Update

We're still here and still going strong! I picked up our completed home study on Thursday...hooray! We've been working with Harmony Adoptions of Tennessee, and they have been just wonderful and so accommodating. I'm glad to have the completed document in hand. Now we can prepare to file our I-800a with USCIS (hopefully within the next month...we're waiting on our agency approval letter from CAS), start applying for adoption grants, and put the finishing touches on our dossier.

Austin and I have been working very hard to get all of our documents for our dossier, and I am happy to report that we have EVERYTHING we need except for our approval form from USCIS (and seeing as how we haven't filed yet, well, that's obvious). All of the documents have been notarized/certified/authenticated. It sounds so simple and neat, but it has been anything but that...thankfully we have dealt with some very kind and patient people who have been willing to go the extra step to help us. We had to authenticate documents in Blount, Knox, and Loudon county...whew! Caleb and I spent the afternoon today running around Knoxville and Loudon. We sent my birth certificate back to Texas to be apostilled there, and we got our remaining documents authenticated while we were out, too. When we finally got home, we crashed! But the craziness of the day was worth it because I'm taking everything for our dossier to Nashville with me this week to be apostilled, which puts us one step closer to bringing our daughter home!