First Tumbling Meet!

Kaitlyn had her very first tumbling meet last weekend.  We spent Saturday and Sunday in Olney watching her do her thing!  She did a great job!  She started some tumbling when she was little, then did a little dance, and a little more tumbling.  We started taking her to a gymnastics class in March 2012.  She then decided she did not like the balance beam or vault very well.  We moved her to Mattoon Academy of Gymnastics in June and she has progressed tons!  When she started there, she had just managed to do her back handspring (thanks to Miss Sam Fisher, who also has helped her tons and is still helping her).  Now she is doing three in row.  They aren't always pretty but she is doing them!  I could barely do a cartwheel at her age, so I am very impressed!  On Saturday she had her double mini passes and her trampoline routine.  She placed 6th on double mini and 7th on trampoline.  She competes in the Novice 9 year old girls group.  We thought this was pretty good considering she just started double mini and tramp in June.  She had no experience in either of these events.  Sunday she had her tumbling passes.  She is in the 9 year old sub novice group for tumbling.  She did really good on her roundoff, 2 back handsprings.  Her roundoff, 3 back handsprings is very challenging for her.  She did really good!  We were so happy that she landed it and did not hit her head!  She placed 7th in that event.  She had a great time competing.  She will compete again in Arthur in January.  I must say she looked super cute in her team leotard and her hair in a bun!

November 1st Update!

Friday was torturous!  The first of every month is update day.  In our little world of adoption, that means email stalking, FB stalking, and impatiently waiting for that update.  Friday was especially tortuous because that update didn't come in until evening.  The clock hit 5:00 and I thought we were just going to be waiting until Monday.  Bummer!  As we set off for trick or treat Friday evening about 6:00, I checked my email on my phone and there it was!  FINALLY!!!!  It was a good one too!  The month of October started off slow, but boy oh boy did it end well.  There were 13 referrals!!!  That's big!  We moved up 10 spots.  We started off at #63 in June.  Last month, we were at #53.  This month we are at #43!!!!!  Woohoo!!!!!!  We were told in October to expect around 25 referrals coming up, so I am assuming November could be a good month as well.  I am hoping!  There are also some rumors going around that we may possibly only have to make one trip to Ethiopia rather than two.  I am hoping and praying that is the case.  There have been some changes in the process, so we won't know for certain how it is all going to work out but hopefully, they will go back to one trip!  It will more than likely be a longer trip, but will be much cheaper to only have to fly there once.  I am also not thrilled about the idea of passing court and coming home, leaving our kids behind in Ethiopia until we are cleared to bring them to America.  That will be rough!  I hope we will not have to do that!  

So....what are we doing while we wait?  Not much!  It is really hard to do all this waiting.  I am ready now!  We have Aden's room done and he has moved into it.  He loves it!  It turned out very nice!  I still do not have his old room completely empty yet though.  I need to work on that.  There was a lot of stuff he didn't want.  I can't decide what to do with it!  We will hopefully be getting Kaitlyn's room upstairs started soon.  I am totally dreading her moving her stuff.  She is a hoarder!!!!  It is bad!  I am also working really hard to prepare myself mentally.  Our lives will be changing big time!  We now have three kids that are really pretty independent and very busy with activities.  I have to admit that I am stressing out a little about adding two more!  Two more that could both be under 2.  I've never had two kids under two before!  I'm going to have tons more laundry.  I will be trying to wiggle two more little people schedules into our busy schedule.  I know it will be fine and we will just roll with the punches, but while I am sitting her waiting with nothing to do, I am worrying about how we will manage it all.  Thankfully, I have the best husband ever who works very hard so I can stay home with our kids.  He does know how to do laundry too even though he folds everything the wrong way and I have to do it over!  I think he does this on purpose.  He thinks it is hilarious that it bothers me when the clothes are not folded correctly.  Haha!  Anyway....I know we will be fine, but it is a little scary.  It was scary each time we had a new baby too though.  It will be a big adjustment which we will make.  I am so excited about having a big family.  A big family is big work, but it is also big fun and big love!  

September Update

Our September update came through this morning.  We are up a total of 10 spots, from back in June, to #53.  There are 25 referrals coming up but there have been some delays on the Ethiopia side.  Hopefully by mid October, we will start seeing some of these come through.  That will give us a nice bump up on the list!  I'm not good at this waiting game, but to be honest these last few months have gone by quickly (thank goodness).  We still have a super long wait ahead though.  Even if we get that referral around June, we will still have around another 6 months of waiting to bring them home.  I will just keep myself busy preparing for them.  We did get Aden's room moved to the basement.  He LOVES it!  It still needs a few things (minor decorating) but he's down there.  I will get that finished up this fall and then we will start on the upstairs room for Kaitlyn.  Poor Kian is not happy that he is not getting a new room!  He wanted to have the downstairs room too!   Aden is just not up for sharing with him though.  :)

I keep thinking I will do better posting on our blog.  I have good intentions and just never post.  I am trying to make a new recipe every week (which doesn't always happen) but I am going to try to start sharing them.  I love cooking and trying new things, but I do not love cleaning up my messes!  I also have several Kian stories to share.  He is a funny kids and is always saying the funniest (sometimes very embarrassing) things!  We have a family trip coming up, so I will definitely be sharing about that.  We are all super excited for some beach time!

I have also become somewhat involved with a couple of moms who have also adopted from Ethiopia through our agency.  They have partnered up with Children's Hope Chest to start a care point in the region of Ethiopia where their children were born, Wolisso.  After traveling to Ethiopia, they decided they wanted to become involved in some way to help that area.  There were not able to come up with anything, so have teamed up with Children's Hope Chest to open up a care point there.  Pretty Exciting!  They are searching for people who would be interested sponsoring children.  They will have 150 children who will need a sponsor.  Sponsorship is $34/month and will provide the children with warm meals, water, and and education.  In that area, if you cannot afford private education, you do not go to school.  This provides those many children with that opportunity.  After getting all the children sponsored, they will begin raising money for development projects, such as building wells, a school, etc.  If you think you would like to sponsor a child, please contact me and I can get you more info or in touch with these two wonderful moms!  We sponsor a child already through Children's Hope Chest.  She is 11 years old and just started school.  She lives with her grandfather and has lost both of her parents.  We are able to send her letters and photos.  Our site leader is going to be traveling to Ethiopia soon, so we just mailed a care package to her to deliver for us.  It was so hard to choose only a few things.  I picked out a light jacket, T-shirt, underwear, socks, toothbrush, Lip balm, hair accessories, and some snacks for her.  I can't wait to get some pictures of her with her new things.  Things she has never been able to have new before!  When we travel to Ethiopia, we will have the option of going to her care point and meeting her.  Of course, I will be doing everything I can to make that happen!  Another family that has traveled and also has a child sponsored through CHC, was able to meet and take a package to her sponsored child.  So cool!  There is another mom who shared a story with us....she actually met a young lady who had shared with her that she had been a sponsored child and what a difference it made in her life.  She was able to go to school and I believe is now a teacher herself and able to support her family.  I'm thrilled to be able to do something so small on this side of the world to possilbly make a huge impact in some child's life on that side of the world.

August Update

August was an incredibly slow month!  There were 3 referrals this month, but two were older children which does not affect our number on the list.  We received our update on Tuesday and we were at #56.  That is only one spot!  There are several potential referrals coming up, but we have been told there has been a delay in some paperwork.  Hopefully, September and October will see some major movement.  There has already been one referral this month so that actually puts us at #55.  We have such a long way to go and I am not good at waiting.  At this point, I don't see how we will have a referral in the timeline we were given.  This worries us!  With Jason's work schedule in the Spring, we are really hoping to have our kids home by March for sure.  It will be very difficult for him to travel after that. I may need a volunteer to travel to Ethiopia with me!  Only time will tell and I totally trust our agency.  They know more than we do about the process.  I hope they are right and we will still have a referral sometime next summer.   

We are moving up!!!!

In adoption world, the first of the month and at times the first of the week are exciting times!  We tend to stalk our emails, checking them every 5 minutes to see if our monthly update has come in yet.  I don't know if it is like this with all agencies, but our agency sends us a monthly update at the first of every month.  They let us know how many referrals there were, how many people traveled, how many kids came home, how may referrals are coming up....that kind of thing.  We have a large group of families that are part of a private FB group as well, so we try to predict where we are on the list.  This month we moved up a little to #57!!!!  It's not much at all, but it is still exciting to see the number change!  There are approximately 25 referrals coming up.  That is very exciting!  It takes time to get a child referral ready so these could come up within a couple months or a few months, but there are children that need families.  

We spent the weekend on phase 1 of preparing for more kids.  We took a trip to West Chester, OH to visit the IKEA store!  Aden and Kaitlyn are very excited to be moving their rooms.  They both were able to pick out a new bed, dresser, desk, and tables for their new rooms!  Kaitlyn will be moving upstairs (once Jason gets a wall built) and Aden will be taking the bedroom downstairs.  Our new daughter will then get Kaitlyn's room and the furniture she has now and our little boy will take over Aden's room.  I'm ready to have our little ones here but we definitely need the time for these changes to get finished!  I have a lot of work to do in this house to prepare!  I LOVED IKEA by the way!  It was huge!  I'm already thinking once we get the rooms set up, I need to go back to buy some decor for them.  We just bought the furniture this time.  I was so overwhelmed!!!!  

We also had some family fun time while we were in Ohio.  We stayed at The Great Wolf Lodge in Mason.  It was so nice!  There was a HUGE indoor water park.  Kian had the time of his life!  He was not about to leave to come home!  As we were shopping at IKEA, he was asking to go back to the hotel instead of home.  It was a great family hotel.  Lots of things to do and the food was good.  We spent quite a bit of time in the water park.  They had several different slides, a lazy river, hot tub, pools, and a huge play area.  We played mini golf and did some bowling.  The arcade was a big hit too.  Kaitlyn, Kian, and I spent about 4 hours playing the MagiQuest game (Aden and Jason helped too but not for the entire four hours!).  We bought a magic wand and it is a huge scavenger hunt throughout 3 floors of the hotel.  I was exhausted!  My legs were so sore from climbing up and down stairs!  Kian had a blister on his little foot too.  It was fun though.  Aden defeated the dragon for us in the end.  We are Master Magi!!!!!  I have become a terrible mom and never carry my camera anywhere so I have no good pictures.  I took a few with the phone but it is just not made for action shots so they are pretty blurry.  I need to do better!  

Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

We have had a busy couple of weeks so I am going to put a few things together in one post.  

First, we had company!!!  I love when my sister and her family come for a visit!  We always have so much fun.  Her girls attended their first parade (other than the Disney Parades, but there is no candy there).  They were all about that candy!  It was so funny to watch their excitement as the candy came at them.  

The kids had a great time celebrating the 4th of July!  They also did a lot of swimming, some crafts, a little fishing, and we all went to see Despicable Me 2.  That was a great movie!

Lots of fun times with the cousins!  We miss them already.  

We have also celebrated our little Miss Kaitlyn's 9th birthday!  Nine years old already!!!  I can't believe it!  She is growing up on me!  She had a pool party with an ice cream sundae. We were so lucky to have a beautiful day!  The sundae bar was a huge hit and a big mess!  We also attended Pizza Fun Night at the Flip Zone.  Kaitlyn invited a few friends and her little brother.  It was a fun night.  She had a pretty good day.  

 The yummy sundae toppings! 

We also had a trip to the Martinsville Ag Fair.  That is a good time every summer.  Lots of rides, good food, and the barnyard scramble!  Kian caught a little duck.  He had a blast.  

The first half of July has been busy busy!  I'll try to do better at keeping up with things on here but don't count on it!  :)

FAQ's

Jason made our big news Facebook official last week.  I have been getting some questions so I thought I would put some information on here.  

Why Adopt? 

That's a big one!  I think the reason for that is different for each of us.  I have always wanted to adopt.  I can remember when we first decided to try having a baby, I had said I would be totally up for adopting.  I have always wanted to provide a family for a child in need of one.  We had no difficulty having our own children, but the thought of adopting never left my mind or my heart.  I really thought after having Kian, Jason would never agree to more.  He did though!  We have three children of our own and there are sooooo many children out there that need families, I thought why have more when we could provide a loving family and home for one of those children.  Jason thought about it and said, OK, look into it.  I have a very dear friend or two that have adopted, so I immediately talked with them, called some agencies, and passed along the information I had gathered.  I tend to jump into things with both feet and little thought so thank goodness Jason is the thinker!  It about killed me waiting for his answer but after a lot of thought he agreed that we could make this happen.  His reasons for adopting are different than mine but I will let him talk about that.  

Why Ethiopia?

We had originally thought and planned to adopt from China.  After speaking with a couple of different agencies, we decided China was just not going to work for us.  The wait time for China is approximately 7 years!  That was way too long!  Our children will be grown up by then.  The other options that we felt would work for our family were a few African countries and Bulgaria.  I have a friend that has two handsome little boys from Ethiopia, so I called her up again!  I got a lot of information from her.  I talked to the agency we had decided to go with and got more informaiton on each country.  I did some of my own research online.  First of all, Ethiopia just felt right.  One thing I told myself from the beginning was to listen to my gut, follow my heart.  It was leading me to Ethiopia. The information I was finding about Bulgaria scared me a little.  It was also very comforting to know somebody that had been to Ethiopia.  There were also soooo many reason why we should go there:

*  Ethiopia is ranked as one of the four poorest countries

*  1 in 10 children die before their first birthday (can you imagine?)

*  1 in 6 children die before the age of 6

*  Malnutrition is the underlying cause of more than half of all deaths

*  Dr. to child ration is 1 to 24,000

*  Only about 50% of children attend school

*  Ethiopia has on of the largest populations of orphans:  13% have lost one or both parents ( this   represents an estimated 4.6 million children)

Those were just a few of the facts I found as I was researching our options.  They were enough!  

Every day the 75 million people of Ethiopia face famine and disease. While nearly every Ethiopian feels the impact, the 4.3 million orphans are the most vulnerable. 

How long does it take?

You can view our timeline off to the side, but we started the end of December.  We ended making some agency changes, so we actually began our home study process and paperwork in  February.  That takes on average 4-6 months to complete.  We have completed our Dossier and did it in 4 months.  I was on top of things!  We are now on the waiting list and have been told to expect a 12 month wait for our referral.  At that time we will receive photos and information on our child.  We will either accept or deny the referral.  We will then wait 2-4 months for our court date.  We will travel to meet our child(ren) and attend to court.  At that time, the child will be legally ours.  We will then come home and wait another 1-2 months for our embassy appointment.  We can then travel back to Ethiopia, obtain our child's documentation and come home!  From referral to homecoming is estimated to take 5-6 months. We are hoping that we will be a family 6 or 7 by Christmas of 2014.  It is all estimates though.  Things could happen faster or they could take longer.  

Do we know what we are getting?

Yes we do!  We have been approved to adopt a child of either sex between 0-4 years of age.  We (right now) are on the list for a little girl age 0-2 and a little boy age 2-4.  We can change that at any time as long as we stay within our approved age range.  We are really hoping to get siblings.  

Those are the questions we are being asked most frequently.  I don't mind the questions at all.  I'm so excited, I really just love when somebody asks me about it so I can talk about it!  

I am going to leave with some beautiful photos that were taken by Stacey Clack Photography on her recent trip to Ethiopia.  She sold the prints as a way to raise some money to help with travel expenses.  I just love them all!

#63

#63

Just received a very exciting email....our dossier has been received by our agency and is being mailed to Ethiopia tomorrow!!!!  Yippee!!!!  We are #63 on the wait list.  We are expecting a 12 month wait for our referral.  That's way too long, but we will make it!  I'm glad the paper chase is over and I can breath a little bit easier for a while.  Now the waiting game begins!  I have a lot to do to get ready for our new baby or babies so I will keep busy with that.  

Creepy Critters

Every summer our local library puts on a summer program for the kids to encourage reading.  When you return four books, you can get a prize!  They also try to have some type of activity for the kids to do on Wednesdays.  This last through the month of June.  Anyway.....Yesterday the had a program called Animal Tales.  It was very good!  They brought their Creepy Critter program with them.  He showed the kids hissing cockroaches, a scorpion, a rat, a tarantula, a rat snake, and a huge python.  He shared a lot of information with the kids as well.  With each critter he showed, he asked for volunteers.  Of course, Kaitlyn raised her hand.  She was picked first.  He had her and another little boy close their eyes.  He asked what is the insect that the most common?  The kids answered cockroaches, ladybugs, gnats.  He asked what is the bug most people don't like the most?  Then in Kaitlyn's hand he placed a huge hissing cockroach!  She did not like that at all!!!!  It was so funny.  She now says she will never volunteer again!  She will!  

LOL!  And she has it!  She did not hold it very long!

Imagine this great big thing in Kait's little hand!  YUCK!

Aden tried to volunteer to help hold the Python but he was not picked.  He was disappointed.  He has a small obsession with snakes.  I'm a terribly mean mother and will not allow a snake in my house!  He would love to have one though.  

I'm so glad that our library has these things for the kids in the summer.  It is a great program.  We can't wait to go next week!

Paper chase is OVER!!!!

We are DONE!!!  We are finally DONE!  We received our I-171H form on May 20th.  Yesterday, we made the trip to Springfield to have our documents state sealed.  Of course, we couldn't do it without a little bit of stress!  Our notary's stamp included her middle initial and her signature did not.  We ended up having to go to the Lincoln Library to retype the two documents and then to the Circuit Clerk's office to have them notarized.  We got it done though!  Just a little bit of stress for me!  LOL  I was a nervous wreck.  We drove home from Springfield, went straight to the bank to get our money order, and sent our dossier off to the Assistant Stork!  We are officially finished with the paper chase part of our adoption journey.  I am so thankful!  It was not anything too difficult, but it stressed me out!!!  I'm glad to have it all done.  Waiting is not going to be easy.  I am so ready and anxious to get our new daughter and maybe son too.  At least, I can wait in peace!  No more dreams about notaries and documents and Dr. appointments. 

Fingerprinting

We received our fingerprinting appointment last week.  It was set for May 14th at 9:00 am in Indianapolis.  We decided to take a chance and go for a walk in.  We went to Indy Wednesday May 1st and they let us in!  We were fingerprinted a whole 14 days early!  That is fantastic.  Want to hear a funny story about that?!  Well, its funny now but at the  moment it was kind of scary!  I told Jason as we were getting out of the car that I was only taking my ID and appt. form in with me.  It says on the form not to bring in phones, radios, pagers, etc.  We had to go to the Office of Homeland Security.  It is a big government office.  Anyway,  he just went in like normal.  We get up to the 4th floor and had to empty our pockets.  I, of course, left everything in the car.  Jason, on the other hand, emptied his pockets.  The lady immediately yelled, "Get that out of this building now!"  Jason and I looked at each like what?!  He had a small knife in his pocket.  She yelled it again.  He started to toss it in the trashcan.  She yelled again, "No, out of this building!"  He did as she said and took it back out to the car.  When he came back in she said, "I'm sorry, but I did not want to see what you had.  I did not want to cuff you in front of your son."  Wow!  We went to prove we are not criminals and Jason about became one!  Oh my!!!!  It was quite an experience which we are laughing about now.  That will be something to tell our child someday.  LOL!  We are now just waiting to receive our I 171 H form.  We will then make a trip to Springfield to have the Great  Seal put on our documents.  Our dossier will then be ready to be sent to the Assistant Stork, US embassy, our agency, and then off to Ethiopia!!!!  We will officially be on the waiting list soon!  

More news.....we got our monthly update this week.  There were 15 referrals in April!  That is a lot!!!!! They had told us the average is 1-4 referrals per month.  They have a possible 15 referrals coming up that they know of!  This is amazing!  Right now the waiting list has 43 families ahead of us.  Our wait is still estimated to be around 12 months.  It has been so exciting to see all the families receiving referrals and a couple that have met their children.  There should be several families traveling in the next month.  I love seeing and hearing all about their trips and their beautiful children. 

It's been a long week!!!!

Last week was a long week!  I started off thinking I had a great week ahead with very little I needed to do.  Boy was I wrong!  Sunday night, my sweet little Kian fell off his bike and broke his little arm.  "It was all Daddy's fault because he was talking to me", he says!  Now he thinks his bike needs a seatbelt too.  He is something else!  Sunday night ended with a trip to the ER.  Yep, a broken arm.  A supra condylar fracture to be exact.  They put his arm in a splint and sent us home.  Now a trip the Orthopedic surgeon first thing in the morning.

This is his huge splint Sunday night!

Monday morning we met with Dr. Sandercock, his surgeon.  The took some new X-rays and decided that the best thing to do would be to put him under and try to manipulate the bone back into place with the possibility of inserting pins.  Kian was scheduled the first surgery of the day on Wednesday.  That was an early morning!  

His new cast!  He loved the blue!

Wednesday morning went very well.  The Dr. was able to push the bone back into place and cast it with no pins!  Yay!!!!  I think the worst part about the whole thing were the horrible baby pajamas Kian had to wear.  He threw a huge fit b/c he had to wear those things.  

Not liking these pj's!

Sleeping peacefully after surgery.

Kian is getting along very well now.  He was pretty moody the first few days, but has not had any pain meds since Saturday.  The cast is annoying and has made him quite clumsy.  It is very heavy!  He still complains about the itching but not too often.  The Dr. thinks he will just need wear the cast for 3 weeks!  We were super happy about that!  It will be swimming time soon and he would not like it if he couldn't jump in!  Back to the Dr. tomorrow for another check up.  He's hoping for a new cast.  The hospital only had white and he wants a green one now, so he can have a Hulk arm.  

Here they are!  Our USCIS documents ready to be mailed!!!  I  was so excited and frantic about getting these to the post office that I almost forgot to stick the check in with them!  Good thing I triple checked everything.  They should arrive in Dallas Texas today!  Now we wait for our fingerprinting appointment.  Getting closer to that list!

APPROVED!!!!

Just received an email that our home study has been approved by DCFS and is on its way to us today!  Hoping to get it tomorrow!  I will immediately be sending it off to USCIS and will hopefully be on our way to get fingerprinted soon!!!  We are getting closer to that list.  We are probably about 5 weeks away from sending off our dossier (from what I hear).  Yippee!!!!!  I am just so stinking excited I can hardly stand it!

Our wonderful social worker has written our home study, it has been reviewed by AAI, and is being sent to DCFS today!  Yay!!!!  I'm so glad we decided to switch and go with ICM.  We wouldn't even have started our home visits yet with the first agency we had decided on.  ICM has been so great!

There Is No Me Without You

I have to post this short book review.  I just finished up the book, There Is No Me Without You.  I absolutely loved it!  Yes, there were some parts that talked about the history of AIDS in Africa and the US that were a little slow reading, but as far as the story of Haregowin Tefferra, it was wonderful!  I'm not going to say too much about because I don't want to spoil it for anyone.  If you are at all interested in African orphans or adoption from Africa, read this book!  Haregowin was just woman who had had a pretty comfortable life in Ethiopia.  She had suffered some personal losses and was at the end of her rope ready to give up on life.  She was asked by a local pastor to take in a couple of children bc they had no where else to go.  She looked at this opportunity as God trying to save her.  It worked!  She loved those children and ended up accepting several more.  And the story goes on about how she accepted these children and had so many that she had to rent more homes.  It is a book full of emotions.  I laughed, cried, felt happy, sad.  She had many ups and many downs but she loved the children of her country.  She truly did her best to care for them and do what she thought was best for them.  It is a great read and I highly recommend it!

Home Study is DONE!!!!

I am a terrible blogger!  I had such good intentions when I decided to do this.  I get on here and have no idea what to write.  UGH!  Anyhow, we had our third and final home visit last Tuesday!  YAY!!!  It feels so good to have that one little thing finished.  At least we have something finished!  I believe our social worker has finished writing our home study already and has sent it to AAI for review.  Hopefully it will be sent to the state of Illinois next week sometime.  In the meantime, we will wait, wait, wait, and wait some more!  Did I mention, I am not good at waiting!!!!

Home Visit #2

Last Friday we had our second home visit.  It was just a training visit.  She went over a lot of good information with us.  We made some final decisions about our preferences for a referral.  We have decided to be open to two children between the ages of 0-4.  Older children tend to be harder to place for the simple reason people want babies.  We had originally planned to adopt on child age 0-4, then had our in person 2 day training class and quickly changed our minds to age 0-18 months.  Our instructor scared us away from older children a little bit, but the more I read and communicate with other families, I am learning that African countries treat their orphans different than countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria.  I Eastern European countries, the children are on a sort of schedule.  They feed them at certain times, changes them at certain times.  If they cry or need something in between those times the are generally made to just wait and cry.  Some of these children develop attachment disorders where they are unable to make an attachment to a caregiver.  This is very scary to a parent wanting to adopt.  From what I am reading and being told, Ethiopia is not like this.  Yes, the government orphanages are not the Four Seasons, but children are loved there.  In most cases, they are not placed for adoption because they are unwanted.  They are placed because there has been a death of a parent due to disease, or an accident.  They are placed because their family simply can't feed them and want a better life for them because they love their children.  After some of the conversations I have had with other adoptive parents, we have decided to go ahead and be open to a child up to the age of 4.  They highly recommend not going out of birth order, so that is a good age for us to use as our max.  Our third home visit will be in a couple of weeks and then we will be finished with that part of the process.  As soon as our home study is written, we can begin mailing off paperwork.  We will receive a fingerprinting appointment to obtain our I-171-H form and then we will be ready to have our documents sealed and sent to Ethiopia.  We are hoping to have our dossier in Ethiopia sometime in May.  Very exciting!!!!

I also listened in on a conference call last week from our agency.  The Ethiopia team from AAI just got home from a 2 week trip to Ethiopia to visit the orphanages they work with.  They had a wonderful trip and were very happy with all of the orphanages and the directors they were able to meet with.  They also visited their transition home, Jane's House, and met with several of the nannies and were able to see some of the children that have been referred and that are in the process of getting ready to be referred.  They are working on several referrals and expect to refer several children in the next couple of months.  It was very exciting to hear all that they had to say.

Home Visit 1

We had our first home visit last Friday.  I was so stressed over nothing!  It was easy peasy!  A few questions, a signature here, a signature there, and that was that.  Our case worker was very nice.  We have home visit two next Friday and the final home visit about 2 weeks after that.  That will be the scary one!  She will interview us separately and interview the kids.  I hope they don't say anything too  embarrassing!  We have all of our paper work together and ready to go.  We are just waiting to add the home study to it.  Hopefully that will all be ready in about 6 weeks.

Let's get going....

Ahhhh......a sigh of relief.  Things are falling into place.  We received our formal acceptance to Adoption Associates yesterday.  I printed out all of our paperwork.  Not near as bad as I had imagined it would be!  I'm relieved.  I slept so much better last night knowing we had been accepted and feeling like this is the path we were meant to take.  I have been stressing out about choosing our placement agency.  Today, we were accepted by Illini Christian Ministries to do our home study!  First home visit is scheduled for next week!  Yay!!!!  That is so much better than having to wait until April!  We should be good to go since we have all of our paperwork finished.  There may be some things that are different or need to be redone.  I hope not too much!  I'm just so relieved that things are moving along now.  We have both of our agencies and are very happy and excited to begin working with them both.  Woo!!!!  I'm glad that is done!  I had no idea it would be so stressful choosing the right agency!

Exciting things are happening.......

Yes, that's right....I said exciting things are happening in our family!  We are getting another little girl!!!!!  After lots of discussion, we have made the decision to adopt an orphan from Ethiopia!!!!  We are so EXCITED!!!!!  We will be getting a little girl between 0-2 years old.  We are expecting the whole process to take 18 months - 2 years.  That is way too long!  We have signed with an agency called Adoption Associates out of Michigan.  We have already had a little agency drama!  I had not idea how difficult it would be to find a good, ethical agency, but not have to wait 3-4 years.  We did it though and I think we area working with a wonderful agency.  We are in the first stage of adoption, the paper chase!  We have already done tons of paperwork, dr. appt., fingerprinting, etc. for our home study.  We will soon be getting a whole new set of paperwork for our dossier.  Hopefully we will have our dossier complete in about 3-4 months and get on the wait list!  They have told us approximately a 10 month wait for a referral after we are on the wait list.  We will then receive a photo as well as any information they have on our daughter.  We will accept the referral and wait 3-5 months for our court date.  We will then travel to Ethiopia for about a week to meet our daughter and appear in court.  We will also have time to travel around the country and hopefully meet our daughters birth family. We will have to wait another period of anywhere from 2-10 weeks for our embassy date.  At that time, we will travel back to Ethiopia a second time to bring our little girl home!!!!  It is going to be a lot of waiting and I am not a patient lady!!!!  I already can't wait!!!!

Gotcha!!!!!

Yep!  Kian played with a mouse yesterday!  I know, I know......Gross! He kept telling me our cat, Dexter had a mouse or a tiger.  I just thought he was making things up.  A tiger?  Why would I believe that.  Well, he did have a mouse and boy was he having fun with it!  Now, I DO NOT like mice at all!  Kian, on the other hand, kept trying to pick it up.  Dexter wasn't having that.  That was his toy!  He caught it!  By the time Kian did get a hold of it, it was a dead mouse.  He picked it up for me, placed it in a bag and outside it went!  Thank you Kian!  Dexter looked for that mouse for about an hour after we threw it out.