Sweethearts

With Valentine's Day approaching, I spoke w/ C to help him understand the concept of Valentines and "sweethearts." I told him that Ba and he were my sweethearts and that he and I were Ba's sweethearts. So then, I asked C who his sweetheart was. He smiled and said, "My sister."

Tonight, as we were helping C prepare for bed (as per our usual routine) and asked C which books he would like to read. He looked at us, pointed to the small books in his bookcase and said, "small books for baby sister."

There are times it seems that time is moving at warp speed. Counting today, we have been on the waitlist for 134 days -or-

4 months, 11 days -or-

19 weeks -or-

3,216 hours -or-

192,960 minutes (Hopefully we won't reach 525,600 minutes!) -or-
11,577,600 seconds (but who's counting?)

Based on new estimates from our agency, families are waiting (on average) 6 1/2 month to receive a referral. So, we hope to receive a referral sometime between E's and my birthdays (March 25th and April 25th).

Gladney Family - October 18, 2008

Warmest wishes and congratulations to our ET Gladney families who either received court approval, court dates, or referrals this week. We look forward to joining your ranks in the near future when the time is right to be united with our DD!

Two weeks down, countless others to go...

Inquiring Minds Want to Know...

So, now that we are officially on "wait list," I thought it would be fun to ask you all to make your "referral predictions" about the referral date and age of our DD.

So put on your prognosticating hats and bring on the predictions! I'll post the list under the adoption time line.

Waitlist!

A, our ET caseworker, informed us today that we have officially been placed on waitlist. What does this mean? Elementary, my dear Watson...our dossier is now complete and has been submitted to DC for authentication. From there, our dossier will be sent to ET, translated into Amharic (the native language of ET...yay, more new words to learn), and held by the agency's in-country reps.

So now, the fun begins. Currently, families have waited for approximately four to six months on average to receive a referral. But, as we are well aware with int'l adoption, this is only an estimate. Our wait could be shorter, or longer. If all goes well, hopefully E (aka Ba - yes, since C already calls E "Ba", our DD from ET will learn that name as well) will receive a wonderful birthday present in March 2009 (but, we are open to that wonderful call coming earlier, ya' know...).

Unlike our last adoption journey, we now have C to keep us preoccupied and entertained. There is nothing better than the giggles of a three year old to brighten your life after a long day of teaching. We look forward to growing our family to four and know our DD will be united with us, when the time is right!

Seasoned Pros

It's interesting...

How similar, yet different, our second adoption journey is shaping itself to become. In less than three months, we find ourselves where we were at the six month mark in our first adoption. I'm also amazed as how calm and peaceful I truly feel. Part of this may be attributed to the fact that we're (apparently) "seasoned pros" or that we have C to keep us occupied with his daily antics and the new discoveries that each day brings.

We had our CIS appointment on June 24th, as scheduled. I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly we completed the process that day (E and I had brought reading materials with us, just in case). The staff were very pleasant. And now, we wait for the wonderful I-171H approval, which signals the final step in the dossier collection process. From there, our documents will be authenticated & sent to ET (and we'll be on the official "wait list").

I suppose it helps to have summer vacations and travel plans to help the time pass more quickly. I'm enjoying the summer break from my teaching schedule (the downside to time passing more quickly means August 18th will arrive before I know it!).

We have a new ET caseworker through the agency, A. We're looking forward to working with her and have enjoyed discovering commonalities. She, like E, was born in PA and lived here in NC before moving to TX (and, sounds like she's a Tarheel fan...we'll get along just fine :D ).

As with our first adoption journey, we won't prepare our daughter's room until after we receive a referral and are closer to court approval and travel. Unlike C's room, it won't have to be painted (it's already a very pretty shade of pink) - and the house is already child-proofed! We'll also wait to see our beautiful daughter & learn her ET name before determining whether we will keep her ET name or have a blended name (like we did for C).

On Friday evening, an African Children's Choir will be performing at a local church. I look forward to attending the event with my family. We're also planning to have dinner at a local ET restaurant very soon w/ friends (B teaches African politics & spent a year teaching in Kenya). I've had the pleasure of eating there before and look forward to returning for more delicious cuisine.

All for now. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

Another step forward...

To our surprise, we received a FedEx package from the FBI today. We are cleared by our fine agents in Clarksburg. We also received a draft copy of the homestudy yesterday via email for our review.

Another step (and 1/2 forward)...

Moving Right Along...

The peace and stillness of nightime hours allows me opportunities to reflect upon how wonderfully blessed we truly are. I am filled with a sense of amazement and wonder of the miracle of parenthood, of how truly special it is to receive this responsibility of nurturing our children and assisting them to develop into the adults they will become.

We've begun talking with C and telling him that he will be a big brother. I've enjoyed seeing him look at me, make a rocking motion with his hands, and say "baby." We're very fortunate that C was the oldest child at his care center in VN. While at the care center, he lived with six infants & was indeed their "big brother." He was a great help to the nannies (within the scope a 2 year old can provide) and will be a great help to Ba and Mum-Mum.

Since the last post, we've continued to move along the paper trail. Our home study (hs) was completed on the 8th. We enjoyed meeting S., the SW from our agency and were quite happy to learn that our hs would be completed in one visit. She's now working on writing the report and hopefully we'll have an initial draft by the end of next week. After the hs is finalized, our file will be reviewed to receive "agency approval." Another big step!!!

Kudos to our agency (especially JW & JB) for their willingness to answer the many questions I have and always doing so in a warm, caring, and timely manner!

We're also moving right along with collecting our documents for the dossier. It's been a tremendous stress reliever to have decided to use KBS Dossiers to help prepare our ET dossier. K has been great to work with and is very timely in sending updates. Currently, we only have a few outstanding items (once K receives the forms I mailed to her today):

1. FBI results (which can take up to 6 wks to receive)
2. Homestudy documents (see above)
3. CIS approval (see below)

Speaking of CIS, we receive our appointments today in the mail. We're scheduled for June 24th! Yay, that's 10 days from now. It will probably take around 3 months to receive our approval but once K receives our last few items, the dossier will be reviewed by JB at the agency. Afterwards, our dossier documents will be certified and authenticated. After authentication, the dossier will be translated and sent to ET (we'll officially be DTE - "dossier to Ethiopia"). That will place us on the wait list for a referral!

As I've said before, each day (and small step of achievement) brings us one step closer to being united with our daughter!

On the move

Every day brings us one step closer to our beautiful daughter. It's quite interesting to see how much progress we've made since April 25th. So far, we've:

• Completed our Gladney application
• Made our first payment
• Sent in a lot of forms to Gladney and KBS Dossier
• Requested certified copies of several documents for the dossier
• Become very familiar w/ the Automated Postal Service machine at our local post office
• Completed our ET training (fortunately our preparation for C's adoption was counted toward our Hague training)
• Sent (and resent) our I-600A application and payment (**note to future adoptive parents - make sure you read the instructions carefully...your payment needs to cover both the main application fee (currently $670) PLUS $80 per adult for biometric fees**)

Tomorrow (well, technically today since it's after midnight), we're off to have fingerprints taken for our FBI clearance request, passport pictures made, and more forms notarized!

As I finally grow tired for the night, I am truly amazed at how tranquil and calm I feel during this process. We are working steadily to complete our Gladney application and the dossier. Perhaps these feelings stem from having an incredibly strong support network of family and friends (and having gone through the process once before) and knowing that we will be united with our daughter when the time is right.

We don't know whether our daughter has been born yet but I am already growing a strong bond of parental love for this child who will one day in the near future be united with her family.

And away we go...

Welcome to the first entry for this adoption blog. Through this blog, we will chronicle our second adoption journey as a written . For those of you unfamiliar with our style of blog narrative, names will be identified by first initials only.

E and I are so very excited to have begun the process for the second time. As a couple, we have always known that we wanted to be the parents of two children. This time, our adoption journey is leading us to Ethiopia (hence forever abbreviated ET), with the hopes of adopting a beautiful baby girl - thus, creating our family of four!

On April 25th (my 36th birthday), we decided to officially begin the process for adoption #2. Being the research hound that I am, I compared several agencies that came recommended from families that have adopted from Ethiopia. After careful consideration, prayer, and discernment, we chose the Gladney Center. We look forward to working w/ J, J, and the entire ET staff.

So far, we've waded through all the wonderful paperwork for Gladney and the ET dossier (I think I put this part of the first adoption process way back in my subconscious to elicit a sweet sense of amnesia) and have completed quite a few forms, with more to come! Thankfully, J & J have been very open and receptive to my many questions.

So, here we are - here and now. The pebble has dropped into the ocean and created wonderful ripples of expansion.

We'll keep you posted as we reach milestones in this voyage into parenthood, part 2!