Court Dossier - FINISHED!

The Court Dossier was electronicly sent to Lighthouse Adoptions (LH) today! Yippee!

The electronic process has not been without the "1st time is the hardest" trial run. We ended up using WinZip to encrypt my files & LH downloaded/installed the WinZip application to open my files. Within a couple of hours, we had it all sent & I think we are finally there. LH will send on to GAS in Pakistan today. Yes, TODAY!

My head is spinning at how very QUICK the process has been with Pakistan. I said YES our sweet baby girl on 7/16/09, just 2 weeks ago!

The key is to be paper-ready with a valid home study & valid I-171H. If you have these 2 key documents, processing can be very quick & travel can be scheduled as soon as . . .

1. Court Dossier is Processed & Court Date is scheduled - with an encrypted electronic dossier & the internet, the court hearing is scheduled within a matter of days once the dossier is received in Pakistan. In fact, GAS has been in contact with LH every day asking "where is the court dossier for family B...?" GAS has been so on top of things, I expect to receive my court date very quickly. There is no translation required since English is the official language of the country. That moves it along even faster!

2. Visas are issued: I applied for my visas at the same time I was completing my dossiers, because the processing time for the visas is about as long as the processing time for the court dossier! We want to be able to schedule travel as quickly as we can, once we receive a court date. The Visa issue date I was given by GAS was 8/15/09. That is only 2 weeks away! Of course, we probably won't travel that quickly since I'm still waiting on the I-171H w/country change.

One thing to note: Pakistan is now issuing only single-entry visas to US citizens. The country entry date can be within 90 days of the visa's issue date. The duration of the stay can be no more than 30 days. According to GAS, the in-country stay for the adoption process is approx ~3-4 weeks, so conservative planning would say 28 days in country. That is cutting it close to the 30 day visa duration limitation, but GAS is saying we can finish within 3 weeks & we should be just fine.

3. I-171H Approval w/country change - Since my previous I-171H was approved for Russia, I had to request, in writing, a country change. I was able to use a "1x free" country change. This hopefully will be approved within a couple of weeks of my written request date (USCIS rec'd Wed - 1.5 more wks to go). Once we have verified that the I-171H has been rec'd in Islamabad, we are good to go on the final major PAP document needed for the adoption! The Embassy Dossier will then be complete with my side (PAP) of it. We will then add the baby's docs to it after the court hearing.

The only documents I'm waiting on are I-171H w/country change & Visa!

If I had been paper-ready for Pakistan, it would have been even quicker! LOL, I don't know if I could have handled that! Seems like I have just "blinked" & we are almost there!

Still working on a Name & trying to figure out what to do about a temp nursery (just not enough time to get her permanent nursery ready before we go!)

I will be officially announcing it at work on Monday. So, then we will need to have a work transition plan since I'll be gone for 4 months in about 3.5 weeks!

We are hoping to have Baby B . . . by 8/28/09 (Yes, just 3.5 weeks away!). She will be 8 weeks old!

And, now to begin the fun of SHOPPING . . . since we need EVERYTHING for a newborn infant . . .

And, reading everything I can on Newborn/Infant care!!! Bottles??? There are just so many options . . . LOL!