Our paperwork is in her country as of today. :) next up: translate, submit, travel. Boom, baby!

So close! We're in the end zone now, I can feel it. Our dossier is being sent to Eastern Europe this week. We had a couple setbacks with a few of the papers and the way they were notarized. All is in order now and the next step once it arrives in her country is translation. I'm not sure how long that will take (1-4 weeks at most I imagine) but as soon as they are done it will be submitted to the Ministry of Education which is their version of DFS. Then they make an appointment for us and our agency will notify us to say when the appointment is. Typical notice is about 2 weeks to a month. Exciting stuff, no?! Our court dossier (there's a registration dossier which is the preliminary one and it is submitted first) is also done and being sent for translation at the same time (this week). That means as soon as we have our appointment at the ministry of education and receive her full history we can go meet her, accept the referral and our court dossier will be immediately submitted. They have to give you a court date within 8 weeks of submission so depending on how busy they are we'll either be back in a month or two. In a perfect world we'd travel first in May, again in June for court and bring her home 30 days later in July. Wouldn't that be awesome??? We'd have to get her a suit ;) If nothing else we hope to have her home by her birthday which is just 4 days after mine on August 28th. It is gonna be quite the party ;)! Just an update to let you all know where we are. Hopefully the next news is big!

There's our pretty girl. Sitting and waiting and ready for us. Now that we have all the paperwork completed we are just awaiting an invite to travel from her home country in Eastern Europe. We've got all our agency fees and in country fees accounted for. The only thing we need help with are the three flights we'll be making to Eastern Europe. The cost for two tickets round trip is roughly 2500 and that doesn't include the costs of visas. If you would be willing to contribute, click the link on the right of the page. If you have airline miles you're willing to donate please contact me directly: gretgillette@gmail.com Our little lady is currently being treated for issues related to her spina bifida, namely urology. The sooner we get her home, the sooner she can receive the care and support she needs. Can you imagine being in a hospital without your family's support? It breaks my heart. Lets get this girl home!