Happy New Year - We received our I-171H approval

Happy New Year everyone! It sure is a happy one for us. We finally received our last approval on the USA side for our up coming adoption. We were waiting for our I-171H Homeland Security approval so our daughter will have immediate citizenship once we arrive home with her.

Now we will quickly get our documents approved by our coordinator, Cathy Harris from Ukrainian Angels and then send them to get them apostilled by the state before we can send them to Ukraine for their approval. Boy it seems like we've been waiting a lot longer for our approvals this time around than when we adopted Andrew. I'm glad that we were extremely busy with our Ebay orders during the holidays since that helped to keep my mind off of the waiting. From what I hear, Homeland Security has been inendated with people getting passports and other immigration approvals due to the new law about traveling outside of the US you need to have a passport.

We received an email from our translator in Ukraine and she told us to Hurry Up with our documents and to get them to Ukraine as quickly as possible since the SDA (adoption ministry) is only accepting 1,453 dossiers for the year of 2008 and they are already up to #700. Well that just excelarated my anxiety level a few notches since it's early January of 2008 and they are already on #700. It looks as if they started receiving dossiers for 2008 before 2008, since their offices were closed for a few days in January due to their Christmas Holiday.

We had to get most of our documents updated since it's been over 6 months since they were originally completed and the SDA won't accept any dossiers with expiration dates that are over 6 months old. So I need to get them all updated before I can get them apostilled and sent to Ukraine. As Alla used to say "Sit...Wait...HURRY UP!! Now we are in the Hurry Up stage to get our documents over to Ukraine so we can get our approval before they reach their quota for the year. We are hoping to get a Spring or Summer appointment date to travel to complete our adoption. But it's all in God's hands, therefore I have to cast my cares over unto Him for He cares for us and it's all in His perfect timing.