Our Paper Work is in Ghana!!!

We had our homestudy on Thursday, November 6th, which went well. I kept thinking that I needed to hurry up and get our dossier put together. We had a lot to do still gathering all the required documents. The hardest one to nail down was a notarized letter verifying Steve's employment. It wasn't hard really, it just took some time and some follow-up on his part to make sure it was notorized and official looking enough.

Anyway, Wednesday, the 12th, Jessica called me. (She's adopting Sarah/Adjoa from Luckyhill.) She told me she was going to Ghana on Sunday morning, the 16th and could take things over there for us....So the race was on to get it all ready.

I emailed our social worker and asked if it was possible to have our homestudy ready by then. (I had proof-read it the night before.) She said "Yes. It will be ready tomorrow." So, Steve picked it up on Thursday. We needed the finalized homestudy for the dossier and also so we could file our I600A telling the U.S. we intend to adopt an orphan.

Friday Steve took the day off and we made an appointment with the US Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services to file the I600A. I learned from Stephanie (adopting Samuel and Godfrid from Luckyhill) that they only accept money orders even though their webpage goes into great detail about how they accept personal checks. So I was prepared with a money order in hand made out to the Department of Homeland Security for $837. We got to the office and felt a bit like we were in a foreign country. We went through security and waited in the waiting room. When our name was called, the gentleman behind the counter looked at the money order and said that he couldn't accept it because the fee was $830. I really wanted him to just keep the change, but he said we would have to come back. Of course the credit union that issued the money order is in Tooele and we were in Salt Lake. I went to a credit union in SL where we have another account and fortunately, they allowed me to deposit the money order in my account and then they issued one for the correct amount.

We went back and had to wait for awhile because the man had gone to lunch. Finally, we finished there and went over to another location to be finger-printed. So, now we are just waiting our approval on that.

We got back to Tooele, went to a notary to notarize any and all papers we thought might need it and then went to a copy center to make 7 copies of all documents...4 for Ghana and 3 for us. I stayed up until 1:00 AM compiling all copies and triple-checking to make sure nothing was amiss.

Saturday we delivered Saviour's book, an outfit, teddybear and necklace that Madi made to Jessica along with our adoption fee and the dossier. So, now the adoption process can begin in Ghana. We are happy to have our part complete.