It's been a while

We haven't been very good about keeping this blog up-to-date. I actually had kind of forgotten we even created it. We finished our dossier and mailed it off about 3 weeks ago. We just got an email yesterday that everything looked good so now our dossier should be sent to Washington, D.C. The adoption agency says it will be in DC for approx. 2-3 weeks and from there it will be sent to Ethiopia for review. We have been told that the review takes about 2-4 weeks and when they approve us we should receive a a referral. Right now we are just waiting which I fear is all we have to do for a while now. I've no idea what to really expect because the timeline they gave us is just an average. I have heard of people waiting for months and months after submitting their dossier but we are hoping that ours will process quickly. We are ready get our little girl! As for Evan.....let's just say he's a typical 2 year old boy! He very rarely walks anywhere he goes. He is so full of energy and is a lot of fun. We just celebrated his 2nd birthday on the 17th and he and all of his friends had a great time. He is going to be a hunter for Halloween (just like his daddy). Thanks to Grandma for fixing his costume. I will try to get some pictures up for you to see.

HOME STUDY IS COMPLETE!

We recieved news late last week that our home study had been approved! We are anxiously awaiting final notarized copies so we can send all of our documents with the i-600a. The I-600a is a document that kind of pre-qualifies prospective international adoptive families as meeting the qualifications for adoption and allows them to continue on in the adoption process. Once the I-600a is in and we have our finger prints completed we should receive our I-171h, which is a document needed to get a visa for our adopted daughter. One hurdle down, several more to go.

Homestudy Update

Kari and I have both completed our individual interviews, we have completed our couple interview, and our home visit. We are anxiously awaiting the completion of our homestudy paperwork so we can advance in the progress of our adoption!

What a relief

Ok so I had my individual visit with Annie, the social worker, today. I wasn't nervous but once I got there and she started asking questions I felt a little overwhelmed. How much information about your family history is too much and how much is not enough? She asked sooo many questions, which I knew she was going to, but it did kind of feel like a psych. eval. Anyway....my family has a little rocky history so it was kind of nerve racking to answer questions and feel like maybe it could hurt us in the long run. I don't think it will and Annie said we were fine, but it was hard to tell what info. was pertinent and what wasn't. She asked for words that I would use to describe myself and traits that made me a good wife and mom. Who sits around thinking about their own qualities? I don't really think about it I just do what needs to be done. Anyway, I guess I passed and can set Brad's mind at ease for Thurs. He has his individual appointment and now he can know what to expect. On a side note.....we bought a bedspread for "her" room this weekend. It should get here this week!

The Homestudy begins

We had our first appointment with our social worker for our homestudy on Thursday. It went well and we have individual appointments and our home visit this next week and we should be done with the homestudy. We are in the process of getting our dossier documents together. Just a little progress in the LONG process.

Our 1st appt.

Our social worker emailed me today and we have an appt. on Thurs the 29th for our first visit for the homestudy. We have to go to Springfield and meet with her so she can get to know us and our backgrounds. The next step is for her to do a home visit. She will come to our house and I really have no clue what she will do. For anyone who is curious about the process, I will kind of explain what we have to do. (this is a new thing for us too) We have signed up with an adoption agency called International family services, and we also have a social worker, Annie, who works for Lutheran Family and Children Services. Our first step is getting a homestudy done so we can submit that to IFS. We have a LOT of paper work we have to complete including: passports (done), a letter to the orphanage of Toukoul, listing a bunch of financial info, a few government docs, and I'm not even sure what else. Once we get the paperwork sent in to the Ethiopian government, they will send us a referral which is a picture and info about a child that "fits" us. The agency says it usually takes 3-12 weeks from the time the dossier (all the paperwork) is sent in. If we accept the referral we travel to Ethiopia in approximately 8 weeks to pick up the child. We will stay for 7-10 days in Addis Abba, Ethiopia and then we will returyn home with our daughter!! We are trying for a girl. So....we are in the midst of gathering info for the dossier meaning we have probably 5 months or so (totally a guess) until we get a referral. We'll keep you posted though.

Evan: 14 months

The start of the waiting game

Ok so anyone who knows about adoptions knows there is a lot of waiting involved. We got our applications mailed off and had to write autobiographies for our homestudy. I emailed those yesterday so we're waiting on the social worker to call us in for our first interview. It's the beginning of a long waiting period but we are at least progressing.

I did it

I did it! I mailed our applications for our homestudy and our agency contract today. Hopefully we will hear something next week!!!!

Evan

Just beginning

Brad and I have been throwing the idea of international adoption for a while. Tom and Rhonda, they are my bosses, just adopted a 10 year old girl (Silu) from India. While they were in the process Brad and I became very interested in pursuing an international adoption. We had originally planned on adopting from India; hoping we may find a girl from the same orphanage as Silu. We started getting things together in the fall of 2008 and ran into a road block: India is a member of the Hague Treaty so the adoption agency we go thru must have Hague accredidation. We are going thru International Family Services and they are waiting on the final word for their accredidation. Therefore, we are unable to pursue an India adoption. We have decided we would like to try for Ethiopia now. We know we want a girl and have decided we would like her a little older so we said age 3-7. We are tossing around the idea of a siblings (crazy I know)but we have not committed to anything yet. We have the application to IFS completed and just have to send it in the mail which I plan on doing tomorrow. We are both very excited and can't wait to find out what's in store with our adoption.