Received the important I171H

Last night I noticed an important piece of mail sitting on our countertop before bedtime and realized that our I71H form had arrived!!  We were super excited that we received it back in exactly one week after getting our fingerprints done.  I didn't really know how long it would take but since this whole adoption is a big waiting game I always just tell myself it's going to take an extra long time for everything.  So it was great to have it one week later.  I did not have everything prepared to ship out so today I spent some time at Fedex/Kinko's making 3 copies of each of our documents and then putting them all in the appropriate order.  I think the guys at Kinkos thought I was nuts because I was carefully manually coping all docs rather feeding them quickly thru the tray. :)  I really hope that I did everything correctly, but I could only look at each paper so many times before I just had to have faith that I did it right.  Anyway, I am super excited to have everything done and out of my hands!  We now have to wait for the Agency in Virginia to receive and review them and send them to Ethiopia.  We are in the last step before being on the official 'waiting' list!!

Fingerprints are done!!

Well, today was our Biometrics appt at the USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services).  I am happy to have it over with as a few people have said to be careful that you don't get any cuts on your fingers beforehand...otherwise you might have to reschedule.  Jason did burn his finger last night, so there was a second where I was a little worried, but it wasn't bad and we got thru today with flying colors!  There always has to be a little drama I guess! :)  So now we are just waiting to get a form mailed back to us.  As soon as I have that form all of our paperwork and a few copies will be mailed off and we will be on the official 'waiting' list.  I will be so excited to get all of this paperwork out of my hands!
Also last weekend I went to a Christian Adoption conference in Atlanta with my friend Cindy.  There were around 250 mothers or mothers to-be there from around the US and I would say the majority of them did/were adopting from Ethiopia!  I learned a few things and it was nice to make some more friends with adoptive moms.