!

One month down, people - ONE MONTH!!!

Paper trail...

Got a little more info today from our homestudy agency on what/how we'll need to renew our documents. We'll need to renew our CO Child Abuse Registry Clearances now (this is part of the homestudy process), and about a month before expiration of our homestudy, around the end of May, we'll need to update and re-notarize our financial statement, and have another visit from our social worker. In a couple months we'll need to get the ball rolling on renewing our Immigration Approval Fingerprints to keep us current on that. So....like I stated a couple days ago, this will give us something to keep track of and focus on as we move through the waiting period to receive our referral.

Contrary to popular belief...

4 weeks does not equal 1 month! In fact, 1 month equals an average of 4.3 weeks. Just thought you'd all like to know...

GREAT NEWS EVERYONE! We have MORE PAPERWORK TO DO!!!!!

Seriously, it will help pass some more time...

We were just informed that since our Home Study expires in July, as does our Immigration approval (I 171-H), we will need to renew/update these items. This means another visit by our social worker to be sure we've been good since she saw us last. It also means we have to be re-fingerprinted by CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services). This is all because there is a decent chance we may not make it to Ethiopia before July; our original documents were done so long ago and since we've had so many bumps in the road, we're running into this problem now.

Hey, at least it's news! Staying on the bright side!

Time and Patience

Reading others' adoption blogs has become addictive. I find myself comparing our timeline against others, have them all saved in my favorites for ease of check in to see where they are in their processes, and have gotten so excited for all the others who are on this journey with us. With each referral post I read, I have found the purpose in reading all these other adoption stories - Stories just like ours - I have found the importance in walking along side others we don't even know on this journey. We are not alone! AMEN! It also reminds me that this season of Lent is a time of reflection, and self-examination. What better time to be "waiting", growing in character! I've listed links of other blogs to the right that we've been following, reading about their amazing stories, and getting more and more excited for our own story! Check them out! I urge you to stay on this journey with us, even with the famine of concrete news to share with you all - we need your prayers! Count down with us to Feb. 28, which marks one official month on the wait list! Small milestones, small baby steps, slow and steady wins the race!

SMJ

Answers...

You ask - we answer!

In reference to our trip to Ethiopia - We will have about 3 weeks notice prior to travelling, and we only have to make one trip. The process goes something like this: We receive a referral (about 3-5 months away), and then we wait for the court date to be set. Our agency says it could be set one or two months after we receive our referral. The court date happens, which is a SUPER IMPORTANT DAY, because we become the legal parents of our daughter. Then, once the court date is complete and it is official, we travel to Ethiopia about 3 weeks later.

Regarding donations for humanitarian aid items - if you are interested, post a comment and we will get in touch with you to coordinate this. We will accept whatever is donated up until we leave for Ethiopia. Bring it on!!!

Here's another video to help you visualize Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! Click the link to view on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4pOCRKhmh8

Good Evening blog watchers!

News just in today from our caseworker, who incidentally is not Natalie anymore. Our agency has added another caseworker and we have been re-assigned. The voice we now will wait to hear for our referral will be Jessica's! Natalie out, Jessica in! (Natalie has been super duper!) Now on to the news...Jessica informed us today that our dossier (that really long packet of documents we've been working on for a year that Ethiopia needs to approve us as adoptive parents) HAS ARRIVED IN ETHIOPIA! YAY! Things are moving along!

Also, a lot of you have asked what you can get for us. Well, since we've never been parents before (other than to our pet fish), keep in mind that we have nothing!
BUT PLEASE ALSO CONSIDER THIS: We will be taking humanitarian aid items in additional suitcases to the orphanages in Addis Ababa while we are there and would welcome your donations of the following items that our agency recommends:

a) Children’s clothing (new or slightly used); Boys and Girls; sizes 0-8 years. Clothing needs include day clothes, pajamas, underwear, and shoes.
b) Huggies Baby Shaped Diapers Club Case – Size 1 or 2. Even though diapers are readily available in Addis, it is more expensive to purchase them there and they tend to leak.
c) Huggies Natural Care Wipes (Unscented); 576 count

It's for a good cause and the orphanages need so much support to give the best care possible to the children entrusted to them. Be inspired - we have been! Think about it!

Good night!

Do you have questions???

As week three on the wait list comes to a close, we'd like to invite ya'll to ask questions you may have about our adoption process. Simply click on "comments" at the end of this post and type in your question - we'll get back to you.

Communication from Natalie

Who the heck is Natalie? She is our fabulous caseworker with our agency who will be the beautiful voice on the other end of the phone letting us know we have a referral (3 to 5 months from now). She is also the one who has been working with us on our paperwork process and keeping us informed of important things we need to know about the process. Her call is the one we wait for now... (sorry everyone, but we're sure you understand!)

We asked her a few questions about being on the wait list and how that all works, and although it is pretty vague information (she can't be too specific), we thought we'd share it with you all, for your enjoyment:

"The time frames for referral wait times for families depend upon the children who are currently officially available for adoption and upon the amount of time that is required for our in-country staff to prepare a referral (completing medical tests, completing medical check ups, gathering biographical and social information, making sure that a child is officially available for adoption). There are other factors that can affect the time frames as well. For instance, if a child is abandoned, Ethiopia requires a 3 month period before a child can be referred to a family for adoption. The purpose of the 3 month period is to make sure that a biological family member does not return to claim custody of the child. Therefore, the time frames are different for each child depending on his/her specific situation. When a family is placed on Wait List, our in-country staff begin the process of identifying a child for whom the family would be a good match."

It's not much to go on, but we'll share whatever we know.

Other notes: We've started a new voting poll question - vote now!

Finally, as we wait for our first child, we are aware DAILY of how amazing this process really is. There isn't one day that goes by that we don't think about seeing our "baby K" for the first time. Pray for us that we keep our eyes on the important things as the days and weeks go by...

Heard this in a movie once... "Don't sweat the petty stuff, and don't pet the sweaty stuff!"

Peace in the waiting!

This is a video of an orphange in Ethiopia-LeToukoul.

LeToukoul
by willld

The polls are closing AND other tidbits

As the polls come to a close for voting on what the first name of our baby should be, and as tomorrow marks the end of two weeks on the wait list, we are pleased to announce that "K" has won!!!! Whew! Good thing because that was the only letter we had a name to go with! You will all have to wait until her arrival to learn what the "K" stands for! Stay tuned for our next voting poll question.

In other news, it occurred to us that we didn't mention in our first entry that we have requested a girl less than 12 months old. So, she'll be approximately between 3 and 12 months by the time we learn about her a few months from now.

Also, we aren't given the number of people on the waiting list with us, as our agency wants us all to focus on the timeline of 3 to 5 months for referral, but we do know that currently our agency has about 200 families in the process with Ethiopia. These families are either working on getting agency approval, gathering documents, are on the wait list like us, or are ready to travel to pick up their little package.

Just a little info to get us all through a few more days....