December numbers

I haven't been blogging much at all b/c my blog always locks up. It seems silly to spend lots of time on it if nobody can read it. Our December numbers are: 53 for a girl and 32 for a boy. Even though the boy numbers are so much smaller, they are certainly moving WAY slower.

November numbers

LOTS of movement this month. Yippee!! I do expect things to slow down as many families need to go through their court process. Lots for the courts to catch up on after being closed for 2 months. Hoping the referrals keep coming. Fun and exciting to see so many kids being matched with their forever families! :)

Correction

There was a mistake in the numbers from our agency. A mistake in our favor. :) Our October numbers are 66 for girl and 44 for boy.

October numbers!

We are at number 68 for a girl and number 46 for a boy. Glad to see some movement. :) Also was told that the current wait time is 10 months. Of course that can always change, but that sounds so much nicer than 12-18 months. :)

What's going on in the construction world?

I haven't updated in a long time. Not much to report. Soon we will have our October numbers and there has been some movement. :) Yesterday was a good day in our construction world. The ceiling has been sheet rocked and the insulation has been blown in. Boy am I learning a lot. It looked like a gigantic Build-a-Bear workshop in our yard over the weekend. I got the windows primed. The siding is pre-primed so we won't worry about painting until next summer. Jason needs to put in some nails on the outside and then it will be 100% ready for winter. It is fun to see progress. It is hard to get stuff done with Jason being gone so much, but it is coming along.

September numbers

Since we are adding a bedroom onto our house, I thought it was fitting to use some of the tools that are lying around to "construct" our numbers for September. We are 50 for a boy and 76 for a girl. Not much movement with the courts being closed. We are thankful that we are at the top end with not much movement. How hard it must be for those in the single digits to not see much movement. Hopefully soon there will be lots of referrals.

Blogging trouble

I have had lots of trouble with my blog locking up. I'm not sure why now it gets to cranky at me. Just realize this if you look at it and it doesn't seem right and might not be as up to date as I'd like to it be.

Some information about our orphanage

The following entry was posted on a friend of ours blog. I asked her permission to copy it onto our blog. I think it is very interesting and believe you will too. Thanks, Sarah for sharing with my blog followers. :)

The government orphanange that our child will likely come from is called Bethzatha.Children remain in legal custody of Bethzatha until they pass court BUT because Bethzatha has a close relationship with Hannah's Hope and approves of its staff and conditions, it allows Hannah's Hope to assist in caring for children BEFORE they are placed with families. This is H.U.G.E. It means that these kiddos get more personalized and individualized care MUCH sooner.

Other agencies do not take into care to assist an orphanage while court is pending. It may be that other agencies do not have the facilities to do so, or it may be that they do not have the same close relationship with the orphanages that they work with. The latter may be the case because other agencies work with *many* orphanages, matching children with families regardless of where the child is being cared for, while AGCI (our agency) only works with Bethzatha and only refers children after they are at Hannah's Hope.

And this is also a factor as to why the referral time for AGCI is a bit slower than other agencies. And while slower isn't easier-we would still prefer a quality living situation---physically and psychologically.

I have seen some pictures of Hannah's Hope. Wow..I'm impressed!! It is so fun and bright! Very exciting to see that it isn't the white walls and not so good conditions that you hear about. If you care to see any pictures, let me know and I'll send you a link. I can't explain how I felt when I saw these pictures. May God grant us peace while we wait patiently for our perfect little one. One that we have been assured is being (or will be) taken very good care of.

Fun mail

For those of you that aren't in the adoption world, this will be very confusing to you. Sorry about that. The last set of fingerprints we had to do was for our I600A. The I600A is "Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition." Basically this step preapproves the prospective adoptive parents to bring an “immigrant” orphaned child into the United States. The approval can take up to 3 months. It isn't that we wondered IF we would get approval, it was just a matter of WHEN. One of those fun legal things to do. Well, yesterday I got our Favorable Determination Letter (FDL) in the mail. I was in such disbelief I had to fax our case worker at our agency to see if it was really the approval we were waiting for. It took 2 weeks!!!!! It was fun to look at it as the letter was also sent to the National Visa Center. (Once we are matched with a child, he/she will have to get a Visa in order to travel) It was also sent to the capital of Ethiopia. FUN!!! :) It doesn't seem possible that we got this already!!! We do have to pay attention b/c some of it expires in 15 months and some in 18 months. More than likely we will have to go to Sioux Falls to have our fingerprints done again since our wait time has increased. Thankfully the first renewal of fingerprints is free. Our case worker said that we have all paperwork completed until we get a referral. Now we continue to wait in hopes that we get matched up sooner than later. I was actually a bit disheartened after hearing the wait time up-ed to 12-18 months just to get a referral. It didn't take long b/4 God gave me a sense of peace. I was doing some reading the other night. I was able to get a little bit excited over all of this. It is so far away yet and seems so out of reach that it is hard to be super excited! God gave me peace and reassurance that it would all work out in His time.

In the meantime, I have day care secure. :) That is a tough issue in a town our size. We have 2 in home day cares. The day care we took our girls to is no longer open. :( We have a lady on our block that does day care. This would be ideal. She said she would have room for us. Since they up-ed the waiting time, I was concerned that we'd be out of luck. I didn't feel it was fair to make her hold a spot for us. It is hard to plan day care when we don't know when or what age, etc...Again she told me that she would have a spot whenever the time came. :)

A nice surprise

First of all, the electrician has left the building. :) Everything is wired and functioning. We need to insulate and sheet rock. Then he will have to come back to finish the project. What a nice relief to have this done.

Also--we got a nice surprise in the mail today. We got our Hep A shots in Aberdeen. We got our insurance statement today and they actually covered it. :) We were shocked as we didn't think that insurance would cover something like that. It was supposed to be $113 per shot and now we each need to pay our co-pay of $30. Sweet!! It is fun to have GOOD surprises from time to time. When we went to SF for our other shots, we didn't give them our insurance card and paid them upfront. I'm guessing that is b/c they are a "travel clinic." They too have been very good to us. I'm going to call and see if there is any way they would mess with filing these shots with our insurance. I'm not sure if they would do it since they have already been paid, but what does it hurt?! I may only be out a phone call.

Proof yet again

First of all, the electrician came to our house yesterday to wire our new addition. :) He is back again today. That is great news!! It will be nice when we are all done with other people and we can move at our pace. Yesterday I was in Aberdeen with the girls for hair cuts and orthodontist appointments. Jason called me and told me that I needed to stop and rent a cement drill. What are the chances that I was in town when they knew they needed it? Very nice! We had to have the drill back by 9am today in order to not be charged for another day. We didn't get home until later last night. Jason was planning on drilling and then driving the drive to Aberdeen in the middle of the night so that it could be back by 9:00am. Well---I found out that one of our friends from town had to be in Aberdeen by 8:15am. Awesome!!! I was in kind of a tizzy first to think about having to spend the money to rent this stupid thing. Then I thought about having to make yet another trip. Hmmm....it all worked out. Again everything fell into place. :) Thanks Kim for being our hero!!! It was great not to have to make another trip just to return this drill. I need to remember these "simple" things when I get discouraged on this journey. God certainly has His hand in this and it is what we are supposed to be doing. Therefore why things work out the way they do. This is proof to me that this IS meant to be.

August numbers

GIRL---



BOY---

A successful trip to Sioux Falls

Yesterday we went to Sioux Falls for our third (and hopefully) final set of fingerprinting. This was for our immigration stuff. We were also able to get our travel shots that we needed also. So--it was good to be able to get it all done in one trip. Another thing done and another check mark on the list.

It's the little things.....

When we first started this journey, God gave us peace that this was His plan, He would provide, and that things would work out. Yesterday we experienced one of the little things that proves this to us. We went to Aberdeen to get our Hep. A shot. They were so good to us even though we aren't even patients of theirs. The nurse was so excited she said she even wanted to see pictures. Funny! Anyway--we had decided awhile back that we wanted our child to be seen by a pediatrican upon returning to the US. Now some of you are probably wondering why we have even given this a thought. Well--we are an hour away from any pediatrican so that is where all of this thinking comes from. All that he/she could possibly have or been exposed to, might be foreign so we would at least feel better doctoring with someone that specializes in children. We found out yesterday that Sanford in Aberdeen got a new pediatrican recently. Get this...he is from Zimbabwe!!! :) Crazy!!! So--it is the little things that just make us sit back and say "Wow!"

Construction update

The last shingle has been nailed to the roof. Mark needs to come and put the finishing touches on it. The electrican will be doing work for us before he does his other job. :)Whew!! What a huge relief!!!! After that, we will be very slow moving or at a stand still with Jason being so busy with volleyball. I'm okay with that b/c now we will only be waiting on us.

Hep A shots

We will be traveling to Sioux Falls (on Monday) to get Yellow Fever and Typhoid shots. Our local clinic is able to order the Hep A shot, but it can only be purchased in lots of 10. We would need 4 since it is a 2 shot series. We didn't know if we should take the chance and just not get the shot or if we should get shot number 1 in Sioux Falls not really wanting to make another 4 hour one way trip back there in 6 months. I have been in contact with a wonderful lady from Sanford in Aberdeen. We have picked a pediatrican to help us when we return with out little one. Under the circumstances, we want our child to be seen by someone who specializes in children. Anyway--I emailed the lady that I've been in contact with about the pediatrican. She has been wonderful!!! Well, they are going to give us the Hep A series. Sweet!! That means we only have to go to Aberdeen for it. The lady talked to the doctor to get the okay. The nurses know about it. All we have to do is show up. :) We will get our first dose on Friday of this week. It warms my heart so much to have people that don't know us go out of their way for us.

Calling all faithful blog followers....prayer request

Wow! I don't even know where to begin. I have held off posting anything and hoping my feelings would pass. It isn't happening so it is time to call on my faithful blog prayer warriors. I knew that I have been too calm for too long about everything. My personality was bound to win. :) I'm SO overwhelmed with everything going on right now. We are in the middle of adding on a bedroom due to the newest addition that will be joining our family. We have a friend that used to be a carpenter. Jason just wanted some verbal help from him to make sure that Jason was on the right page, etc...Turns out that Jason didn't really know how much work this was really going to be. Thankfully, Mark has been here and helping out lots. What an overwhelming feeling in itself. We are so happy that Mark is willing to help us out. It is even more humbling of an experience b/c he isn't expecting any payment. That saves us quite a bit. To think that someone is willing to give up so much of their time and talents for us. It is yet another way that God is showing us that He will provide. They have 2 sheets of plywood to put on the roof, then they can put the tar paper down and then shingles. After that, Jason will be on his own. I feel bad b/c I'm not able to help more. I'll be able to help more when we get to the sheet rocking, painting, etc....For now though, I feel so helpless. If we get the roof finished, the electrician can come yet this week b/4 he leaves town to start a big job. So--needless to say we really want to be able to get the roof finished SOON so we can continue.

School will be starting soon and that is creating some extra anxiety too. Jason is head volleyball coach and his time for working on the house will be limited. I'm currently working 2 nights a week at a 2nd job. I had hoped to go down to one night a week while volleyball season was going on. It isn't going to happen. The extra money is nice, but I'm not sure the stress will be worth it. I am going to work the next 2 day shifts as well as my already scheduled night shifts b/c she is in a bind. Yet she isn't willing to take one shift away from me. I know it puts her in a bind for only being able to work one night a week, but I'd think it would be better than finding someone for 2 nights a week that she would need if I quit. Micala will be in junior high this year so she will have practice for sports until supper time. This means, I'll have to find a babysitter for Lexi 2 nights a week. Plus try to get 2 kids' homework done and ready for bed, etc...after I get home at 8pm. I just don't know what to do. I said I'd try it to see how it went.

We will be leaving for the weekend. We decided to make some time for our families before we start school. We have to be in Sioux Falls on Monday for fingerprints and shots anyway. Tuesday, Lexi has surgery to remove a cyst on her cheek. It is minor and they don't think it should be cancerous. However, we have never had a child of ours have any sort of surgery so that will be a bit trying for us.

I usually don't go so in-depth with my postings, but I felt if you had a better idea of what was actually happening here you could pray more specifically. I'm impressed that we have held up this well so far. We know this is all in God's time. We know it will all work out. We just are a bit overwhelmed right now. We are excited to be on the wait list. Yet it is disappointing to know we have 9-12 months yet to wait in order to be matched up with our precious little one. Then we still have court and our 2 trips, etc...So it will be a long time until we are home as a family of 5. It seems so far away which is making this harder. I thank you for your prayers and support. We couldn't do this without you.

We are on the wait list!!!!! :)

We got our numbers! :) We are number 86 for a girl and number 53 for a boy. Wow! Those are some high numbers. However, we do not need to be in the number 1 spot in order to get a referral. I figured the girl number would be high as another blog that I'm following recently got on the wait list at 76. I can't put my feelings into words right now so I won't try. Of course we are excited to actually be "expecting" (minus the throwing up) without an actual due date. There is some relief to actually being at this point. Our agency told us that the current wait time is 9-12 months until referral. Part of me thinks that isn't bad and part of me thinks that is still so far considering we have travel time, courts, etc...after the referral. All in God's time. All in God's time. There have been so many things happening in regards to adding on to our house that my brain is swimming. So much to sort out. For now, we need time to soak in the fact that we have cleared a huge hurdle. Praise God!! Everyone has a fun way to post their numbers. I was drawing a blank, but did manage to come up with something.

Construction

Major construction has begun on the new addition to our house. It feels good to be getting it started. We have a friend who is a carpenter helping Jason out with things. What a great resource!! We appreciate all of his help. Any place we can save some money is good. Thanks, Mark!

One more paper needs to make it to our agency. We are hoping tomorrow is our day for the wait list. :)

Changes to fingerprinting appointment

We heard back from the SF office regarding our fingerprinting appointment. Jason was scheduled for 8am and mine was scheduled for 2pm. I sent them a letter requesting for our times to be closer together. We are both now at 2pm. :) That will make things so much easier. Now I can schedule our shots. It is nice when things all come together and work out.

Always something to do and something to think about

So we got our fingerprint appointment. I was thrilled to find out #1 it was so soon #2 that it was before we started school. I didn't look at Jason's letter right away. Silly me assumed that we'd be scheduled for the same time. I guess I should have learned by now that things in the adoption world don't always make sense. Jason's appointment is at 8 am and mine is at 2 pm. I could handle an hour or two apart, but 6 hours?! I tried to call the office and of course there isn't anyone there that deals with the scheduling. So, I wrote a letter requesting that we get our times closer. Who knows if it will work, but it is worth a try. I just hope and pray that they don't change our appointments to a different day. If we can't change the times, leave the day. We will see what we find out. I've been in contact back and forth with our agency making sure they get the proper revisions for our Dossier. One paper we need to fix. Both of our references have something to fix. Our case worker that did our Home Study has something to fix. What a mess! It could be much worse as the things that need to be fixed are very minor. The biggest problem is with my name. Some things are Angela and some things are Angie. I never gave ANY thought to it. They are confident that as long as our Home Study, our letter that we had to write to the Ethiopian government, and our 2 reference letters say Angela (Angie) on them that we will be okay.

Since we have our appointment for our fingerprints, I'm trying to get things lined up to get our travel shots. This has required lots of phone calls too. We want to only make one trip to SF and not two. It will work out. :) Just so many things to check on and people to check with.

Our case worker has sent her revisions in. Jason is gone so our letter can't be notarized and put in the mail until tomorrow. One reference letter was fixed and resubmitted only for them to find more wrong with it. :( It will all come together when it is supposed to.

Fingerprinting appointment!

Yes you read that right. We need yet ANOTHER set of fingerprints taken. This time it is for immigration stuff. We don't quite understand why we need so many. We just do what we are told to do. We have to have SD clearance and FBI clearance for our Home Study to be completed. Yet--we can't do our immigration fingerprints until they have a copy of our Home Study. Government....you figure it out. :) I sent in our Home Study to USCIS on July 8th. They already mailed our appointment date to us. Our appointment is scheduled for August 9 at 2:00 pm in Sioux Falls. I will be checking with a travel clinic to make sure we are still able to get our shots while we are down there. We are so thankful this appointment came so fast and we won't have to take a day off of work to be able to go.

Wait list possibilities

I have thought more and I think that we won't get on the wait list until the week after next. I'm totally fine with that. Whatever happens, happens. It is hard for me to comprehend that FINALLY we have this step within reach. It is exciting to think that our child might actually be born now or real close. :) I just got an update from our agency the other day. Just to give people an idea of how many people are in front of us, the current status is 75 families waiting for a referral of a girl and 46 families are waiting for a referral of a boy. A person doesn't have to be #1 to get a referral. When a child comes into the orphanage, they look at who is #1 on the list. Let's say the child that came into the orphange is a 4 year old girl. The person on the list at #1 might want a baby, so they go on to the next person on the list. The next person on the list might want a boy, so they go to the next person, etc...So--we will see.

A dose of reality

We have the honor to be babysitting our 11 month old God daughter. Her parents are out of town and the grandmas were busy. :) She came on Thursday night and will be here until Monday. What a dose of reality as to how our lives will be when our new one joins us. I've had many thoughts and feelings in the first few days of having an extra child in our house. The first night she got here about 8pm. She wasn't here too super long before it was bed time. I wasn't sure how to handle the situation. I didn't want to "abandon" her in new and scary surroundings yet I didn't want her to be spoiled rotten. It made me think ahead to how things could be when our new one comes here. It will be similiar, but on a more extreme level. I ended up sitting in the same room as her until she went to sleep. She attached to me quickly. It took a bit of time for her to attach to the girls and to Jason. It was nice to feel needed/wanted, but I also didn't want to have to sit and hold her the whole time she was here. This experience has been great for all of us as it gives us a sneak peak as to how things will be. It has SHOWN me things that we have read about. For the first time, I'm apprehensive about the coming home part. Maybe b/c we are a bit closer to it actually happening. Maybe the fact that it is really happening is hard for me to believe. Do I regret the choice we made to adopt? No way!!!! We know there are going to be many challenges along the way. We still are reassured that this is God's plan and that He will provide. With my personality being what it is, it is amazing I've made it this far without freaking out a bit. :)

This week is not our week

We received our phone call from our agency concerning our Dossier. We have some minor changes to make. I guess I didn't know what to expect. They are looking at every angle so that we can get approval from the Ethiopian government. I'd rather them be safe than sorry. Our reference letters need to have a few things changed. The letter we had to write to the Ethiopian government needs to have a few things changed. We need to get a copy of the license and agency number of Catholic Family Services that did our Home Study. All items can be sent directly to AGCI. As soon as these revisions get to them, they will look at things again and we don't have to wait until Friday (which is the day they review Dossiers) Well--one of our references is out of town for quite some time so it will be at least next week before we get on that wait list.

Stay tuned....

Our Dossier will be reviewed tomorrow. (Friday) They will look over all of the papers we sent and make sure everything is in order. Many, many times (more often than not) people have one document or another to fix and resubmit. We are hoping that isn't the case, but we are ready for it if that is what happens. Right now, I'm feeling very confident that it IS all in God's hands. That doesn't mean that I'm not ready to be on the waiting list. :) Hoping for good news tomorrow. What is meant to be will be. Stay tuned....

Safely in the hands of AGCI

I got an email from AGCI stating that our Dossier was safely in their hands and would be reviewed on Friday. It is nice to know that it didn't get lost in the mail.

Happy Day!!!

Happy Birthday to me!! (Yes it really is my b-day) I went to the mail and guess what was there? Our Home Study! Oh happy day!!!! I wasn't expecting that at all. Everything is ready to go for sending in our Dossier. I made copies of our Home Study. Now to mail it all yet TODAY!!! :) Next Friday it will be reviewed by AGCI. There is the chance that some documents might have to be redone. Hopefully that is not the case. Time will tell. Wait list here we come!!! :) Current wait time is 9-12 months for a referral. What a huge relief to know that most of OUR work is done.

Good news!!!

We went on a small family vacation to The Black Hills. We have never taken a family vacation. While we were gone, our cement for our addition was poured. Yippee!!! :) Also--when we came back, our fingerprint results were sitting in our mailbox. Yippee again!!! :) Apparently, we needed to go on vacation. HA! We were only gone for a few days. Today I sent our fingerprint results to our case worker in Aberdeen. Since she is on maternity leave, she doesn't check her email as often as normal. Hopefully soon she will check it and know there is a package soon to be waiting for her. She will need to add the date that we received the fingerprint results into our Home Study. Then she can sign our Home Study, notarize it, and send us our copies. We can then submit our Dossier to AGCI. After AGCI gets all of these documents, they will review everything on Friday of the week that it was received. They will tell us what changes need to be made, etc..Then we get put on the waiting list!!! We are getting closer! It has been 5 months since we began this journey. Some days it feels like we have been at this forever and other times it seems as if it was just yesterday. It is great to write you with good news. We are making progress. HOPEFULLY....we should be on the wait list by the end of the month for sure.

Sad story

This whole journey has been filled with many ups and downs. The littlest things can make or break our days. I've done so well with being patient up until this point. Now, I struggle. I know patience is the lesson that is being taught here. I called to see if I could check on the status of our fingerprints. When we sent these in, our agency had told us that adoption takes priority. The other couple working with our case worker got theirs back in 6 weeks. I thought it had been 7 weeks, but it WILL be 7 the beginning of next week. We have been hopefully checking the mail day after day thinking it could be any day. Well--the news I got today on the phone was VERY disappointing. She said they don't even get put into the system until 10 weeks into the process. Sad! Here we have been waiting for them to come in the mail and we have 3 more weeks before we will even be in the system. What a blow!! It is disheartening. I know that everything happens for a reason. I know that all of this is part of God's plan. However...it still makes me sad. I thought we were so close to being able to get on the wait list. Instead...we wait longer. The process of international adoption is either paperwork or waiting. I know in the end it will be well worth it. Now it just seems so far away.

Ho-hum

It has been 7 weeks now since we sent in our fingerprints. Turn around time is 6-13 weeks. I don't really know how to feel about this. One minute I am calm and think it is all part of "the plan." The next minute I am frustrated b/c we are SOOOO ready. I know PATIENCE!!! I do know that it is all happening like it is supposed to. I've been so good at being patient. Now I'm getting a little antsy as we just want to take the next step. We are so close yet so far away. We have everything ready to send in our Dossier. All we need is our fingerprint results to be added to our Home Study so our HS can be added to our dossier. So things in the adoption world are.....wait, wait, and wait some more.

Stump removed! :)

About 7 years ago, we had to cut down a huge tree in our back yard b/c it had Dutch Elm Disease. We had made the stump the center of a flower bed since it was so big. Now that we are adding on, we need the dumb thing removed. (or have it as the night stand) Well--today we had a very determined neighbor that thought a tractor with duals could pull it out. The first attempt and the chain broke without the stump even budging. We then had the one of the City guys bring the pay loader. One pushed and one pulled. We weren't sure if that was going to do it. Finally it was successful!!!! Thanks to Justin, Shane, Lawerence, Jon, and Stan for your help. It was pulled out by the roots so we don't need to wait to have the stump ground out. :) Jason will be filling in the hole and we hope to have cement poured by next week. We are so thankful for people being so willing to help out. We appreciate it so much!

Travel shots

We have to get certain shots in order to travel to Ethiopia. We will not be traveling any time soon, but I wanted to get these shots taken care of. With both of us being teachers, it is much easier to do it now during the summer. We will have to go to Sioux Falls for these shots. There are only 4 clinics in SD that even give these shots. (3 in SF and one in Rapid) We were hoping that we could get these shots when we went to SF for our fingerprinting appointment. I called one of the places today to see how far in advance we would need an appointment. They are currently booking for July! I don't know how much warning we will get for our fingerprinting appointment, but I don't think it will be that long. I was kind of disheartened thinking we would have to make 2 trips to SF. (4 hours one way times 2...yuck) I called another one of the numbers I had. There you don't need appointments!! YIPPEE!!! I love getting good news and love it when things work out! :) I was able to leave a voicemail with the main nurse. I told her that we would need shots for Ethiopia. I told her I'd let her know when we know that we were coming. God provides for us once again! I didn't even have time to get myself into a tizzy. :)

Approved!!!

Our Home Study was APPROVED!! (pending fingerprint results) Yippee!!! So, now we just wait for the fingerprints to come back so the date can be added to the Home Study. It would be awesome if our prints came back before next Friday as that is the last day our case worker is working. I'm not counting on that though. It took 6 weeks for the other couple she was working with to get results back. I think we are only at 3. Time will tell. What is meant to be will be!

Home Study revisions

I got an email from our case worker yesterday. Since she is going on maternity leave after next week, she is trying to get our Home Study finalized. The date our fingerprint results come back will have to be included in our Home Study. Our case worker will come into the office to add the fingerprint date, run copies, notarize all of them, and drop them in the mail. How nice of her to do when she is on maternity leave. Anyway--she had sent our Home Study to AGCI for approval. They needed more information about a few things. We got right on it and sent it to her. She was going to make the revisions as soon as she could and get it sent back to our agency.

The construction begins (kind of)

We have made the decision to add a bedroom on to our house. We could always have our girls share a bedroom, but that doesn't sound fun with them being the ages that they are. So--Jason now has "building a bedroom onto the house" as a summer project. He tore off the siding of the back part of the house for the new addition. We have a huge tree stump that needs to be removed. We had the tree cut down a long time ago, but didn't want to pay to have the stump removed. Well--now we must get the stump removed unless we want it for a night stand. :) We thought we were going to be able to pull or push it out. No luck. So now it will have to be cut out and then ground. Bummer. :( Jason removed the sidewalk from that side of the house too. So--the progress has started, but it will be slow. Someone is coming on Monday to give us a quote for cement. Jason is going to try to do most of the work himself. He has many other commitments in June so we'll see how far or how fast he progresses. Thanks bunches to Justin and Sarah for allowing us to use your tractor. That sure has made it much easier. We are truly blessed with great friends. Stay tuned for more construction updates. :)

Home Study

Our Home Study was today. I really wasn't worried about it, but did manage to get a tiny bit worked up over getting the house in order. (even though I knew it really didn't matter) Our case worker is AWESOME!!! It is great that we feel so relaxed with her. She will come back to our house for post placement reports at 3, 6, and 12 months after bringing our little one home. It sure has made this journey so much easier with someone that is so easy to work with. She is going to add the stuff from today into the partially completed Home Study. She will then send it to AGCI for approval. Then we wait for our fingerprint results. She will come into work during her maternity leave to put the fingerprint date into our Home Study, sign it, and get them all off in the mail. Too bad we have to wait for these fingerprints. Oh well. I plan on getting all of my things ready so as soon as we get those results back, we can send in our Dossier. Hopefully by the end of June we can be on the wait list. I know the waiting is all part of the bigger picture. We might have to wait a little while longer than we would like to get these results back, however....it also helps to have things fall into place. Maybe we will get a younger child b/c of it. No matter what....it is all part of the bigger picture. It is in God's hands and in His time!

Pediatrican chosen

I've been doing some research on pediatricans in the area. By saying "in the area," I'm meaning basically an hour away in Aberdeen. I did some searching on the Internet. Man what a tool. What did people ever do without it? I emailed a couple of people via the Sanford and Avera websites. I inquired about if any of their pediatricians had worked with international adoptions. None. :( However, the one lady from Sanford was amazing! She was very helpful. Here is the deal. When we get our referral we will have a couple of days (if that) to decide if we accept the referral or decline it. In this time, we'd like to have a doctor look at the medical information we have on our child. They might see some possible red flags. They certainly will know way more than we know. When we return home with out new child, we will take him/her to a pediatrician. We want to have someone that specializes in children to examine him/her to make sure we get a totally accurate report. So--I emailed this lady and asked her if she would ask their pediatrician if she would be willing to look at this information we'd receive. The lady told me that the doctor had some questions and that we should call her. I was so totally impressed. Not very often do you get to call and talk to the doctor. I called her today. What an experience!!! She wanted to know if we had put in for a healthy child or a child with special needs. We have requested "as healthy as possible." She also asked where we were in our process. Even though she hasn't done any medical work with an international adoption, she is familiar with the process as her sister just adopted from China. Crazy!! :) She is more than willing to look at our medical information at the time of referral and she knows it is a time sensitive case. She was concerned about what might happen if she was gone for the weekend or something. They are getting another pediatrician in their office this summer so hopefully b/t the 2 of them we will be just fine. What a huge relief!!! I know it isn't needed for awhile, but it is great to know we have someone on board with us. I'm to contact her when we get closer to the top of the wait list and then we will get a plan in place for when that referral comes.

Home Study coming up

Our Home Study will be Wednesday at 1:30. I've been cleaning things in this house that probably have never been cleaned before. :) Lots of things won't even get noticed, but it is good motivation. Our social worker is amazing and as of now, I'm not one bit worried about it. I'm sure it will be a bit nerve-racking just b/c. It will be nice to have it done. WOW!! Look how far we have come. Some days it seems we have been on this journey forever and other days it seems as if we have just started this journey.

Calling all adoptive parents

My head is starting to spin. What happens after our Home Study and Dossier get submitted to AGCI? I know that they look things over, let us know what corrections need to be made, and we get put on the waiting list. They will also translate everything too. However...I'm wondering how they go about things in Ethiopia. I know lots of us "bloggers" have an extended family of other adoptive parents. This posting is to all of you. If anyone can tell me anything about court, I'd love to know. I'm starting to panic that we won't pass. What do we all have to do? Do we get approval from the Ethiopian courts to adopt and then they match us up? I mean, we will get approved and then much later we get a referral? How does this all go together? Anyone that can help, please email me at: carebears_rule2005@yahoo.com. Thanks much!!!

Thanks for the support

We appreciate everyone's help through this process. Whether it be an inquiring mind, listening ears, encouraging words, or even the quiet prayers. It is all so very greatly appreciated. We know that we cannot do this alone. We know that God's placed this on our hearts and in our minds. We know that He placed each of you in the place you are in following our journey. I must say I'm amazed at the out-pouring of graciousness from people. A special thanks to the absolute strangers that take time out of their day to share their stories which in turns encourages us. How blessed we are! Thanks to all of you for being part of "the bigger plan."

A new look

I'm trying to add stuff and change things on my blog. Too bad I have never blogged before and it is quite the challenge for me. I know many people have amazingly cool blogs. Well--I guess that isn't going to be the case with me. The reason I created this blog is in order for you to follow our journey. Cute and fancy or plain and simple, I guess you still know what is going on. :)

Deep breaths required

Anyone that knows me very well, will know that I can get myself into a "tizzy" quite easily. I have been so calm about all of this adoption stuff which proves to me that this is God's will. I know He is giving me the peace. Well--I think I've been calm for too long. :) First of all, I got an email from our Home Study case worker. She told me that she has a couple that sent their fingerprints in the beginning of April and they haven't heard anything back yet. In my binder that I have from our agency, it says that it generally takes 13 weeks to get results back. However, it also says that adoption takes priority and that it could be back in 2 and 1/2 weeks. So----bottom line is that our Home Study cannot be completed until we get FBI clearance with our fingerprints. Our case worker is going on maternity leave the 1st of June. After much searching on the internet, I was able to find a number for the FBI in Washington, DC. They gave me the number for West Virginia. (which is where our fingerprints were sent.) I called them and they said the average turn around time currently is b/t 6-13 weeks. I asked if priority was given to adoptions. He didn't know, but gave me the number of someone that would know. Of course, they had left for the day. The part that bothers me the most about all of this is that I could have had this done a long time ago, but didn't realize we needed to. :( Like previously posted, when our binder said we needed fingerprints I thought it was what we already did. So--this hold up could have been prevented if I would have asked someone about it. So it goes. It is done and over with.

We also got a letter in the mail from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It said that our application was received. I called to see if we would then be receiving our fingerprinting appointment. Things have changed as of April 1. We knew that they needed our Home Study. However, in the past they have had people do their fingerprinting and then they don't process it until the Home Study gets to them. Well--we will not get our appointment for fingerprinting until our Home Study arrives. Clear as mud, huh? I did find out that we will FOR SURE get to go to SF. :) I'd think that it wouldn't take as long getting a fingerprinting appointing in SD as opposed to other states.

The other day I did ask our agency what the current "wait time" was. Of course things are kind of up in the air with the 2nd trip having been added. We can officially get put on the wait list when our Home Study and Dossier papers get sent to our agency and we get the proper corrections made, etc....We were thinking this would be possible by the middle of June, but that doesn't look as hopeful now. Anyway--current wait time from the time you get your paperwork filed until you get a referral (matched up with a child) is 6-7 months for a boy and 7-9 months for a girl. I'm sure these numbers change quite often, but that is the current status. It is nice to have a little bit more of a POSSIBLE time frame. Of course after being matched up with a child, we have the first trip. Then we come home for awhile and then we go on our second trip and then bring our child home. No real idea b/t referral to travel #1 and how long until travel #2.

I'm trying to remain calm. So if things get held up for another month or two...it happens. I know it is all part of God's plan. Maybe we are just buying time to be matched up with our special little one. :) I'd have to say that so far things have been fairly smooth sailing, so we shouldn't be surprised by the bumps in the road. It wouldn't be me if I didn't get in a tizzy a little bit from time to time. :)

God provides once again

Friday we had another office visit for our Home Study. All went well. We found out that we need to get yet another fingerprinting done. I feel really bad b/c I didn't do this sooner. I thought the ones we already sent it was what it was talking about in our binder of information. Turns out that was just for SD and we need to do another set for something else. Then we will still need to be fingerprinted for our immigration paperwork. I don't quite understand why we need to have it done so much. Just another thing to do. Well, I was kind of in a tizzy about things. I didn't want our home study completion date to be held up b/c I didn't realized we needed to be fingerprinted again. Too late...nothing I can/could do about it. We were trying to figure out when we could go some where to get fingerprinted. With Jason coaching track, it was going to be hard to get our schedules to work out so that both of us could go and still work out for the place we would go for fingerprinting. I was thinking it might be still yet another week. :( We had decided we would just have to make 2 different trips. Jason would have to go when it worked for him and I would have to go when it worked for me. This wasn't the ideal situation, but I didn't want to wait another week. Jason had called Ipswich to see when/if they could do fingerprinting. We ended up being able to go TONIGHT!!!! :) God does provide!!! I will be able to get this in the mail Monday or Tuesday. Yippee!!!

Passport pictures

We have our passports from when we went on our cruise. However...we need passport pictures for our Dossier. We were going to get them done on Friday when we went for our 2nd office visit for our Home Study. We stopped at Walmart today to pick something up and we got them done. Seriously took less than 10 minutes from the time they took them until we walked out. Now we don't have to think about that on Friday. Another thing crossed off the list.

In the mail...

Our I600A application was mailed today. Once they receive it, they will send our information to Sioux Falls. SF will call us for a date to go and be fingerprinted. (AGAIN)

Our education workbook (that we needed to complete and return) was also mailed today.

What a relief to have both of these things "in the mail."

Home Study scheduled

We have another office visit on the 30th with Catholic Family Services. Our official Home Study is scheduled for May 19th. :) We will be out of school by then so the timing couldn't be better. It is so exciting to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

First visit for Home Study

Friday was our first office visit for our Home Study. Our case worker is AMAZING!!! I liked her in the email contacts that we had, but she was even better in person. She was so easy to talk to which is exactly how this kind of situation should be. We will meet with her again on the 30th and then she will come to our house about the middle of May. :)

We are still plugging away at our education. We have the on-line stuff done, but are still working on the workbook. Hopefully soon we can get that finished.

We are waiting for just a few items and then all of information for our Dossier will be ready to go as soon as our Home Study is complete.

I will be getting things ready to send in our I600A form. (the Immigration papers we need to file) I will have to send everything to the head office in Texas. Then they will send the stuff to our local office. They will then contact us and let us know when we can come for fingerprinting.

Current status

First of all, I found out that it is probably a 23 hour trip instead of 18. I liked 18 WAY better. :)

Even though I haven't updated on here, we are still busy, busy, busy doing things. We are getting all of our documents ready for our Dossier. We only have a few letters left to get such as employment verfication and our police clearance. The Dossier process has been much easier than some of the other things we have had to do. We can't send in this paperwork until our Home Study is completed so it will be awhile.

In addition to getting paperwork in order, we have been working on our education part. We have a pretty good sized workbook to read through and fill out. We have to send it back to our agency and if any question is missed, it will be returned to us. Also--we have some classes to take on line. It has all been very interesting and very helpful. It is an eye opening experience to the challenges we may face in a year, 2 years, or 20 years from now.

Plane trip

I have been emailing a lady that lives in Sioux Falls, has used our agency, and has adopted from Ethiopia. What a great resource! I asked her how long of a trip it was. 18 hours! That long of a plane trip plus the huge time difference. Man will we be tired when we get home.

Devotion

This was in my devotional book the other day. It sure puts what we are going through into words better than I can. I cannot explain to anyone the feeling of peace that we have going through all of this. I cannot explain how much we feel this is God's will and that this is what we are to do. He will provide.

"...If we begin with a feeling or an urge to do something we've never done before, and if we have the confidence and freedom to believe it can be done, then somehow the difficulties attached to it begin to lose their scary power of intimidation. By trusting in God and believing all things are possible with him, doors to the unknown begin to open; and in time, a sense of certainty sets in..."

I am so calm about all of the uncertainities in our future. A calmness that can only be a true gift from God.

A few more things checked off the list

On Friday on our way home for Easter, we were able to stop at the Courthouse and get birth certficates and our marriage license. It was nice we didn't have to make a special trip. Today the girls and I will have our physicals with blood work that is needed for both the Home Study and our Dossier.

I just spoke with someone from AGCI. They will be calling us every other week to check in and see how the paperwork is going and answer any questions we have. I was so concerned about this I600A immigration form. I thought we had to get results back before we could proceed. As soon as AGCI gets our completed Home Study and Dossier, they will review it and let us know what things need to be changed. (which is normal) THEN we get put on the waiting list! :)

Confused

Jason was the one to be on the phone and computer today with AGCI. It worked better with his schedule. They basically went over information that we had received in the mail the other day. I'm so totally confused on things. We have to file a I600A application. This is the “Application For Advance Processing of Orphan Petition” form. At this point, this feels like our biggest hurdle. However, part of the feeling I have comes from not really knowing anything. We need to send a letter requesting an appointment to be fingerprinted. This gets sent to an office in TX. They pass the information to the office in our area. They give us a date and time to be there for fingerprinting. This whole time, I've been thinking we will have to go to SF for this. Well, after much research today, I wasn't able to find anything in SD. When I typed in our zip code to see what office "served" us, it came up with The Twin Cities. Really? Needless to say, I'm freaking out a bit. I also do not know for sure when we can apply for this. It takes MONTHS for this background check to be completed. One place I read that our Home Study needed to be completed before we applied. Another place said that we would be sending them our Home Study in 4-6 weeks. Well--that makes a big difference as to when we do it. This part really makes me nervous. I don't want to do something wrong that will cost us time and money. I emailed AGCI and asked them about it. They are going to be calling us tomorrow as a follow up for the call today, so we will talk about it then. Hopefully, we are home to answer the phone. I thought it would be so awful to have to drive 4 hours one way for fingerprints. Now, 4 hours one way sounds great!!! Time will tell. Also--we needed to have our Power of Attorney letters certified by the Secretary of State. I didn't understand what that meant. So after more phone calls, I at least have an answer to that. We have to have that piece of paper notarized. Then we mail it to the Secretary of State in Pierre. They will put something on it saying that the notary is good. Then they will mail it back to us. WOW! It is one thing to have lots to do. It is another thing when I know I have lots to do and have no idea how to do it.

Dossier packet in our hands

Well-the next big step has been delivered to our house. This is called the Dossier packet. This is all of the paperwork we need to compile for the International part of it. We have a "Dossier Run Through" conference call appointment scheduled for this Wednesday at 11:00am. We had 3 days to pick from and this was the time that fit best into our schedules. It will take about an hour and I guess it is via computer. We did get all of our information via UPS today. So--after the kids go to bed, I will start reading. I'm excited b/c the Home Study and Dossier are the biggest components to this whole thing and both processes have been started!!!

Baby steps

We welcome all steps that progress us forward...even baby steps. We have doctor's apppointments made. Our first Home Study office visit is scheduled. 4 out of 6 reference letters have been mailed to Catholic Family Services. Now, we wait for our dossier paperwork to come in the mail hopefully at the beginning of the week.

Agreements to be mailed

We will be getting all of the "legal" documents ready and mailed tomorrow. There are about 8 documents that need to be signed in front of a notary. One of the documents we need to sign is the agreement b/t AGCI and ourselves. There are about 3 spots that need to be signed and notarized just in that one "booklet." Really? 3 on one "booklet?" Wow! All of these important papers as well as a nice big check will be sent in tomorrow. We have to sign 2 of everything. They will sign a copy and send us copies of everything back. Fun stuff! Glad we only have to pay the postage one way. :) Then they will send us our dossier packet. This is the information we need to gather for the actual country. As far as I know, this will include things like birth certificates/marriage license/etc...HOPEFULLY all of the super time consuming stuff (like the 20 pages of questions we filled out) is over. I'm updating you on this BEFORE we mail this big/thick/heavy envelope b/c I have more time tonight to write on here. I looked back at the journal I have been writing about our adventure. It is so hard to believe we have only been in the actual process for about a month and a half. Seems like so much longer when there is so much to do and so many things for my brain to keep track of.

Reference letters

I am very impressed with Catholic Family Services. She received our information on Thursday. Yesterday (Saturday) our references had their letter requests. I know she is pushing the process along as she wants to have everything completed by June 1st as she is going on maternity leave. That is totally fine with me. I'm sure it will be frustrating to me to have this pushed through so fast and to have our dossier stuff take awhile. (Dossier is the paperwork we have to compile for the country itself. So far we have done stuff for our Home Study and for our agency...nothing for the actual country yet) We will be out more money as we pay these references to say something nice about us. :) Thank you to those of you reading this that have to complete a letter on our behalf. It is truly appreciated!!!

My head is spinning

Lots to update about, but yet nothing really too exciting.

HOME STUDY:
I heard from Catholic Family Services today. As soon as she gets our information (hopefully today) she will send letters to our references. In about 2 weeks, we will have to go to Aberdeen for our first meeting. We will have 2 meetings in Aberdeen before the actual Home Study. I'm guessing the Home Study process will be quicker than normal due to the fact that our case worker will be going on maternity leave on June 1. That works for us. I'm all about pushing to get stuff done.

FINGERPRINTING:
We went to Selby to get our fingerprints taken. That was quite the experience as we went to the jail to have it done. They got a new machine which is really neat. No ink. It is heat based and is kind of like a scanner. You still did each finger at a time, etc...Kind of hard to explain. They weren't super sure how to do it and didn't know if we needed something different b/c of our reason for fingerprinting. We were there for probably an hour. Yuck! It wouldn't have been so bad, but we needed to make sure we were home for our Orientation Call. So--fingerprinting round #1 is done. I know we will have to do it again for some immigration papers. I just did it not too long ago for work. I'm going to be a pro soon, but hopefully not too much of a pro. HA!

ORIENTATION CALL:
AGCI called us at 6:00 pm our time. Their home office is in OR. It is sooooo nice to have 2 extra hours to get a hold of them after we get home. She went through some of the "Orientation Packet" with us. It only lasted about 30 minutes. Nothing too exciting. This is some of the legalities such as agreement with them for services and fees, what is expected from all parties, etc...Nothing too exciting. We need to get these papers signed and notarized and mailed back to them with a bigger chunk of money. We will be waiting a week or two before mailing these in.

All of these things are steps that needed to be taken. It wasn't a big deal, but it sure is time consuming and gives us another thing to think about and another thing to do. My head is just spinning. No wonder I can't remember my name. :)

Home Study application mailed

We dropped the Home Study application in the mail today. It was nice that we were able to use Catholic Family Services as that is the packet that we spent 4-5 hours completing one weekend. We knew if we didn't get to use CFS that we would have similiar questions to answer so we wouldn't be out too much time. Also the lady from CFS didn't see why we wouldn't be able to use them. Of course we didn't know for sure we could use them until we had official approval from AGCI. All we HAD to mail today was the actual application. (along with payment of course) We turned in all we could get finished. Why not do as much as we could in one mailing? We need to get copies of our birth certficates, marriage licenses, income tax returns, kids' shot records, and cats' shot records yet. We all need physicals. However...I'm waiting to get those done until we get our other paperwork from AGCI. We need some doctor "stuff" from them too. That way we can hopefully only have one appointment and get all we need done. We sent our 20 pages of questions in. I'd think that would help to get things moving. Time will tell.

Orientation packet

We received our Orientation Packet today from AGCI. I haven't taken the time to study it. I have only browsed it. Lots of stuff of the legal stuff. It has the contract that we must sign to send back to AGCI. It tells us about the steps we will have to complete in order for the adoption to be finalized. It told us many facts about Ethiopia. It won't take too long to look over stuff, sign it, and get it in the mail. We have to wait until our Orientation call on Thursday. Sorry this is boring, but all part of the process.

A bit more about the changing of requirements

I've learned some more about the changing of requirements. We know that the reason behind changing to have the adopting parents make 2 trips to Ethiopia now is all for what is best for the children. It is to protect them from not being left high and dry after thinking they were going home with their new family. As this does cause some extra burdens with taking off of work for an extra week, childcare for our girls for a week while we are gone, and the extra money for plane tickets...we do now it is for the best. We have to say that stumbling blocks appear often in this adoption journey. However, there is some positive things that come out of these changes that I have recently found out about. I thought I should share. Before this change, the newly adopted child would be granted an IR4 visa. This means the child is not technically a US citizen until you go through the re-adoption process in the US court system. Now that the first trip is when the parents go to court instead of the agency acting for us, the newly adopted child travels to the US on an IR3 visa. This mean as soon as they step foot off the plane they are a US citizen. After reading some blogs from people that have adopted a child on an IR4 and an IR3...they say that an IR4 is way more headache (not to mention lawyer's fees, additional time, etc....) to try to get them readopted once we return. It is confusing to me, but hearing from people that have gone through all if this say that an IR3 is much better makes me feel better about all of the additional extras.

2 BIG hurdles crossed! :)

2 BIG hurdles have been crossed today!! First of all, our application was approved. :) Yippee!!!! Secondly, we got approval to use Catholic Family Services for our Home Study. :) Praise God!!! What a huge relief both of these approvals bring! We can now proceed with our Home Study stuff. As far as the adoption process goes, they will be sending us an "Orientation packet." We need to read through the stuff in it. We are scheduled to have our "Orientation call" next Thursday. Both Jason and I will have to be on the phone. We will go over some of the papers they will send and we can ask any questions we have. Like I'm going to wait to ask my questions until then. :) I'm good buds with Tiffany at AGCI. It seems like I always have some question for her that I email. I'm sure she is sad when a day goes by with no email from me. HA!

Along with this journey comes many highs and lows. Last night, we had a low and then today turns to a high. The requirements for adopting from Ethiopia have just changed. We will now have to take 2 trips there. We will get a referral for a child. Then we have about 3 weeks before we need to be in Ethiopia for a court date. We will get to spend some time with our new child before leaving her/him for 2-3 months. We will come back home without him/her. :( We will travel again after more stuff is completed to actually bring our new child home. This is quite the blow. Needless to say it is a lot to soak in. We will need to take an extra week off of work. We will need to find a place for our girls for another week. We will have to pay for 2 more plane tickets. (Too bad we don't fly more often...frequent flyer miles would come in handy here) We know they are doing this for the kids and that is what we have to remember. From what I know, about 40 kids were ready for their families to come and pick them up only to be told they weren't wanted. How horrible!

We knew this road wouldn't be easy, but we knew we had to accept the challenge. Many times we have questioned why it has to be so hard. 2 steps forward and 1 step back. We still are TOTALLY trusting God that this is going to work out. This was placed in our hearts for a reason. God brought us TO this and He will bring us THROUGH this!

Thanks to all of you that have faithfully checked our blog for updates. Thank you for all of the prayers. Thanks to those of you that are buckled in the seat next to us and helping us on "our ride." It is with all of your love, support, and prayers that we will be able to make the difference in the life of a child. We can't wait for that day! :)

Quote

Those of you that know me well know that I love quotes. I came across one the other day that I thought I should post on here. "Adoption may be God's way of bringing a particular child to a particular couple."

Getting closer.......

I heard from AGCI today. They had a few things that they needed me to clarify for them. It is so hard trying to prove to complete strangers that we are good people. Hopefully I answered the questions correctly! Catholic Family Services sent an agreement to All God's Children today. As soon as AGCI gets the agreement from CFS, the lady I have been talking with this whole time will take all of our stuff in to the social workers one last time for final approval. Too bad the mail has to go from SD to OR. I don't know how long that takes, but long enough. :) So---HOPEFULLY by the end of the week, we will have news. We hope and pray for approval.

A step in the right direction

You haven't heard anything from me b/c there hasn't been anything to tell. Today, however, brings good news. First of all, all supporting documents have been mailed. So, our application is officially completed. Now--we get to wait again. :) Also---Catholic Family Services sent some stuff to AGCI. Hopefully that will all be okay and we will get approval to work with them. Now the hurdle of actually getting approved. The lady I have been working with at AGCI has tried to think of any and all possible things they might want more information on. HOPEFULLY all things will explain things enough and we will get approval. I am not sure how long we wait now. Between needing approval to use Catholic Family Services and having our application in the process of being approved, I hope we will know SOME news by the end of next week.

Almost done....

We spent over 3 hours working on ONE packet of paperwork for our Home Studay. I think we completed 20 pages (including some stuff I had already done) We have about 2 and 1/2 pages left. I spent other time working on some other papers. However the 3 hours was BOTH of us talking about the answers. I am much calmer about things and will be even more to know it is all done after tomorrow afternoon. Let me tell you...the stuff we did today wouldn't be done by just anyone. You have to REALLY want it.

Questions, questions, and more questions

2 hours of working on answering questions and we MIGHT be half way through. Time for a nap to refresh and then back at it. Can you say overwhelming? At least it is the weekend that we are working on it. It will be nice to get it finished. I like doing something besides waiting.

There is always something to do

Today was a "calm" day on our journey. I came home from school and called the doctor to see about the documents I was waiting for. The part time nurse was there so I didn't learn as much as I could have. She said that on Wednesday the other nurse was working on stuff and it was on the doctor's desk. So.....HOPEFULLY that means it won't be too much longer. Thanks for the additional prayers. We really appreciate them. I scheduled physicals since I know it takes awhile to get in for "healthy" stuff. My appointment is April 13. Wow! That is a long time away when paper work will be on hold again until the next list of stuff gets turned in and cleared. If things work out to use Catholic Family Services, we will be in a push to get our home study done. It has to be completed in 120 days after application. I was told it rarely ever takes that long. Our case worker will be going on maternity leave the first of June so we will want to have everything done by then IF possible. Our home study consists of 2 office visits and then the actual home study. If I don't get paperwork in until the middle/end of April, it will be pushing it to get it finished by June first. So--I contacted AGCI to see if any doctor could do our physicals or if it had to be our primary one. She said it could be any one! That is good news b/c I know I can get in sooner then. It is ALWAYS something to think about. I know we need FBI fingerprinting. I was told that once upon a time, the only place to get that done was in SF. My dad works for dispatch and I had him check to see where they do FBI fingerprinting. He thinks any Sheriff's office can do this. That would be awesome as we were thinking we'd have to take time off from school to drive to get them done. I think that is all I know for today. I don't know if these posts make any sense. My mind is a big foggy from time to time. I've done well with the being patient part. However, the control freak in me wants to know when we will get our fingerprints done, when we will get our physicals, blah, blah, blah.....I want to PLAN it out as I am a planner. I guess I need to try to let go of that a bit. That is very hard to do. At least we have decent news today.

The roller coaster continues....

What a day of emotions!!! I heard from Catholic Family Services. They got the agreement from AGCI that they need to sign in order to be able to do our home study. (Yeah) However, the lady I am dealing with didn't have some of the stuff they needed. (Boo) Then she said that her supervisor probably had the stuff in the SF office. (Yeah) However, she wasn't sure where some of those documents were at the current time so she would have to look for them. (Boo) After much communicating, it is still hopeful that CFS will be able to do our home study. I'm not going to feel better until we are 100% sure they can do it. The thought of using this other agency that we aren't happy with or having to start over at ground zero with another agency is hard for me to handle. The lady from CFS has been very reassuring that it would work out and they would be able to work with us. So--we wait for paperwork to all come together b/t AGCI and CFS. I did get a letter from one doctor today. (Yeah) That means that it will be sent to AGCI soon if it hasn't already been sent. I still have one doctor to get ahold of. I will call tomorrow and hope I get good news, but am not holding my breath. (Boo) Here again....I am not going to think too positive until I know for sure it is done. The ball can really get rolling when we get all these supporting documents turned in. This weekend we are going to sit down and fill out lots of stuff for our home study. IF we don't work with CFS, the information we compile will still need to be used in a home study. It will be time consuming. We have to fill out our relationships growing up and how our parents parented, etc...We have to fill out things about our marriage. We have to fill out about our parenting styles, etc...We have to fill out stuff about our faith, etc....It will be a chore, but will be nice to get it done. (or close to done) We can't send in this paperwork until our formal application is approved. However, we CAN have it all ready to send it as soon as we get the go ahead. I don't know if you are able to follow all of this. It is clear as mud some days for me and I'm dealing with it. :) Some of you have wanted to post comments and can't. I don't know this, but I wonder if you have to be a follower to be allowed to post. I'm not sure. Until next time......

Things to share

Yesterday we got our Home Study packet in the mail from Catholic Family Services. She wanted me to have the paper work so we could start on it as soon as we knew IF we could work with them. She emailed me today and told me that she talked to her supervisor in Sioux Falls. They did a home study for a couple that was using our agency (AGCI) in 2009. That family was also adopting from Ethiopia. So---we SHOULD be good to go, but have to wait until we get the official word.

Silly things we think about and talk about. We are going to add a bedroom to our house. Of course the new room will be OUR bedroom. I think that sounds fair. :) It will be a tiny bit bigger than what we currently have. We thought we'd just have the newest addition to our family have our bedroom. After much discussing, we are going to have Lexi move into our current bedroom and then the new one will get Lexi's bedroom. So that means 2 rooms to paint. Good summer projects. Out of the blue today, I wondered how we will paint the new ones room. It is crazy b/c do I say the new baby or what? We wanted a child less than a year, but it depends on how old he/she is at the time of referral. If he/she is 3 months and we wait 4 months to travel, he/she will still be a "baby." If he/she is 12 months before referral, he/she could be a year and a half before we get to bring him/her home. It is all a guessing game at this point. So--I don't know what to say. Oh well! Anyway--I LOVE the chocolate brown and either pink or blue together. So, we are going to paint the bottom half of the bedroom brown and then when we know if it is going to be a boy or girl, we will paint the top half accordingly. This is a big deal that I'm making this decision without having bedding picked. What if we don't have brown/pink/blue bedding? I don't really care at this point. We don't have anything at this point. So time will just tell. I do have more than enough time to decide what colors to paint the bedroom. However, it is stuff like this that is fun and something we can do to help during the wait time.

A small prayer request

Okay--if you are following this blog, you either A) care about us and want to know what is going on (and maybe want to help) or B) just are snooping b/c you have nothing better to do. It is pretty sad if my blog is your entertainment. HA! :) Either way I decided to go out on a limb and write this. I know God put us in the situation we are in. I know He will help us with every hurdle we come to. I know that we have the love and support of so very many. So--with that being said, I will put in a small prayer request. Part of me doesn't even think I should mention this b/c there are going to be some much bigger hurdles to cross in the future. For right now, we need help clearing a hurdle. We are still waiting for our application to be approved. We are waiting for doctors letters as support documents to be sent to our agency. We have been able to do a few things even though we are waiting. I know this is all about waiting. It is a HUGE waiting game and a true test of patience. Very soon we are going to be sitting and waiting with tons to do, but nothing we will be able to do until our application is approved. We will be at a total standstill. So--it is SO important that these doctor letters get to our agency soon. I have prayed really hard about this. I know that this too is a test of patience and trust. I'm TRYING to just relax and pray about it. Any of you that know me well know that the word relax is not in my vocabulary. Those of our faithful followers that are reading this, I ask you to please take a moment to pray that God places urgency in the hearts of the doctors that need to get letters written on our behave. I'm going to call at the end of the week to see how they are coming in the process. It is my hope (and prayer) that I won't need to call them.

Changes, changes, changes

One thing that I'm slowly learning is how quickly things change in the adopting world. Last night really had me down in the dumps. Try to follow this. We are working with the agency called All God's Children International. (AGCI) They are based out of Oregon. Obviously we need to get a SD based agency to do our home study. There is an agency that AGCI works with in SD. We contacted them. I haven't felt comfortable with them from the beginning or we would have chosen them since they are in state. I talked to AGCI and they didn't agree with the costs this other agency was going to charge us for the home study. There was a huge difference. I am not sure why. However...what could we do if they were the only one we could get to do our home study? AGCI said we could find a different agency to do our home study as long as they met certain criteria IF we could even find someone that could/would do it. Bethany Christian Services is also is SD. I was VERY impressed with them in the questioning stage of the game, but just felt AGCI was the way to go. Also--AGCI has their own orphanage in Ethiopia. Bonus! So last night I was looking for places I could call today to see if they could do our home study. Bethany will not do them for other agencies which I TOTALLY agree with. So I was in quite the tizzy wondering if we were going to have to switch agencies to prevent us from having to have our home study done by the one that made me so uncomfortable. I will admit this is the biggest tizzy I have been in. That is so impressive that I've been so calm about all of this. God is teaching me patience and He is teaching me to chill out when it is out of my control. :) I called Catholic Family Services (CFS) today to see if they do home studies and to see if they would meet the criteria, etc....They said "Yes!" They have worked with AGCI before and were willing to do what AGCI wanted/needed. I talked to AGCI and they were mailing an agreement to this CFS. IF they can meet all of the requirements....we will be good to go. The lady from CFS didn't think it would be a problem. She too was great to talk to. She was going to send paper work to us in the mail so we have it as soon as we get the okay. Here is the best part of the whole deal.....this agency is in Aberdeen while the others were in Sioux Falls. It will be nice to pay mileage for a 2 hour round trip instead of an 8 hour round trip. I'm so excited! I hope and pray this works out. So--last night I was down in the dumps wondering what to do. I really like AGCI as they have been wonderful and we are only in the beginning of this process. They make me feel like I'm the only person that they are working with. That is so important when doing what we are doing. I didn't want to leave then, but thought we might have to so we could switch to Bethany to avoid having this other agency do our home study. We would lose ground as our application is already in at AGCI and we'd have to start back at ground zero if we switched. It still amazes me how fast things turn around in this whole adventure. It truly is an adventure! God is continuing to provide. I am reassured more and more each day that this is what His plan is for us. I'm glad we listened. :)

The roller coaster begins

Today was filled with mixed emotions. We got the application in the mail. Yippee!! :) However, I talked to one of the people that needs to send a letter to the agency on our behalf. It didn't sound like they were in much of a hurry to get their information compiled and sent. :( Our application waits for all these key essentials in order to be approved. Until approval, we are at a stand still. It is hard enough to wait. Harder to wait when we are waiting for someone else. So it goes. This is a lesson in patience, right?

Ready for the mail

Our application is all ready to be mailed! :) We will drop it in the mail tomorrow. :) We are waiting for a couple of letters that need to be sent directly to our agency. Hopefully those letters get their soon. We are praying that everything we have to submit is in order and they like what they see. :) We also hope and pray that our application will be accepted sooner than later.

Time frame

I know many of you are wondering what kind of a time frame we are looking at with this process. I thought I'd let you know what I know. They say 3-4 months for paperwork. (I think this is AFTER they receive and approve our application) Referral (when they match us up with a child) process 6-8 months....however, we have requested an infant so that could take up to 12 months just to be matched up with a child. After we are matched up, it could be another 3-4 months until we are ready to travel.

Trying to get our ducks in a row

I'm sure you probably think I just forget to post things on here. Well, there are lots of days when there really isn't anything to post. We are currently gathering all we need to send in our formal application. There are different things we must have to be able to submit our application. So--we are just working on getting our ducks in a row. We are HOPING to send in the formal application next week. I'll let you know when we drop it in the mail. Thanks for your continued support and prayers! It is greatly appreciated!

We get to do something. :)

They got our prelim application and let us know what additional documents we needed to submit our formal application. Finally we get to do something. :) We took a family picture today after school. The last family picture we took was at Christmas which wasn't too long ago. However, due to the blizzard we weren't nicely dressed, no hair fixed, no make-up, etc...I thought we maybe should have a better one. I also took a picture of our house that has to be mailed in with the application. Funny!! Hope they can see the house that is half buried with snow. We have read about all that is coming and all we have to do. It is a bit overwhelming as the reality sets in. This is real and it is AWESOME!!! :)It is nice to be able to get to do something instead of sitting and waiting. The sitting and waiting will be here again soon! Until then....

So it all begins....

I submitted our preliminary application on the 30th of January. It takes 5-7 days for them to review our information and then call us to tell us what other documents we need to have with our formal application. I have waited patiently....really I have. Today I emailed them with a question and they said they hadn't received our prelim application yet. Bummer! Here I had been patient and I was going to have to continue to be patient. I called them to see if I should resubmit our application. They said I should. They also said they would get someone to look at it right away since the situation was what it was. This hasn't ever happened before. Oh--I hope that isn't how this is going to go. :) So it all begins...we wait!