Are you kidding me?

So, I can't believe how many forms we need to get together and how many hoops we need to jump through. We have to get four sets of items together: one for the homestudy, one for the US government, one for the adoption agency and one for the country. We have to get medical tests, cholesterol levels checked, two sets of fingerprinting plus a local police clearance, whatever that is. I have to get notarized letters from my banker, my CPA and my doctor. There is an adoption class to take and multiple meetings with the social worker asking all kinds of personal questions like "what adjectives do you use to describe your mother and your father". Huh? (those of you who know my dad know how careful I had to be with that one).

And everything for the Ethipopian government has to be not only notarized but then sent to the state of California for "authentication" before it is sent to Washington DC for another authentication.

All this while Ethiopia is becomming the new hot spot for adoption and the courts are starting to get overwhelmed with all the applications. And the clients love our adoption agency so much that they keep recommending it to EVERYONE and the poor director doesn't know what hit him.

Oh, and did I mention that Californians get charged more for everything. Where some states get their authentications done for free and same day, it costs us $10 per document (of which there are a lot) and probably takes weeks.