Holy Cow!!!

Wow!!! 5 minutes after my last post...I found out there was another referral!!! We are now #19!!! Yippee!! We are in the teens! :)

Wait List Movement!!

We received our I-171H approval from USCIS (immigration) on Monday. This gives us permission from the US government to adopt! I really think it should be bedazzled with glitter and sparkles since it is such an important piece of paper...but it is just printed on plain white paper. Ha! We received our approval amazingly fast. We had our fingerprints done on Tues., Dec. 7th, and we received our approval form by the 13th. I must say I am impressed with how fast USCIS is processing adoption petitions!

There was also movement on the waiting list today. We are now #20!! Based on some discussion on the yahoo forum for our agency, we are hoping to move again within the next few weeks. Craig and I have been talking about boy & girl names...seems so strange to be having those conversations again after 14 years, but it has been fun!

Wait List Update

After nearly a month of no referrals...another child was finally matched with their forever family...and we are now #21 on the sibling list! Our agency also recently announced they are working with 2 new orphanages and possibly a 3rd, so we are hoping this will mean more referrals in the near future. Craig and I go for our immigration fingerprints on Tuesday.

It is amazing how many people we have encountered recently that have either adopted from or are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. We can't wait to get "our kiddos" together with other families!

Our adoption group from church met on Thursday evening for our Christmas celebration. We all shared foods from our children's birth country. Needless to say, everything was delicious and we came home stuffed. Jordan was ready to bring home several of the little ones, especially Sarah and Eli (both from China). Next month will be a panel discussion with adoptive families with children from Rwanda, Guatemala, Korea, and possibly Russia. Jen, our facilitator, is doing an AMAZING job!!

A Sobering Thought...

We don't have any news to share, so I decided to share some thoughts I've been wrestling with lately. As I think about how excited and anxious we are to have more children join our family...I am reminded that in order for this to happen, another family is experiencing overwhelming sadness and grief. For reasons we currently don't know, another family must make the difficult decision to relinquish their parental rights. There are approximately 5 million orphans in Ethiopia alone which also means there are millions of families that have suffered in ways we can't begin to explain. A mom and a dad half-a-world away from here will be making the most difficult decision of their lives...to place their child for adoption...and we will be thrilled to become their "new" mom and dad. That is a sobering thought for me to come to terms with.

Our Dossier is headed to Ethiopia!!

Our adoption coordinator notified us today that our Dossier was successfully authenticated in Washington, DC and has been sent on to Ethiopia! :) Very exciting news...now we just need that referral!!! We are working on perfecting patience...I'm still not very good at it. haha!

Update...

We are truly learning the art of patience...It seems like we've been waiting forever, but in reality, it's only been about 3 weeks since we went on the waiting list. We found out today we are now #22 on the sibling list!! That was happy news!

We received our appointments for the immigration fingerprints last Friday. We go on Dec. 7th.

More Good News!

Whoop whoop!!! We moved up another spot...we are now #23 on the sibling list!