Remorse

This video makes me remorseful for ever complaining. Nothing I have ever experienced in my life even compares to the hurt these children must feel. It is within my power to keep one child from experiencing this kind of life and no matter how many people question our decision or make fun of us we will never be regretful.

Minor Accomplishments

Today was overall a pretty successful day in wrapping up the final details in preparing our dossier. I met with our social worker yesterday and she says she should have our home study written by Sunday. Tomorrow is our trip to Louisville to fill out the citizenship form and get fingerprinted. I'm excited because I found an authentic Ethiopian restaurant we are going to try. Below is a picture of the food.
I went to apply for a passport yesterday but couldn't because they need a certified copy of our birth certificates. The ones we have are getting ready to be sent to our agency with our dossier so I had to order more copies which means more waiting and more money!! Anyway I got a
3rd copy (and hopefully the last)of Joels physical exam today. There were problems with the notary and typos on the first two. The Dr. has been really nice about it though. I also got more of our forms notarized and ready to go! I talked to the manager at Walgreens as well and told her our situation on needing so many passport photos-she said if we came in on Sun. she would give them to us for free!!!!! I wish Joel didn't have to work so much so he could help me more..oh well-at least things are moving along fairly smoothly at this point. I don't know what I'll do with my time once I'm finished preparing paperwork! Well, hopefully we'll be on the waiting list within the next couple weeks and then I can lay back and take it easy for a little while :)

Mischevious Dogs

Today I am feeling really frustrated because things are not going like I want them to in completing the dossier.One thing that keeps me busy is my two mischevious dogs. No matter how I feel they always find a way to make me smile (and/or scream). When I finally get out of bed this morning I go into the bathroom and NayNay is in the laundry hamper-how she got in there I'll never know. I hear a lot of noise going on upstairs so I go up to find FiFi sitting in the middle of a torn up paper plate trying to look very innocent. I picked up the camera right away.

Dossier

Today we received our dossier guide in the mail and it is EXTREMELY overwhelming. There are so many forms to complete (most of them we did for our home study but have to have them redone for notarizing). Here is a list of what we have to have in the dossier:

adoption approval
adoption petition
certified birth certificates
certified marriage certificate
home study
international placement agency license
criminal clearance report
employment verification
medical reports
bank/financial letter
tax forms
proof of medical insurance
proof of medical coverage for the child
3 reference letters
power of attorney
passport photos
post adoption agreement

After we get all the paperwork together it has to be notarized, then certified by the county clerk, then by the secretary of state. Finally, we can send it back to the agency who will send it on to Washington for authentication. Then it has to be translated for Ethiopia.
And guess what-my goal is to have all this done by February :)

A lot of people ask us why we have chosen to adopt from Ethiopia......there are many reasons but above all it is what God has put in our hearts.......these videos may help everyone understand why God drew our hearts to Ethiopia......

Lifebook

Joel's birth certificate still hasn't arrived but the good news is, Sarah, our IAN case worker says we don't have to have the 1600A completely processed before we get on the waiting list. We just have to have it done before we can receive a referral.
We completed 8 hours of our adoption education today! I'm so happy to get most of it over with. I'm glad we had to do it though because it was very informative.
I also started doing some research on creating an adoption lifebook for our baby to read as he gets older and starts wondering about how he came into our lives. I found a wonderful poem I want to include (I changed it just a little):
I loved you before we ever met,
I prayed for you day and night,
Thankful your birthmother had given you life.

The waiting was so anxious and hard,
You already held a place in my heart,
Weeks went by and sometimes I cried.
Finally one day came a call with good news.

Tears of joy fell on my cheek,
the first time I held you, Precious baby, so tiny and sweet.

Rocking and singing sweet lullabies,
you've brought much joy to so many lives,
I'll love you forever, sweet little one.
Memories to treasure, a new life begun.





Here is a picture of the crib set that Joel ordered-it should be here by tomorrow.

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Anxiety

So we had an appointment to go to Louisville tomorrow to turn in our 1600A form (for citizenship) but realized the copy of Joel's birth certificate we have is not certified and we have to have a certified copy. So we had to get online and order one. It won't be here for probably about 2 weeks so we'll have to reschedule later :(
A little bit of good news though...I called our assigned worker at Internatinal Adoption Net in Colorado and she said they had received our formal application and initial paperwork and said everything looked good. Says she will mail out our step by step dossier guide ASAP. I am so anxious to get started on it so we can be on the waiting list! The boy list also moved yesterday...someone at our agency got a referral for a two month old boy! Hopefully we will get to be # 10 on the baby boy waiting list.

My First Post

I am new at this and not sure what I am doing. Just thought it may be a good idea to start a blog to keep everyone updated on our lives. We are very excited about our journey to become parents. After much prayer and contemplation we chose to adopt a baby boy from Ethiopia and are waiting patiently for the day when he will be home. We are doing everything we can to get him home as quickly as possibly and I pray everyday that he is safe, happy, and healthy.