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October 11, 2005, we completed and sent in our dossier! It is the packet of information about us that is sent to India to make sure we comply with all of their requirements to adopt. Every document had to be certified notarized! That is a lot of paperwork and it includes our homestudy report.
The best news is that we are on the LIST! We are officially waiting for a referral of our child/children. Remember, we still don't know if there are one or two, but we will feel blessed either way.
The average wait time is 9 to 12 months from this date for a referral and then another 4 to 7 months waiting on a VISA. These numbers are subject to change, but hopefully will be shorter :) This puts us traveling hopefully by the end of 2006. And it also means that our girl/girls should be ready to be born anytime! It is all so exciting.
Another looming factor is our age. Patrick and I can only have a combined age of 86 to adopt from India. We are getting dangerously close to that now. YIKES!
US Citizenship and Immigration Services requests our presence on October 25, 2005 at 11am for fingerprinting!
WOW! What an eye-opening experience. We arrived, were given a numbered tag and then were herded (moo!!) into a room with row after row of chairs and a sea of people. There was every imaginable nationality represented in that room; a great people watching spot! Some people looked westernized, while others were colorfully clad in clothing appropriate to where they came from.
We waited, and waited and waited. It became apparent that this was an all day excursion. Occasionally, a woman would enter the room and call out a set of numbers. That numbered tag we got when we entered was like gold. There was no leaving the room, hence lose your spot in the order, so Pat and I lunched on what we could buy from the vending machine with the change we managed to scrounge between the two of us.
Finally, after assisting several very confused people who were struggling with English, our turn came. We were surprised to find that fingerprints are now scanned...no more black ink! We were in and out of there in 5 minutes! The best part was we got to tell the fingerprinters the reason for being there...our pending adoption! It always seems to strike up the best conversations!
