paperwork update

I got a call from our social worker saying that our homestudy is in the process of being typed up and should be finalized soon! Yay.
I also unfortunately just realized that I have several more steps to put some of the documents through that I could have been working on the past few months...
We have certified copies of our birth certificates (mine from MI and Bill's from IL). These certified copies need to be sent to the Secretary of State in the state they were issued in order to be certified on the state level. Once we get those back, they have to go to the consulate for the midwest (which is different from where the rest of our documents have to go) to be authenticated. So we need to get documents certified by 4 states and then authenticated by 2 consulate offices....
Yipes.
Hopefully that will all go quickly and smoothly. We still have likely another week or two before we get the finalized homestudy in order to submit the INS request for permission to adopt an orphan, and get fingerprinted and cleared by homeland security.
So January is not going to happen as far as getting the paperwork to China, but hopefully Feb or March! We also got an update from our agency saying that the current wait times are 1 month for our documents to be logged into the system in China, and 8 months from the LID (log in date) to referral of our child. Which means if we get our paperwork in to China in February, we are looking at a November referral unless things speed back up (the wait was 2 weeks to LID and 6 month to referral a few months ago).
sigh. we'll get there though :)

Dang Pats, go BEARS!