Timeline

Lots of people have been asking me about the timeline for our adoption. Considering the number of kiddos needing a home it has been shocking to people to hear how long it takes. Don't worry, I was shocked at first too! But here is where we stand and here is what we have left to do before becoming a family of 3!

DONE:
Locating an agency we feel comfortable with- check
Initial paperwork filled out and notarized- check
Initial phone interview with agency- check
Initial acceptance into the Ethiopia program- check
Location of an out of state home study agency (our agency is based in Alabama so we were on our own here)- check
Initial paperwork filled out an notarized for home study agency- check
Social worker matched with us- check
Location of all marriage licenses, birth certificates, passports, income tax returns, and photos of our home- check
Three letters of recommendation sent to home study agency and three letters sent to us for dossier paperwork- check
First home study visit- check

In process:

*Gathering financial statements from both of our jobs
*Guardianship forms if we were to die in Ethiopia (kind of made me laugh imagining betho with our little cutie)
*Gathering good standing letters from our bank( this has been a chore! I actually lost it a teeny bit with a bank of America rep and told her I was disappointed that such a large agency was not supportive of helping orphaned children find homes. Dealing with the bank has been the single most difficult thing yet as far as paperwork goes! And it's not bc our credit is bad or we have debt or something. They have just been SO hard to deal with!)
*i600 application (form allowing us to travel to become the legal guardians of an orphan- it takes 5-12 weeks to process)

Still to do:

*letters proving health coverage
*letters proving life insurance
*new passport photos
*bank letter notarized ( this may literally take an act of God)
*lots of finished paperwork notarized (no biggie)
*final homestudy visit
*8 hours of education
*2 hour Internet seminar
*2 books to read
*have dossier finalized and home study finalized and notarized and sent to agency head quarters and to Washington DC
*send in completed i600a and wait for approval and fingerprinting appointment
*physicals

SO once this is all completed, and our goal is Dec 10th, we will send it all in and wait for approval. This should take around 6 weeks. Once we are approved we will get fingerprinted and this will take around 4 weeks to be approved.

THEN we are officially waiting for a referral!!!!! This takes around 3-6 months. Once we get our referral( which is a pic of our baby and any history they have) we say yes or no. Of course we will say YES. Once we say yes, we wait for a court date in Ethiopia. The wait for a court date is around 2 months right now. We will then go to Ethiopia and meet our baby and deal with some legal stuff.

We will then very very very very very sadly be sent home and await another court date to return to Ethiopia and appear in court one more time and pick up our baby and finally bring her home!! They wait between court dates right now is 8-12 weeks.

Many have asked me how old our baby will be. We are hoping for an infant and feel pretty confident that we will be referred a young baby. However, as you can see there are several months tied up in legal stuff so some time will pass between the time we see our babies first picture and actually have her home I Sugar Land. Likely 5 months or so. We are guessing she will be closer to 8-9 months old when we get her home.

So in a nutshell (ha!), we are about about 2 months from being on the waiting list and then we will be about 9 months from baby Agan being home. We hope we will have her in less than 12 months, however I think that 12 "ish" months is a realistic estimate. But what's a year in the big scheme of things right!?

Happy week everyone!! It's almost time for Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for?? I know what we are thankful for around here!!

Thankful #4

Family vacations!! I have amazing parents (will definitely post about that soon) and they have always taken us on amazing vacations!! A couple years age they took us on an amazing Christmas vacy to Costa Rica! I was reminded of this trip a couple days ago. Betho sent me an email that said, "Thought you might need a good laugh!" I laughed hard!! The picture of us laughing after I was "saved" makes me smile! I just LOVE all of those people!

Look at my sweet mom trying to save me! And look at my sweet husband.....ummm.....not exactly noticing! Betho said she was ducking down because she didn't want to watch me die. Sure! Thanks mom for taking one for the team! :)

I am thankful that we have been lucky enough to go on vacations and see other parts of the world!

Happy Weekend!

Thankful #3

Thankful that I now have an excuse to buy an American Girl doll for a daughter!!! I had years and years of fun with my American girl doll, Molly! Now our daughter will have her very own American girl doll too!! All these dolls have a story and a history making up all the different kinds of girls that have lived in America. I want to write the American Girl people and suggest that they invent an adopted American Girl! A little girl, born in Ethiopia, that came all the way across the world to live in America and meet her new family. Sounds good right!? I think in this day in age an internationally adopted, Ethiopian/American girl doll would be quite appropriate! I'll let you know if they take my idea. I'm sure they will. :)

"Cecile"

"Addy"

"Molly"

Thankful #2

I thought I would write one thing I am thankful for everyday until Thanksgiving. I guess my friend post yesterday can count as #1. So here is #2. MY SISTER. I just love her. I feel so bad for those that don't get to experience life with a twin. I could post for days about my best friend. Even though we live in different cities, we have still managed to be in each others daily lives thanks to facetime! She still spends most nights hanging out with me on the couch....at least for a few minutes!! Love you nuggie!! Thankful for you!! Miss you everyday!! Hippie dress up day!

Now we both got BLING!

Mother/Daughter Cruise

"Fish Are Friends Not Food" and "Do You Want Fried With That!?"

Costa Rica

Being weird and staging a hippie wedding. We posted these on face book and people actually facebook messaged me telling Betho "Congrats on her beautiful wedding!"

Leaving me in Lubbock for grad school. Such a sad day!!

First pic with Betho as "Mommy!!"

Christmas Photo Shoot 2010

Gender Reveal. Max or Juliette!?

"Bling" party!

Quick photo at a friends wedding

Mexico 2010!!

Lubbock visit!

Posing at the mall :)

Friend's dress rehearsal

Summer fun!

Friends

We have some amazing friends, and have realized this now more than ever!! I mean seriously generous friends!! We prayed that God would put people in our lives that would help support us mentally, financially and just with time and company when we needed a mental break from all the adoption stuff. God has POURED out his love and support for us through friends! We literally have checks rolling in night after night, people calling, texting, and praying for us daily!! This is largely because of our friends, but really because God put it on these friends hearts to support us in lots of ways!! We feel SO loved and SO blessed to have friends like we have!! So, all of you amazing friends out there, We love you and are SOOOOOO thankful for the support you guys have given us already! I also MUST mention that we now have enough money towards the adoption to cover everything on the U.S. end. We still have a long way to go, but are 100% covered as far as fees go up until we get our referral for our baby. This means we have lots of months to get the rest of the funding. Our friends are awesome. God is awesome. He is providing for us in abundance!! This picture is special to me. I drove to Del Rio a couple of months ago for a wedding with these wonderful friends. This was the first weekend that I told everyone about the adoption and these two girls were SO supportive! Michelle (on the right) shares my heart for adoption. She just gets it. It was such a great 6 hour drive. Talking about plans for our families, babies, lives and everything else!

Suburbia

Only have time for a quick post and I can't upload pics from my iPad so they will have to come to tomorrow. But we are officially in our house. I L.O.V.E the suburbs!! I know people that know me well are probably shocked to hear these words come out of my mouth, but it's true!! I love getting up and saying good morning to the neighbors, I love having a yard, I love love love the space and I love being so close to church. A neighbor actually came over today with 3 handmade oven mitts, cookies and fudge to welcome us to the hood! So yea, I was meant for suburbia! Our house is looking good and all of our stuff is up! We definitely have some blank walls and empty rooms, but it's ok! It is so exciting to know that this is the house where we will start our family! These are the tubs that will wash little chunky arms and legs, this is the kitchen where I will make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my kids and this is the living room where we will read stories and watch movies!! I can't wait to see the memories that unfold in this house!!!

On a different note, this little slice of suburban heaven has given me a serious little commute in the morning. So I must go to bed. House pics coming tomorrow!

Happy week ahead!!

Fall happenings!

Halloween this year was fun! I haven't really done the whole dressing up thing for a while, but this year we had a couple of good excuses! One of our friends had a Halloween themed 30th b-day and then the next weekend some friends had a little dress up party too. We found this Bee Keeper costume for Lance and thought it was hilarious! However, it took some work to find a bee costume that covered my, well lets be honest, booty. The costumes now are insanely teensie!! I was in shock. Most things that I tried on were so hoochie mama that I couldn't even leave the dressing room to show Lance! But we found one eventually!

Me and my little nun sister!
The bee keeper, bee, nun and munk. A very eclectic group! :)

And best of all, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Max!! Oh I just love that little spider!





On Saturday, we headed out first thing in the morning to be at a 10am shower in Dallas. One of our sweet friends is having a baby girl and we definitely didn't wanna miss out on celebrating little baby Jayde Marie Miller! Don't have pics of that b/c camera cord is in a box somewhere! It was SO fun, and SO fun to have a girls day with my sis and see some of my best friends! I wish Dallas was closer sometimes!



On another totally different note, November is adoption month! It's crazy how engaging the adoption world is, and I already feel like the whole idea of adoption is just a part of me! Our church doesn't do Orphan Sunday stuff, but we will be going to First Baptist in Houston Sunday evening to an Orphan Sunday event. I think my parents are going to come with us too! I can't wait to meet other adoptive families in the Houston area!



Without going into too much detail, I have to give God some serious glory for somethings that have been happening around here! We had our first little adoption hump to overcome and we prayed prayed prayed and God came in and blessed us with MORE than we could have imagined. I was moved to tears by the love, and generosity of our church family and friends this week! It was just a great reminder that God is in control and listens and responds to our prayers!





This week as I was struggling with trusting that God would provide I prayed, "Ok God, here is my mustard seed. I wish I had more than a mustard seed to bring to you right now but I don't. So please take this tiny seed and move a mountain" and guess what!? He did! Duh. When will I learn!



If I have said this one time I will say it 1,000 times. But I just can't believe how blessed I am that God has chosen me to watch over this little baby and be her mommy. I have had several friends express their "sadness" for me over not having biological children yet. I think this is a normal reaction. And I would be lying if I didn't admit that somedays I think "will it ever happen to me?" I know adoption is a bit weird and hard to understand, and I don't expect people to. The only way I can think to describe it is that when God plants a desire in your heart, it fills it up. My heart is full of love for this baby. God has literally "turned my mourning into dancing and my sorrow into joy".




Biological blonde babies or curly head little brown cuties are all fine by me!!



Remember the 147 million little souls this month. Pray for them daily. If I am learning anything in this process, I am learning that God listens to the prayers of his children! :)





Happy Weekend! We are moving TOMORROW!!! The next time I post I will officially be a suburbanite!

Keep Calm & Carry On

Last night as Lance and I were going to sleep on our couch (both sneezing & coughing and drugged up on allergy meds), wedged between piles of adoption paper work, half packed boxes, dismantled bed frames, mattresses leaning against the walls, and the contents of all of our kitchen cabinets piled as far as you can see, he prayed, "Dear God, please help us to keep calm and carry on with our lives as best possible". I had to chuckle at the sheer chaos of our lives right now! That picture came to mind and I think we just may need to buy it and hang it above the mantle in our new house! Everything we have going on is such a blessing. We are crazy busy with our jobs. Blessing! Crazy busy with moving into our house. Blessing! Crazy busy with our adoption. SUPER DUPER AMAZING BLESSING! But, these blessings are also making us tired! Bring it on God, this phase of our lives will definitely bring glory to you if this A.D.D girl is still standing at the end of 2012, baby in arms, still employed and with a house that actually has furniture and pictures hanging on the walls!