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~