Yet another item to ‘check’ off our adoption to-do list. We traveled to Des Moines last night so that we could get up early this morning for an 8:00 a.m. fingerprinting appointment at the Federal Building with Homeland Security (USCIS). It was a breeze. We were out of there looking for a gas station by 8:30.
Now we wait for USCIS to send us an I171H form. That form verifies that every US entity that needs to look at us, our family, home, financial status, mental well-being, and any criminal or child abuse history has done so and has approved us for adopting children. That is the final form that we’ll need to complete our dossier and then it can be sent to Ethiopia. Once there, it will be translated into Amharic before going on to the Ethiopian government who will decide which child will be referred to us. I’m not sure how long the I171H form will take to come back, but with Anna the turn around time was pretty quick (two to three weeks).