Scary Timescales!!!!

I've heard from our Notary again and all our documents are in order and he has now safely returned our Passports to us. I am still chasing up the last piece of missing paperwork, and hope to be able to get hold of it soon! I've also spoken to a lovely lady at the DCSF who confirmed that our dossier is in their hands and they have started processing it. We should get the "acknowledgment of receipt" letter later this week or early next week, and then it should only take them a week to print the Certificate of Eligibility. I am taking the latter statement with an enormous pinch of salt, as this would be lightning fast compared with their usual speeds!! But just for a moment or two it is nice to believe that this could be true.

Once our Certificate of Eligibility is issued then our papers are passed to our Notary, who takes just over a week to process everything through the various procedures and then return it to the DCSF!! The DCSF have said it will then take them another week to get the papers to Ethiopia and we could be asked to consider a child anytime after that!! OMG until I just added up all the 24 hours for this bit, 2-3 days for that bit I hadn't realised quite how quickly this could all happen!!! I was thinking another 6-8 weeks not another 2-3 weeks!!! OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!

I am trying so hard not to let myself believe this, but I want to believe. I want to believe we could have an idea of who our new little one is before Christmas. I want to believe that we could complete our adoption early next year. I want to believe that this is all going to work out. But after everything that has gone before I don't know that I can - but still I want to believe...