as Christmas approaches

Its a couple days before Christmas, and tomorrow, which is Dec.23, will be 7 months for us "officially waiting" for our referral now. Its hard to believe that it has even been a year now since we started the whole process. We had a rough last week, things kind of thrown our way we weren't expecting, but I guess life isn't always going to be without surprises good or bad. (nothing to do with the adoption) It kinda got me thinking, "Lord, I would be okay with everything not being okay, if we got the referral!" :) Obviously God isn't some sort of magical genie who is here to grant our wishes. But I just thought even for Christmas, it would be so great to get the referral. This whole process has been one of those things that no matter what goes on in my life, the possibility of getting the referral any day now is always in the back of my mind. But just even realizing what this whole season is really about, the birth of my Savior, makes me feel blessed already. It helps me to take a step back, and understand I need to let go of it, and trust God's timing. Regardless of what my circumstances are, and where my life is at, I am glad that I know a God who doesn't change with the ups and downs of my life. Knowing that helps in the midst of the bumps in my life. Even if it means waiting a little longer for the referral I guess. ;) (But God, anytime soon would be great, even for Christmas! :)

Nothing yet..... :)

I know it has been a long time since I have updated this, so sorry to anyone who checks it! :) Its now December, and we are still waiting! Although, I am sure its a good lesson in patience with this whole waiting thing, we are REALLY ready for something to happen. The past couple of months there have been referrals once a month from our agency. This happened both in Sept., and Oct., but then stopped in Nov. So its been since the middle of Oct. that there has been any referrals. Other things have been happening though, which has been a praise.......a couple families passed court, and are on their way home with their little ones as we speak! A couple other families that I know of have court dates at the end of Dec., and we are praying they pass court on the first try so they are able to travel soon after to get their little ones. We pray that we will hear something by Christmas, because what a better present could you get than that! :) We continue to think and pray for our little one that he/she would be healthy, and safe. Also, that God would make the rest of the process go quickly, so we are able to meet our new little one soon, and bring he/she home. In the mean time as we wait, we are busy here getting things ready for Christmas. Adam is working away as usual with the church, and Hudson and I spend our days at home doing the usual. Could be interesting if we do get our child the first part of the year, and try and do some potty training for Hudson at the same time! 2009 could be the start of a very interesting year for us..............

sad news........

Recently I just signed us up for a online forum through Bethany, so we can post things along with other people who are adopting, in particular from Ethiopia. It has been such a great thing to be a part of, and helps the time pass as we are waiting for our referral. Just this past week we learned that one of the little infant boys who was just referred to a family just passed away. If you are reading this post, please pray for the family who just lost the little one, and never had a chance to meet him. All that is really known is that he had diarhea, was taken to the hospital, then released, but then taken back to the hospital, but died on the way. My heart goes out to this family for their loss. On top of that, 2 more little boys, one who was just referred is in the hospital for what seems to be the same thing. I can't even imagine this either, and makes me a little scared for our own little one, or for others who are yet to be referred. Makes it even harder to wait, when all we want to do is go over there and get our little one, just to know he/she is safe, and so that we can take care of him/her. We are still hoping our referral comes very soon, but at this point I am not sure that this would be something to cause more waiting on our part or not. Again, please, if you read this post, please be lifting these families, and the little ones who are in the hospital, and the ones who are to be adopted soon, in prayer; that there would be healing and protection. My heart wants to see the little ones healed, and united with their families, along with others without any setbacks. But then again, going into this, we knew unknown things happening was a possibility..........

more referrals......more hope!

We just recently found out that on Sept. 5th, 4 little boys were referred to 4 families who are working with Bethany! We were so excited to hear that! Even just hearing something like that gives us hope that ours will come very soon. I can't even say how many times I have heard the phone ring wondering if it was the call! I know I shouldn't be, but I think about it so many times a day, everyday, that I think that I might make myself go crazy! :) We are just so excited to have a our little addition added to our family. I know at this point that we won't travel right away when we get our referral. After we learn who our baby is, we still have to go through the Ethiopian court system, and have everything cleared. Then after our court date if we pass court, we should get an invitation to travel, and then can plan when we want to go!!! We are just anticipating these things to occur so much, I am sure that it will seem like it was such a short time that we waited. But even now it seems like it has been a long time.................. :)

Nothing much new to report right now. Its been a little over 3 months now that we have been officially "waiting" . I know as the time passes we are more and more ready to have our little one. Getting very excited to have the new addition to our family. Trying to figure out the best way to get Hudson ready to be a big brother too! :) Each night we pray for the new baby with Hudson, and I think that we will get him some books or something somehow about being a brother through adoption. All I know is, it is going to be a big change for him! I am sure it is for anyone else who goes from having their first to a second child, but we have just really realized it in the past couple of weeks. If anyone would like anything to pray for, please pray that this part of our process will go quickly and smoothly. Hudson is ready to be a big brother! :)

Well.......still waiting

Not much to update this far into our process. We think that our dossier could be to Ethiopia by now, but haven't heard anything confirming that. Pretty sure that it is going to be more waiting after this......(but what is new, I think it is pretty typical with all adoptions :) We are ready for our little baby, and hope that he or she is safe somewhere just waiting for us to come over and bring them home. Here on out, we have heard that our dossier will have to be authenticated, then translated into their language, and then after that I believe that it will be assigned to an orphanage. There really isn't a clear time frame either since Bethany just started this program through them this past fall. We will keep updating, and hope to hear something soon!

Ready!

Not that this is any different from before, or is a new revelation, but we are ready for our baby to be home! It may not be God's timing yet, and it has only been a week or two since our dossier got sent to Ethiopia, but this process seems longer than a pregnancy! One of the things that makes it a little more difficult, is you don't have the visible signs that you are going to have baby, so it makes it not seem as real (even though I am not complaining about not gaining any weight with this one ; ). But even then, we just realize how neat this whole thing really is, and just how much of a difference this is going to make for our family, and mainly for this child. So even if it doesn't seem real now, and the physical signs of it aren't there, I know that I can cling to the idea of what this is going to do for all of us, and I just think, it is going to be so worth it! To give this child a home, and a family who they can call their own, will be worth all the waiting we will go through to receive this child!

Dossier to Ethiopia!

Friday we found out that our dossier has been sent to Ethiopia! We are very excited to be to this point, and now all we have to do is pretty much wait! The one good thing about being this far along is being done with all the paperwork! I remember thinking a couple of months ago how I couldn't wait to be to the point where we would be done getting all the papers together, and it has finally come! Not sure what to expect from this part of our journey, but hopefully isn't too stressful!

As my own........

I (Becky) was driving home yesterday listening to a christian radio station, and I don't know if everyone knows about this....but they were talking about the youngest adopted daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman's that was killed in an accident a couple days ago. It just kinda made me start thinking about just how precious my little boy Hudson is, plus my new little Ethiopian baby who I don't even know yet. Then I started crying, and I was thinking to myself......"I want my baby to come home now!" It's a crazy thing to me how attached I am to this child already, which I have heard is the typical thing that happens when you are adopting. I am hoping that the referral will get to us asap, but then again, when do things always work out the way that I want them to! But to me, this feels no different than a pregnancy, (except for not carrying the whole baby thing! :) I see this child as my own, and no different from my biological son, who just came to us in a different way. I am praying for this little child each day, that whoever you are, that you would come home soon, and know you have a loving family ready to take you in!

...and the waiting begins!

Well, last week after getting our dossier sent it, we got word that we got the "ok" on it from the national office, and so last week it was on to Washington D.C. for more "authentications" I guess, and then it should get back to that office sometime this week, and then it is going to be off to Ethiopia! SOOO, officially the waiting has begun, and its pretty much a shot in the dark from here how long it will take to get a referral. I have looked at different blogs online about the waiting process for Ethiopia, nad what others have experienced, and it seems like it could take anywhere from 3 months to 9 months. I am not sure how much that tells us for our experience, but I am hoping that being this is a new program through Bethany, that it will be quick, and not a lot of waiting! We feel that we are ready to be parents again, but maybe it is a good thing to have a little time to wait yet, and to let Hudson get a little older too! :) That way we won't have 2 who are too close in age that it will be a handful all the time. So I guess it is up to God now to regulate when we are ready to be parents for the second time, and until then, I hope it isn't too much of an emotional roller coaster for us.

Bethany Christian

I noticed that we haven't mentioned which adoption agency we're going through. It's a difficult process trying to pick an agency. Adam was biased towards HOLT International going in because of the wonderful experience his family had with them while adopting his sister. When we came down to making a decision, we couldn't have liked the people and their purpose better and it was SO convenient having Bethany right here in Sioux Falls! We'd highly recommend anyone using Bethany. More can be found at http://www.bethany.org/southdakota However, we also know that there are so many other great agencies to go through, definitely find a place you feel comfortable with if you are thinking about adopting

We sent in our dossier!!!

Here some details about our process so far:
our preliminary application was approved Sept 26, 2007
our formal application was received Dec 18th, 2007
our homestudy was approved 4/2/08
and we just sent in our dossier today!!!

Now we begin the wait for our referral.

Well, this is going to be a way for us to let you all know how our adoption journey is coming along. We started this process officially in January of this year, got our application filled out, completed our homestudy, and now are on the brink of getting our dossier sent to Ethiopia! We are very excited to have this addition to our family, and look forward to sharing this process with everyone~