It is becoming more and more real to me that on the other side of the world a child, my child has been or is about to be born. As excited as that makes me, it is also becoming increasing clear to me that there is a women giving birth to a child that she is unable to keep. Even without knowing her or her circumstance, my heart is breaking for her. I will eternally be grateful for the gift she has given me, but I am also saddened by the loss and pain she is/will be experiencing. What a bittersweet experience.

There was some action in the Bethany Ethiopian program while we were on vacation. Several families rec'd referrals. There are also some court dates coming up, and 2 families returned home with their new additions! It's so exciting to watch the progress and to know it will soon be our turn!

Merry Christmas!!

vacation time!

No news on the adoption front. Probably won't be for awhile since now we are to the waiting part. (hasn't it all been waiting?) There are two Bethany families traveling to pick up there children this week. My prayers are with them for successful travel and smooth transitions. 

We leave later this week for Orlando. Here we come Mickey! Kennedi says she wishes we were going to Chuck E Cheeses instead, and Tyler is afraid that it may not be as fun as Chuck E Cheeses. We keep trying to convince them it will be but they are still skeptical! Mckenzie kind of remembers being there when she was 3. 

By the time we get back our dossier should have arrived safely in Ethiopia! (hopefully) 

I-171H has arrived!

Our approval from immigration has arrived! It was even a week and a half early. We should have everything out of our hands early next week and will then be waiting for our child! We officially started this adoption process 8 months ago, so it is hard to believe that we have made it to this point. I've heard the wait is the hardest part, but I am very relieved to have all the paper chasing behind us.  

Ethiopia here we come..........(soon!)

inked!

all went well. In at 8 out by 8:30 so not too bad. It looked like a mini DMV so I was worried when we got there!

4 more referrals this week! 2 of the families are from the Bethany forums. Shadley was referred a baby boy, Kim a girl who is almost a year. I rejoice with them and can't wait to see pictures of their new additions!

This is Erik, Jeanmarie and Noah's last week before they leave for India! We celebrated Noah's first birthday on Sunday. It was bitter sweet. He is quite a character! Very much like his father.

Fingerprint appointment!

Our appointment is on Wednesday October 15th at 8:00 in the morning. I am excited to have received it so quickly.

Please pray for the families in the Ethiopia program and also for the children and caretakers in the transition home. There are several babies dealing with illness right now. Our prayers are especially with Shadley and her family as they mourn the loss of their sweet Jaren.

I-600 A

We filed with immigration today! Shortly we will be assigned a fingerprint appointment by them. In about six weeks we will have our approval and our dossier will be ready to be sent off!

One Step Closer!!

Our long awaited DCFS approval came on Friday! Only one step left until our Dossier is complete! Alison(SW), Jason and I have a meeting in the morning. I will be turning over our dossier to her. The only thing missing is a form from immigration (I think it is called the I-171H, or something like that). We will be filing for that tomorrow as well and our approval should take about 6 weeks. It is all seeming very real and exciting right now! It has been such a long process to get to this point. Hopefully there will no other delays and we will keep moving right along.

Not related to the adoption- Mckenzie turns 9 tomorrow!!  Her getting older is certainly harder on me than it is on her. I am so proud of who she is growing up to be, but sad that it seems to happen so fast.  The teen years are right around the corner, and I am not ready for that!  

~~~~Happy Birthday Sweetheart. ~~~~

A lot of action on the Bethany Boards! 2 Families arrived home with their children. 1 is currently in Ethiopia, 1 is traveling next week, and 4 families were matched with children. All little boys. It is seeming like the longest wait time anyone has had is about 6 months. They are still saying to expect to wait a year, but seeing how much faster it has been for everyone gives me hope!

The DCFS approval of our home study should have been here by now, but instead they reviewed it and had questions. Our social worker is sending in answers to the questions they had so hopefully the approval will only be a few days away. Due to a new state law we will be required to take 4 additional training hours before we can proceed. So the next 2 weekends we will be attending adoption seminars in various parts of the state.

EVENTUALLY we will have everything completed, and actually have our dossier in Ethiopia!!
I am not big on waiting, but am doing my best to be patient with the whole process, since essentially there is nothing I can do about it anyways!

Congratulations to Shannon, Shadley, Susie who received there referrals this week, I am so excited for you! Kelli- my prayers are with you this week as you travel to pick up Ruby. Safe travels and smooth transitions for you!

Thank you to everyone who donated and helped out with our adoption rummage sale at church. It was a success.
1 of my Bethany friends has just returned home with her son, another is currently in Ethiopia picking up their 5 year old daughter and still another is leaving later this month to pick up her son! It is exciting to follow their progress. Bethany is expecting another round of referrals very soon. By the time our dossier (fancy term for all the papers we have to complete) is in Ethiopia the program will be in full swing! Although the waiting is hard (especially when you are a control freak) it is fun to watch everyone else go through the process ahead of you. Seeing others bring their children home makes us feel closer to bringing ours home as well.

I've had nothing to update in the last couple of weeks. Like I mentioned, things from our end are pretty much finished (at least in the paperwork department). We have our adoption rummage sale coming up at church in a couple of weeks, and are working on applying for various adoption grants. Other than that things are pretty quiet for now.

I have started reading There is no me without you. It is the best adoption book I have read so far. It gives a good history of Ethiopia and it's people. I'm not to far into it, but it does not seem to have the negative spin that most of the other adoption books have had. I know we need to be prepared for the worst case scenarios, but reading them for hours gets a bit overwhelming!

The past week has been filled with paper gathering. Doctor's notes, police clearance letters, bank statements, reference letters and more! I'm pleased at our progress. We have all but 2 documents needed from our end and then we are finished with the paperwork. From there we just wait for approval from DCFS and then for a fingerprint appointment and processing from USCIS. Although I hate waiting (as if you didn't all know that) it is nice to have things from my end done.
All 3 of the families from the Bethany that had court last week passed through court with no hold ups and are now officially the parents of their new children! They will be travelling shortly (probably about a month from now) to pick them up. One more family that I know of has court at the end of the month. Hopefully that will go smoothly as well.

HomeStudy Complete!!

Last night we had our final home study visit with Alison (Social Worker). It went as smoothly as all the others have gone. She went over all the dossier guidelines with us and got us well under way. We also found out that she is a notary and will notarize all of the documents that we need to sign. Also she is going to have the entire dossier state sealed for us and make all of our copies for us! This is huge, as these are some of the most time consuming jobs of the dossier.
I also found out that Illinois is the only state that requires a letter of endorsement from DCFS before applying to Immigration. This is going to add about 3 weeks to the process. Immigration then takes approx. 6 weeks to process their paperwork. (It is longer in other states.) So we are still looking at a while before our paperwork goes to Ethiopia, but at least the work on our end is winding down.

Not much interesting happening on the adoption front. Just gathering papers and typing letters and things along those lines. Our final home study meeting is on Tuesday.
3 of the Bethany families with referrals now have their court dates - July 11th. If they pass through court successfully the first time, they can begin their travel plans to go get their children! 1 more family has received their referral for a preschool aged boy. We are definitely seeing things start to move in the Ethiopia program!

Home Visit

Things went fabulous! The house was clean, and the kids were unusually calm and quiet. We finished everything we needed to finish. We had to answer a lot of questions about each other and our families. It went really fast, mostly because we are so boring! We turned in all of our foster home licensing paper work, as well as our training certificates. We have one more visit with her on July 1st (Kennedi's 3rd B-day!) and then we will be done with our home study. Our foster home application will be mailed by Alison (SW) on Friday and we should receive our license within four weeks. At that point we can get our USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) packet and start the Dossier!

one of the requirements by our agency is that we complete 10 hours of online training. I am pleased to say the we have finished that! (OK, I have finished, Jay has about 2 hours left!) Our next meeting is on Wed. June 18th. This one will be at our house. Those of you that have seen my house understand why this might be a point of stress for me! Also, she will meet the kids. Another point of stress! I'm never quite certain what may come out of Tyler's mouth!! He has left me speechless on more than one occasion.

2 more families from the Bethany boards have received their referrals!! One is for an infant girl, and the other is for a 1 1/2 year old boy! It is so exciting to watch people progress through the process. These referrals came about 6 month earlier than expected!

Social Worker Meeting #1

The meeting last night went really well. We rec'd all sorts of new paper work to wade through and got a lot of questions answered. In our state you must first become a licensed foster home before you can adopt. So that is our next step. With the current time line of papers being sent to the appropriate offices, signed, sealed, resent and everything else that is involved, she said we are looking at September before our completed Dossier will be sent to Ethiopia.
Bethany has now established a relationship with two additional orphanages in Ethiopia so that should lower the waiting time for a referral. (At least that is what everyone is hoping!)

An Ethiopian adoption couple, also with our agency, has just rec'd their referral for a child. They are being blessed with a 4.5 yr old girl. Congratulations Holly! I believe they are the first from our agency to receive a referral. The Ethiopian program is very new at Bethany. I look forward to following her progress, so I can know more what to expect!
After our meeting on Monday night (June 2), I should be able to share more about our progress and our next steps.

APPROVED!!

We got the approval today! Next step- homestudy. Our first meeting is set up for June 2.

tri-county crisis pregnancy center

No news on the adoption, but I wanted to update you all on the Hike for Life we did yesterday. It was a lot of fun. 3 1/2 miles. The weather was nice. As a group (there were 12 from our church) we were able to raise just over $2,000.00 for the center. Mckenzie won a nice gift basket full of movies and popcorn for being the young person with the most $$ in sponsors. She was excited. We took Kennedi along and pushed her in the stroller, she had fun watching all the people as well.  We look forward to participating again next year! Thank you again for your sponsors.

The results are in!

Finally. Jason's last blood test result came in today. The missing piece of our application is in my hand and will be mailed tomorrow.
On an unrelated note- Mckenzie and I are preparing for the Hike for Life walk this weekend. Thank you to all who sponsored us I know that Tri-county Pregnancy and Parenting Center will be blessed by your donations.

Not much to report this week. Jason had his physical yesterday. As soon as his lab results come in we will send in his physical form.  Should hopefully hear something this week, as we are anxious to begin the next step.  It is looking like the wait time is going to be longer than initially anticipated.  We are now hearing that it will be 12-15 months for a referral.  This is after all our paper work is in Ethiopia. 

I just finished reading Black Baby White Hands. It is a story about a black boy who was adopted into a white family, and some of the feelings and struggles he faced while growing up.  I have started reading I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla. Both have been very informative.

Our passports arrived yesterday! One week exactly from when we applied. We are still waiting to hear from Bethany on the approval of our formal application.  Hopefully we will hear something this week.  Jason has his physical and blood tests next Saturday.  Each step brings us just a little closer to our new child! Although the process is long and obstacles are met along the way, I've decided it's better than the 9 months of puking that usually precedes a new child in our family!

This morning we went to the post office and mailed our formal application. It only has to go to Chicago so the post office said they should have it on Monday. We also applied for our passports. They said it will take anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks to get them back, that's a lot faster than I thought. We even remembered to get the extra passport photos needed for our dossier, so that will make things a little easier down the road!

one step down!

The physical form is in Bethany's hands and they were happy with it. They put the official application in the mail today!

My physical went well. I checked out all healthy. I have to go on Friday to have the TB test read, but then we should be all set. (Provided I pass the HIV test and urine drug test!!) The doctor signed the medical release form and will updated it with the test results on Friday. No big news to you all, but even the small steps are exciting to me!

Well they were happy with everything in my doctors letter except for one thing. So next week I have a complete physical. If he signs me off as healthy then we are good to go! Shouldn't be a problem, unless I have developed something that I don't know about yet! Everyone in the family has to have a physical at some point in the process, I just get to have mine out of the way sooner!

Since most people seem to gain between 30-40 lbs while they are having a baby, I have decided this time to lose 40 while "having" this baby. I didn't want to post about it until I had a good start, but I think maybe it will keep me motivated knowing people can check in on me! I started 3 weeks ago and have lost 9 lbs. Nothing fabulous, but a good start.

Well, the letter is in! The doctor initially faxed it on Friday Feb. 29 but on Tuesday Bethany said they hadn't rec'd it. I had them fax another copy on Tuesday. Today I heard back that they had rec'd it and are sending it to Grand Rapids (I believe that is where Bethany's main office is) for approval. Don't know how long that will take but at least we have some progress! The more I visit other people's blogs and various adoption websites the more I am realizing there is just no way to rush this process. Whether I like it or not, we are in for a long ride.

Friday Feb. 22
We are still waiting for a note from my doctor. Jason's doctor sent his in on Wednesday. Mine assured me it would be in by yesterday, but he got called to deliver a baby. (Some Nerve!) After about a dozen phone calls they now are saying it for sure will be in Bethany's (adoption agency) hands by Monday. Have a good weekend! Hopefully I'll be able to post more news on Monday!

Wow! exactly 1 week after mailing requests for certified birth and marriage certificates, they arrived in the mail. Sent regular U.S. snail mail to an out of state government office and everything. Maybe the rest of the process will go as smoothly. One can hope, right?

Thursday Feb. 14th Happy Valentines Day!
Today we heard back on our prelim. App. They need some letters signed by our doctors, explaining our current medications. Once they receive those letters, we are approved and can file our formal application. Hurray!

The first step

Thursday Feb. 8, 2008- Our adoption Journey begins. We have decided on an agency and a country.  We filed our pre application today and are waiting for the go ahead! 

Can't wait to keep you all posted on more exciting news!!!