Okay, So, Big Stuff Around Here!!!

The end of January marked two years since we'd begun the process of adoption from Ethiopia, referrals were few and far between, and considering we had about 67 families in front of us, we knew we were now looking at a good 2-3 more years to finish the adoption, and longer than that for siblings. On that day we finally decided it was time to look at other options.

After a month of praying for clarity and leading, and researching 50 or so agency/country combos, we still weren't finding the right fit, it was all much too complicated... that is, until yesterday!!!

Yesterday the wonderful social worker who has performed our last two home studies emailed me and said she'd thought of us that afternoon when she heard that another agency was opening a couple of new programs in Africa. Well, it turns out that yesterday they launched a new program in Ghana, and because we found out when we did we had the opportunity to be the very first in line!!! So to Ghana we go!!! 

The extra great news is that it should be a much faster process because we're the first family, maybe 6 months?!?! That's just a guess, but it should be really fast!! And we're still adopting two young children, which is something we thought we'd have to give up on. We've heard good things, and are excited to work with our new agency. They've been bending over backwards to help us get our paperwork in order as fast as possible.

Praise the Lord for His amazing, mind-blowing provision!!! He is so good!!!

Waitlist 2.0 = Double the pleasure, double the fun :)

Last week we had the last of our paperwork sent in and we were placed back on the WAIT LIST!!! Our new, adjusted wait list date is January 31, 2011. Basically, we take the 6ish months that we had been waiting when we went on hold, subtracted them from the date we got back on the wait list, and now will use that date to determine our place "in line" as we wait for our babies...

...wait a minute, did you catch that?!? 

That's right, people, I said  BABIES!!! We are now waiting for siblings!!! We're expecting 2 children under the age of 3, and since we've still left the gender question pretty open-ended, there are a lot of possibilities, so we'll have to wait and see who God has for us :)

You might be wondering how this all came about, or when/why we made the switch, so let me just tell you (because it's totally all about God's glory). When we were preparing to go on hold, we knew we'd have to redo a bunch of paperwork (insert sad trombone: wah, wah..) but on that evening, right before talking to our case worker, as we were driving to have a little getaway at the beach, it occurred to me.. that's the exact paperwork we'd need to re-do if we wanted to change our child preference profile. Eureka!!! Lightning had just struck my brain!! We already knew we wanted to adopt from Ethiopia more than once, why not just do it at the same time?!? And the moment I had that thought, and I shared it with my husband, it was all over :) We were like the Grinch, our hearts grew 2 sizes, we now had two children waiting for us in Ethiopia, and there was no looking back!!!

I'm suddenly reminded of this post that I wrote so long ago:

"But as we were walking out I asked him (very dramatically) if he ever felt like he just HAD to have everything we see that's from Ethiopia, and he very sweetly replied "Nope, I just need one thing from Ethiopia." "Or two," I said. "Or two," he replied. "Or three," I whispered. :)"

... little did we know!!!

All glory to God, who put us on hold for a moment, so the love in our home could increase for a lifetime!!! He knew what He was doing, he knew what we needed. He cares about us, and loves to give us good gifts. I will trust Him all the days of my life!!!


Unofficial Wait List Stats:
-56th overall (-4 families on hold, so really we're 52nd)
-27th of those open to siblings in the same age range as us (-3 families on hold, so really we're 24th)
-15th of those specifically asking for siblings in the same age range as us (-2 families on hold, so really we're 13th)
-The longest waiting families have been waiting 16 months for a referral, as opposed to the 7.5 months people were waiting when we first started the process, but this delay is in the name of higher ethical standards, and we fully support the Ethiopian government's new added precautions.

Bring on the social workers :)

Either I always have fresh flowers on the counter and cookies in the oven, or... we have our HOME STUDY TODAY!!!!

 

 

TIME TO CELEBRATE!!!!!

God has given us a giant blessing!!!! He now has a full-time job!!! We can finish our adoption!!!!!!!

It’s been a rough, sweet, heart-breaking 6 months, but the dog-days are over!!!! God has shown Himself to us in a very real way, providing for us in dramatic fashion, just at the right time, even to the point of catering to our prayer requests (a la Gideon). He’s opened our eyes in a big way to new things He might be calling us to, and we’re totally excited about them. It’s been hard, but it’s been good. Thank you Lord!!!

We are beyond excited to be doing things that our hearts long to do. Not only do we have jobs, but he’s going to be working for Young Life and for a sweet, sweet church, and I even have the special opportunity of working part-time at a job that has me loving on and ministering to teen mothers in the area. AND obviously, it looks like God is providing for our HEART’S DESIRE to adopt a child in Ethiopia who needs a family.

Basically, I haven’t slept since Saturday because I’m so excited.

Just a little paperwork, a little fixing up the apartment for our home study, and we’ll be right back on that waitlist!!!!

Let’s BTBH, people!!!!!

James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

On top of all that, we're celebrating together with a blog friend who just got a referral (you know who you are)!!!  Congrats you guys!!!

WAITLIST!!!!

Well, today God answered my prayers that we'd be on the waitlist before I traveled to Haiti. Kinda movie-style-dramatic waiting till the last day, no? We got an e-mail first from Kate Sawyer saying our Dossier was send to a courier in Washington DC, who I think will be responsible for taking it to the appropriate offices there and then FedEx-ing it to our agency staff in Ethiopia, THEN we got a beautiful e-mail from our case worker officially saying that that all means we are now officially waiting!! YAAAYYY!!!

So for those who are curious and don't know, here's the break-down:

-Approximately anywhere from 7.5-10 months from now (current ave: 8.5) we'll receive a referral for a child

-Approximately 2-3months from accepting a referral, we will receive a court date, which should be about a month out

-We will travel to appear in court in Ethiopia, and to meet our child for the very first time!!! This trip will be about 5-7 days long, and while there we'll get to do a lot of sight-seeing, which sounds super fun!! Unfortunately they tell me that during this trip we will only be with our child for rief, scheduled meetings... bleh, I can't even think about that right now

-Approximately 3-6weeks after pass court (not everyone passes the first time, due to delays, etc) we will travel the second time. This trip will be about a week long, and we get to just chill with our babe in our hotel room and focus on sweet bonding time!!! And then, we'll come home, forever a family :)

-Soooo we're APPROXIMATELY looking at the end of May-the end of September to bringing our baby home!!!

Praise the Lord for His grace and mercy! For loving us and taking care of us! And for being the one who's put this adventure in our lives, and who's in charge of it! I pray that in His mercy, He would be gentle with our sweet baby's birthmother (she's probably pregnant by now), that He would open her heart to His saving love, and that He would comfort her in her distress. I pray that he would keep our baby safe, clean, warm, dry, and fed until we can bring him or her home. I pray that the Lord would spare our baby from sickness and pain, and comfort him/her if they come. I pray that someone would love on and hold our baby until we can. I pray that the Lord would equip us to love this child through and through, and and give us the wisdom we need to be it's parents. YAAAYYY!!!!

Dossier Complete!!!!!

That's IT, we're DONE!!! Today we received our I-171H!! --Our officer at the USCIS office should win the award for government worker of the year, she went above and beyond, calling me and e-mailing with me until we got it done! If you ever read this, officer, thank you so much!-- We had to stalk the FedEx truck like crazy: we watched it's progress online, and one of us was posted at the apartment at all times until we received our package. But then we had some stuff notarized, and shipped off the last of the paperwork in our foreign dossier, to bring home our baby! Can you believe it?!?

It's been surreal to be getting so much closer to meeting our baby. In a way, it's still an amorphous idea of a baby in my mind, and I have a hard time feeling the deep feelings I know I'll have for it (it'll help when I don't have to call it an it, huh? :) ) one day, when I hold it in my arms. But in another way, I think the reality of/the magnitude of what we're about to do has started to sink in, and my mind is pretty much reeling from it 90% of the time. I though I'd share some of what I've been thinking about.



- Being a mother is going to be intense. I realized this on a deeper level this week, as I was keeping the two cuties above (aren't they sweet?) for a day and a half while their parents took a little time away. It was an absolute pleasure, cause I love these girls so much, but I did learn a lot. It made me understand that when I'm a mother, that'll be my biggest mission. You hear this all the time, but I feel like I finally felt it on my own, like I finally understood that mothers are valiant lone rangers in a lot of ways, on a quest that is of eternal value, but requires daily focus. Wow, I hadn't ever felt that.

- Are we equipped to parent a black child in a white home in the States? I had a minor freak out about it last week. Said freak-out included checking out 8 books from the library :) The truth is we don't really have many friends who are black, and really none of our closest friends are. Where we live is much more diverse than were we used to live, and that's part of why we moved here, but it's still no Atlanta, Chicago, or any other big major city. I began to feel really insecure about our ability to equip our baby for life as an African American, and really afraid that he/she might grow up to resent us for "getting in over our heads". But then, that's just what we're not supposed to do, huh? We're not supposed to be afraid, we're supposed to shatter the boundaries of love in this world. And plus, that was one of the major reasons we wanted to adopt in the first place:

"We have both individually felt compelled to adopt for multiple reasons. Firstly, we are very aware of the huge number of children in the world who need families, and we have a desire to love them and be that family. Secondly, we are passionate about the beauty of multi-racial families, and as we begin to form our family have decided that we would love to be one! And thirdly, we are compelled by our relationship with Jesus Christ, and the way He's loved us, to share sweetness and love with a world that needs it. James 1:27 specifically encourages us to take care of the orphaned, and we want to!"

I don't have to be afraid, cause the love of Christ washes over a multitude of harmful things the world might through at our kiddos, even from our direction. I can feel confident that teaching our children to find their identity in the love that God has for them, regardless of what color their skin is, is the best thing we can do for them. Sure, I'm gonna make a point to be continually celebrating different beautiful aspects of and admirable people in Ethiopian and African American culture, because I still think that's so important, but mostly I'll teach them who they are in the Lord, who they are to me, and then set them free into the world to live their life. I just want to give them the most the most solid, loving, secure, accepting foundation I can offer.

- I was watching a TV show the other day where one kid looked at another and said "you're adopted" like it was the worst thing in the world. C'mon, TV, why you gotta do that to kids?

- I'm gonna have to learn to wield my tongue wisely when people say things that are hurtful without thinking, or even intentionally. I've always been super sensitive to racist, or otherwise prejudiced or hurtful comments, but haven't quit developed the right way to respond. I generally just shudder and stare out the window, occasionally I'll say something, but it's inevitably abrupt and followed by awkward silence. For now, I suppose it's ok to bite my tongue, but when my sweet baby's old enough to hear and understand the hurtful undertones of the comments sometimes made by folks, I'm going to have to learn how to stand up for my baby with dignity, and care a little less about embarrassing the commenter. My Dad reassures me I'll know just what to say, cause I'll be a mother, and mother always know what to say. Thanks, Dad, you always know what to say :)

- More likely than not, our baby is an embryo now. It probably exists, or will very soon, somewhere in Ethiopia. What a precious thought, and what a weighty one. The beginning of our baby's life will have pain in it, and sadness, and loss. I've been thinking about that. I think that knowledge will live in my heart forever. I think it will cause me to look at our baby with more reverence.

our very last documents :)

Memorial Day Extravaganza

We had a Memorial Day ParTAY on the lawn between our apartment and that of our neighbors/friends the Morgans!!! It was so fun! We played sand volleyball, cooked out, did sidewalk chalk, someone even brought baby chicks! I'm telling ya', it was nuts!!! :) Here are some pics of our friends...

The crew
Extreme close-up

Extreme close-up

On the adoption front, I spoke to CIS and we should have our approval letter in the next week or so, as long as everything goes well, and then we can send it all in and be wait-listed at last!!! Praise the Lord for our officer at USCIS!!!

Just one more thing!!!

We got my birth certificate in the mail today, thanks to that outstanding gentleman at the State Department!!! It's spelled correctly and everything!!! That means, the only thing left to wait on is our approval from USCIS aka Immigration. Bring it!!

Please enjoy the picture while our party is being reached :)

I bought some of that Ethiopian coffee I'd been wanting so much, crushed the beans with a hammer and brewed it in a pot, cause I don't have a coffee maker, and because as my big sister  said, it felt more righteous that way :)

Heart to hearts with government employees :)

This morning I was running with my sweet sister in law and telling her how I hope that our papers come in this week, and within 30 minutes I got a phone call from area code 202... The State Department!!!! Oh, no big deal, it was just some awesome guy saying that he'd received my final documents needed to fix my birth certificate, and he'd get it done TODAY!!! Praise the LORD!!!

Sooo naturally, I immediately go rifling through my filing box and find the phone number for USCIS, because immigration approval is the only thing standing in our way now. I hesitate. It hasn't quite been the full 8 weeks they tell you to wait before calling to check on your status, and I don't want to be a bother. But I swiftly get over it and call, 'cause I really want to know where we are.

My call's answered by the sweetest woman, in the best mood ever. She's surprised that we've been waiting so long for approval (phew, she's not annoyed with me!), and asks if we've sent in our home study. I tell her that yes, it was sent in by our agency on April 7th, overnighted. Hmm, she says, that's funny, it seems it hasn't been assigned to an officer yet, weird. Long story short, we called our agency, tracked down who signed for the home study, and my faithful new friend at USCIS is going to get our file together and get it processed for us. She said she'll call me tomorrow with a tentative time frame!!! Yay, we're almost there!!!

Also, if you haven't seen the movie Babies yet, you totally should, it was so fun!!! We were laughing so hard we cried, multiple times. I only cried in sadness and longing for my baby once, so it's pretty safe :)

Welcome back surprise :)

On Wednesday I got a call from my sweet friend and neighbor who's been checking our mail for us this week, and she said she'd picked up a "we missed you" notice on our door from FedEx!!! YAY! I called and had them hold the package for us, and found out that it's from... Drum roll please....... THE FBI!!!!! Can I get a "what, WHAT?!?!" I picked it up this morning, and it was my long lost fingerprint results! That shaves about 2.5 weeks off of our estimated paperwork collecting time!

So really, the only thing we're waiting for is approval from immigration (I-171H) and my birth certificate. I also came home to a letter from the Department of State (I was born abroad, so they handle it) that says that they need another document from me before they can issue a corrected birth certificate. For now, I'm going to continue to pursue this, but if it turns out to be the last thing we're waiting on, I might ask our case worker if we can send it in misspelled, with a notarized letter to explain the error.

Things are moving right along, folks!!! Praise the Lord!!!

PS: to everyone who I told that I thought we might also have received our immigration approval while away, I was wrong. It was a small misunderstanding. CJIS (Criminal Justice Information Service), which is a branch of the FBI, sounds a lot like CIS (Center for Immigration Services) on a phone recording to an over-excited mama-in-waiting :). We're still thankful we have our prints!!!

Nothing yet

"Hey there, wait a minute, mister postman. Waiaiaiait, mister postman. Mister postman, look and see, is there a letter a letter for me?"

Sometimes I wonder if our paperwork's been lost. We haven't been waiting any longer, or even as long as expected for these last three documents, and I'm not even trying to complain, I'm just saying, the thought crosses my mind that it's possible our stuff's been misplaced, and while I think I'm waiting patiently for something, I'm really just wasting time. Am I crazy?! Has anyone else had this paranoia? I know you have, don't even try to pretend :)

Oh well, here's to another week of waiting to wait, and pretending it's not always on my mind. Date night!!!

"No post on Sundays"

Just like Vernon Dursley, I love Sundays, because on Sundays, nobody delivers anything, which means that there's no chance of getting any important documents in the mail. Sundays are a break my brain needs. I also love Saturdays, because Saturdays have yard sales!!!
Yesterday I went yard sale-ing with a friend, and got a bunch of great stuff, including this dresser that I got for $10 for our nursery, and which I have great plans for re-finishing, and this fabulous African blanket (which I think is actually from Kenya). yay!


Also fun, last Friday night the Young Life committee ladies hosted a spa night for our girl leaders, and it was SO much fun!!! Everyone was pampered, many a-mustache was waxed off (including mine, haven't you noticed?) and after it was all over we had the most fun just sitting around and talking! Courtney and I decided it was just like a sleep over, but minus the sleeping, which lets be honest is the worst part anyways :) Here are some pics from that night:

Mood lighting...

Action shot!

the eyebrow station!!

Me with my sweet friend

Other than that not much is new here. We're still waiting on some paperwork to come to us so we can officially go on the wait list. Doing a lot of thinking and praying and learning about waiting. Any strategies from the paperchase alumni out there?

Unexpected updates!!!

Fabric for the crib bedding :)

It's Wednesday, our official do nothing day. I slept in till 10:30, we've watched LOST and 1.5 movies so far. We were planning to beach it, but we were to lazy to go. The last thing I think about on Wednesdays is getting anything done. But, praise the Lord, He doesn't stop blessing us even if it is Wednesday!!! In between movie 1 and 2 I checked my e-mail and found a letter from our agency. So I opened it without looking at the subject line, cause I assumed it was some update on adoption policy, or some newsletter, I don't know, I wasn't expecting anything pertaining to our adoption for weeks. But lo and behold, she was writing to tell me our home study's been processed, and she's sent it to CIS! A process that's supposed to take 3 week took 6 days!!! Including last weekend!
As soon as I'd read that I had another e-mail, this one saying that we are APPROVED!!! Basically, that means that our agency, after reviewing all of our paperwork, agrees to work with us! Yaaaaayyyy!! So exciting, I so didn't expect this today! We're one big step closer to our baby!!!

So, all we have left is:
*Waiting on my FBI fingerprints
*Waiting on my birth certificate
*Waiting on CIS approval
*Send all the above to be authenticated with the rest of the dossier, then...
*Send it all to Ethiopia and start the wait!!!!

In other fun adoption news, earlier this week I was on the unofficial wait list I talked about last week, and noticed that some of the families were waiting on children under the age of 6 months. I hadn't known this was an option, and so asked my program assistant about it. Age preference in an application for adoption is a very personal decision to make, as is the decision about whether or not one is able and willing to care for a child with health problems. It is a decision that requires a lot of thought and prayer, and one each family must make after careful consideration of their desires and capabilities. I know for me the thing was that I kept secretly and almost unconsciously wishing for an infant under 6 months, and feeling guilty for wishing it. But no more guilt, that's for the birds, I have no time for it. As my friend Shelley says, there is nothing wrong with wanting to meet your baby as early as possible in his or her life. So i heard back from Susanne that we can request any age range we wish, and it's not too late for us to make a change, so we decided that this time, for our first baby, we want to go ahead and narrow our request down to an infant either gender 0-6 months at time of referral! Yay!
Thank you guys for caring, and for loving us. Thanks to all our sweet friends and family who continue to be so encouraging to us! We're pumped to be moving forward! Love you guys!

PS: check out this sweet JUNKPOSSE necklace giveaway here:
http://bottomlysandethiopia.blogspot.com April 7, 2010

Piesole and other delays

Here's the deal y'all: I've been a little discouraged, just a tiny smidgen. I know I have no room to be so, seeing that our process has gone sooo much more quickly than normal, and seeing that God's in control. But I'm no good to anybody if I'm dishonest, and I want to remember what this whole thing was really like, so here it is: I've had a little bit of a rough week. Nothing major's happened or anything, just a few paperwork delays and unresolved life things, but since I'm a girl that likes to have all my ducks in a row, a lot of little loose ends can stress me out a little.
Following our home study I felt like I had just worked a night shift and never gone to sleep. I had that "I just ran into a brick wall, and you're gonna have to scrape me off the sidewalk" feeling. I think it's because this whole last month we've been pushing so hard to get paperwork done and completely put the apartment together, that the 4hr culmination of a home study just drained anything I had left. But I had to keep going. Somehow, the rest of the week was one of the busiest, errand-filled weeks I've had since I quit working, and yesterday had a few little surprises and realizations, some of which I'll talk about here and some I won't, that had me ready to just start over with a new day. Here's what it's looked like:

*Have you ever had a day when you just completely put your foot in your mouth all day long, and you just have to keep apologizing? It's like you've lost control, only you know that you really are saying those things, so you wish you weren't saying them, but you never know when the next one's gonna come out, and you'll realize a half second too late what you said, and that you meant it, and that you wish you'd just not. That was yesterday.


*I was photocopying my birth certificate yesterday, because I was about to send a bunch of papers in, and I noticed that my city of birth was misspelled. Whoopsy. I sent it back in to the Passport Vital Records Office with a notice of correction needed, which again is estimated to take 4-8weeks, but we'll see.

*I didn't get my FBI clearance back yesterday, which broke our one-week turn-around streak. No big, there are plenty of families who've been having to wait 13 weeks for theirs. I can't really trow a pity-party on this one, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't had my hopes up.

*And finally, I haven't done any serious form of exercise in a month. I've theoretically been saving it on my to-do list for the waiting months, but I think maybe it's time to go ahead and start that process, cause y'all know how you start to feel... :)

Ok, now for a happy thought: I also realized this week that God already knows our baby. How sweet is that!?!?! He already knows who he/she is, He can see them even when we can't, even before anyone can see them cause they're hidden. And He already really knows them. He knows our baby's personality, He knows what he/she looks like, what he/she's gonna love to do in this life, even the foods he/she's gonna refuse to eat!! Soooo... this whole process is gonna go just as fast (or slow) as it needs to go to get us to the right batch of referrals, with the perfect little babe for us. My husband told me that my job for today is to not worry about anything. Ok, I give.

Home study: check!

It's done!!! We had our home study this morning at 10:30! Our social worker came from Greenville and we had a great time. All the things I was worried about last night (and I did have just a minor minor break down) were no big deal, everything's great, and a my friend of mine said, we're one step closer to our baby!!!

It's funny, I think I expected to be scrutinized a lot more closely than we actually were. I mean, don't get me wrong, she was thorough and it took a good 4hrs as predicted, but what I didn't expect was that she was a human, and not a drill-sargent, robot, crumb-detector, child-proofing dictator. Quite the opposite in fact, she was totally supportive and nurturing, really out to set us up for success. We had a great day with her!

All that being said, I wanted to post pictures of the last-minute home improvements and details that we put together in preparation for the visit!!! All fun stuff that I'm glad we did, even if some of it was over the top... but really, how often does a girl get to use her fine china?

I got a fern for our front patio. I think it made the apartment look more homey. First impressions, you know.

Our big flowerpot finally found a place to live right outside out front door.

The nursery/office as-is right now. Notice the giant crib-sized space on the right!!! :)

Our couches: the final look!

Pretty little pictures all in a row! Ethiopian landscape on the left, and Italy on the right.

Curtains to hide our DVD player and movies!!!

Setting the mood with daffodils and tulips, cause my sis says they're seasonal.

More flowers. It was fun to pretend like it was no big deal, but inwardly feel so fancy for having flowers around the house!

Aaaaand, the breakfast spread! Thanks friends for the banana bread just in time!

I'm pretty tired this afternoon, but I have a real peace deep down in my soul. I'm not generally one to put words into God's mouth that He didn't say, or claim that I know His intentions, but I sure do appreciate the blessings He's giving us along the way!!! I prayed this morning that our SW would be a Christian, because I wanted to be able to relate to her on that level. Because I felt like that would make a giant difference in her understanding us as a couple. She totally was!!! Not only that, but she'd gone to Young Life when she was a high school student, so she totally understood what my husband's job was about!! I'm so thankful for that, it makes me cry a little as I write this. And guess what else, I got my birth certificate at the end of last week. It took it two and a half weeks to get here. It was supposed to take 4-8 weeks. Praise the Lord, I'm thankful for these blessings as they come.