The Journey Began One Year Ago...

We invite you to journey with us as we make our way through the adoption process!

Let's start at the beginning...A year ago, January 2007, we began the amazing process of seeking an adoption agency to help fulfill a dream of adopting a child from another country. And after some research, we signed on with Agency A. We wanted to adopt through India, but the process there was quite lengthy (years) so we decided to adopt from Nepal. From there began a whirlwind of applications, paperwork, writing checks, obtaining official and certified documents, notarizations, writing checks, a social worker conducting a home study (whew! we made it through that!), and a lot of waiting. We had to see our doctors to have physicals, we had to submit our entire financial history, we had to get A LOT of reference letters, and the list goes on. Once we had an approved home study, we began the process of getting our dossier documents together. The dossier is the package of documents that will be sent to the foreign government for them to approve us to adopt.

Then in July our agency told us that the Nepal government closed their adoption program. We began to decide whether we would change to another country to continue our process. After conversation with others who had experienced it, we made the decision to adopt through Ethiopia. One catch! our agency was not licensed to work with Ethiopia, but they were in the process, so we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. In September they hoped to be licensed so we could move on with the process, but when December came with still no news, they told us that Ethiopia was not granting new agency applications. Wow! Held up again!

In December we decided to switch to another agency who was already licensed with Ethiopia, an agency based out of Texas. From the moment we decided to make the decision, it was a mad rush to re-submit all the tedious paperwork to them for approval. We had to re-apply, write more checks, and re-obtain official documents to begin again! We decided we had waited so long that we had to move quickly! The steps to take to get a final packet ready to send to Ethiopia included obtaining U.S. Immigration approval, getting FBI fingerprints (we're not on the most wanted list, thank goodness!), notarizing ALL of our documents, send all notarized documents to the Secretary of State for them to authenticate the notarization, and then sending them on to Washington DC for final authentication. Then, and only then, do we finally get placed on the wait list for a child referral.

That brings us to January 28, 2008! This day marks a MILESTONE in our journey - We are officially on the wait list! HOORAY!

We've waited so long and worked so hard to get to this point in the journey. A referral consists of a couple photos and a brief bio (what is known) of the child being presented to us to adopt. The wait on the wait list at this point is three to five months. Once we receive our referral three to five months from now and accept it (who wouldn't?!?) then a court date is set in Ethiopia, and we travel there a couple months later to make it official and bring our baby girl home.

Now begins the countdown to bring our baby girl home to Littleton, Colorado....Journey with us!