Our 171H form has arrived!

So I walked into the mail room at school yesterday and a dear, sweet lady named Arlene handed me an envelope with a USCIS return address. I had a little flip out session, dropped everything I had in my arms and ripped it open. We weren't expecting our 171H form for awhile, so this was a huge surprise - I love surprises! This was the last piece of paperwork that we needed for our file.
































In case you are wondering, the 171H form is kind of like permission from the Dept. of Homeland Security to bring a non-citizen into the country. Adoption pros - correct me if I'm wrong.

After being in waiting-for-paperwork mode, which basically consists of praying and surfing numerous adoption blogs, getting our 171H catapulted me into "do something!!" mode. So I decided to drive to San Francisco (a 1.5 hour drive one way) to get all of our documents certified at the Secretary of State's office. Long story short, they could only certify 5 of our 23 documents. Haha, funny joke. So, I reminded myself that God puts these minor setbacks (and it was indeed minor) in our path for a reason. I will be sending the remaining 18 documents along with a hefty check to the main Secretary of State's office in Sac. And THEN, after about 2 weeks we get those back nicely certified with the pretty, gold State of California seal, make 2 copies of the whole lovely batch and send it off to our wonderful family coordinator in Virginia, who takes care of the rest.

Then we go into waiting mode again, which is okay. Waiting is good.

Wait for the LORD, be strong and take heart, and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14