Documents off to Ethiopia!!!!

Today our agency received our signed acceptance of "I" so now they can tell Ethiopia, "yes, they officially accept him". They also received our authenticated documents back from the consulate and they were shipped off to Ethiopia today! Yea!!!!!! Once they get there next week, they will be able to request a court date! I don't know if we will wait a long time to get the date or if it will be assigned soon and then a wait for the date to arrive. We are going to put together a photo album for him of us and our community. We will also send him a shirt and a little toy hopefully....it all has to fit in a gallon size bag and we are only allowed to send one. Things are moving along great and with great timing! It will be nice to have him arrive at a time that I will be off for a couple of months before going into the whole school and work routine with him.

Moving forward...

One of our pediatricians reviewed the minimal medical information we had and he didn't have any concerns over his labs....yea! Our social worker has already updated the age on our homestudy and submited it to USCIS. I bet I'll have our new I-171H by the end of the week, because we have an awesome lady there I've gotten to know. Then we can request our court date! After all the disappointments we had with Vietnam, we are so anxious to get him home and make him ours! We emailed WACAP to tell them let's go forward!

Quick as a rabbit....

My new ticker has a rabbit, for hopefully quick speed as we prepare for and wait for a court date to finalize the adoption in Ethiopia.

REFERRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes! We got our referral tonight! A very cute boy who is 6&1/2. Our homestudy was for 7-9, so we will need to have it adjusted before we can get a court date. I am sooo glad that wait is over, but we can't do anything til Monday...I won't complain though! Now the push to get him home. We cannot post a photo until after we pass court and it will take about 2 months for that. The courts close in August and September, but I am sure we'll have him here before that, hopefully no longer than 3 months. He is a little guy (I still have to convert his height/weight into inches) with the most beautiful skin tone and such handsome facial features. Can't wait to hug him!

Waiting for the call.....

We still haven't gotten information on our referral and it's killing me waiting! My cell phone is permantly attached to me. Our dossier is on its way to the consulate today though to be authenticated. Then it will be sent to Ethiopia to be translated. This is so different than China. We will probably agree to accept this child, before Ethiopia even finishes it's translation. It is great to have things moving so quickly, we can only hope that the court date will come just as quickly. It will be sooo hard if we have to wait 3 or more months to bring him home!

A referral on the way....?

I was informed today that the agency is awaiting information on a boy for us and will hopefully be here in the next few days, but for sure by next week. My mind is going a million miles a minute! What does he look like? What are his circumstances? How long has he been waiting? Our "due date" is almost here and as quickly as we had hoped it seems! So on pins and needles! It will be so awesome to know the child that will be our son! Then a hard wait again to bring him home!

I-171H on it's way to Ethiopia!

Our I-171H was officially changed to Ethiopia on Jan 9th and is on it's way to Addis Abba, Ethiopia Yeah!!! Other than signing additional paperwork for our agency, which was sent off on Saturday, all's we can do now is wait for the call. It's like waiting to go into labor....you never know when it will happen! Especially me, because both my bios were c-sections, so I knew exactly when they were coming. I guess this is my chance to experience the waiting for the "birth"! Everytime the phone rings, your heart skips a beat. You wait in anxiousness and in nervousness of who he will be and what it will be like when he is home.

The Wait...

With a combination of a lot of bad weather in Washington and the agency forgetting we already had an I-171H we will consider Dec 30th as the official date we will begin our countdown to a referral. I don't fault the agency; I kind of blew them away as to how fast I had everything done. We will hopefully have our new I-171H for Ethiopia next week. My USCIS contact was out of the office until the 1/6 or I know we would have had it sooner. That doesn't hold up the process though, since we already had an approved one for Vietnam....just a matter of switching it to Ethiopia. It is soooo hard to wait. I saw someone from the same agency got a referral for an 8 yr old boy right at Christmas. I couldn't help feeling jealous because we have been waiting so long for this final addition. The adoption coordinator thought we were the only one looking for a boy 7-9 so we should be next....just a matter of when such a child becomes available....although she didn't think we would wait long. You all know how well I DON'T wait! We are just waiting for the call now. Can't wait to be the one to be able to announce, "We got a referral!".