Where are we in the process now?

We found out on Friday that our Court Decree and Birth Certificate has been received and translated, so we were able to complete our I-600 Form (that gets submitted to the Embassy).  Yay!   We scrambled around today to get it notarized and sent it to our agency's office.  They will receive it next week and will ship it over to Ethiopia in next Friday's package.  I'm not exactly sure where this form fits into the breakdown below, but at least it's one step closer to bringing Elliana home!   I'm assuming we are at the point of requesting a passport... but not sure.  


If you are following the 10 steps of my previous post, I'll give you a little breakdown of where we are now: [it feels REALLY good to cross some of those things off] but, realistically, I'm trying not to get over-excited :) 

1. An approval letter has to be received from MoWCY. (we need a positive recommendation) and hopefully this has already been received by our first court hearing.  
2. The courts must give their consent
3. We must give our consent (which we will do while we are there). 
4. After we have 1, 2 and 3, they can submit to get our court decrees and birth certificate. (This typically takes several weeks).  
5. Then, after we have 1, 2, 3 and 4, we can request a Passport.  (we are here!!)
6. Next is the Embassy Physical.  Physical results must be back before we can proceed.
7. After 1 - 6 is all done, with no errors and no requests for additional information, etc., we can be submitted to the Embassy!  
8. The Embassy may take a few weeks to review our documents.  They may request more information, or they could approve the case right away.  (if they request more information, we could be delayed significantly).  
9. If we are approved right way, the Embassy will contact us for an appointment, in which we will travel back over to Ethiopia.  I hear that sometimes we would only get a one week notice!!  
10. Once we travel back over to Ethiopia, we will have our Embassy appointment and then it will take them 2 days (I think) to process E's Visa, then we are free to leave the country.

Please continue to pray for our quick return to bring Elliana home.  Also pray for the wisdom of the Embassy officials reviewing all of our cases.  We are praying that things continue to move along and are not delayed :)  


And, just because she is so cute, here is another picture of Elliana enjoying her Ethiopian Christmas!