place, for some reason). We got all of our Indiana documents certified by the Secretary of State's office today, so we're hoping to send most of the documents off to be autheticated by the Chinese consulate soon. We are slowly getting there!

With anticipation,
The Knueppels

Buried under paperwork

We are compiling documents that will be submitted with our Dossier. These documents have to be notarized, then certified by the Secretary of State in the state where they were notarized, and then sent to the Chinese consulate for authentication. The authentication must be done within six months of the document being issued, so we are hurrying as fast as we can because some of our documents will "expire" at the beginning of March. We also have our USCIS fingerprinting appointment this week! I'm not sure how long our I-800A approval will take once the fingerprints are done, but we are hopeful that it will be completed quickly so we can get our Dossier sent to China. Once it's logged in, we can be matched with our son! Oh, the butterflies. :)

With anticipation,
The Knueppels

I-800A Complete!

A week after we received the finalized version of our home study, we sent our I-800A off to the Dallas lockbox. We are crossing our fingers that it will get there safely by tomorrow. This paperwork is asking the U.S. Government for permission to adopt a foreign national and will ultimately give our son his Visa to enter the U.S. We had to copy a lot of documents that show we are who we say we are (birth certificates, marriage certificates) and send in a certified copy of our home study. We will hopefully get our fingerprinting clearance from the government soon. It will be sent from the Homeland Security office that is handling our I-800A and we'll then be cleared by the FBI. It's a good thing we don't have anything to hide because, man, are these checks thorough!

With anticipation,
The Knueppels