Finally!

I know I promised an update on our family blog...Sorry I took so long!

The first good news is that we finished our homestudy 2 weeks ago and faxed it to the agency for approval. The only correction they made was to change our requested age from under 9 months to under twelve months. They didn't want to refer a child to us who is 7 months old, and then have it take 3 months to bring him/her home, because then we wouldn't be approved if our homestudy said we are only approved up to 9 months. She said she'd make sure to note that we want a younger baby, so it's not really changing anything. Our social worker then sent our homestudy on its way!

Our second good news is that our dossier is finally complete! WAHOO! What a load off that is! For those of you who don't know, the dossier is basically a big packet of about 25 notarized documents that are sent to the Ethiopian government which allow us to obtain guardianship of a child. It sent us on a veritable paper chase, getting documents from all over the place. We've been fingerprinted 3 times each, been to the notary 3 times, and driven everywhere from downtown Phoenix to Florence. It is such a relief to be done with it! And now? ...we wait.

First, our dossier and homestudy will be sent to Washington DC to be authenticated by the Dept. of State, and then by the Ethiopian Embassy. Once that is done, everything will be sent to Ethiopia. I believe that once it is sent to Ethiopia we will be put on the referral waiting list. Our dossier is translated, submitted, and(hopefully) approved by the Ministry of Women's Affairs(MOWA). After we receive and accept a referral, and have been approved by MOWA, our dossier is submitted to court. This is sometimes a bit tricky as a paper might be missing or a living relative needs to be tracked down. It isn't uncommon for families to not pass court the first time. Once we pass, our child/children is/are legally ours! We just have to wait to be assigned a travel date and we can go there and bring our baby home!

Many people have asked when we expect to actually do that(bring our baby home). The answer isn't that simple. It all depends on how long it takes to be matched with a child(typically 2-8 months), how long it takes for all of the courts to do what they need to do, whether or not we are approved the first time around, if the child is healthy enough for travel...blah blah blah. We are hoping for a baby sometime in the spring, if not early summer. I'm really not sitting on pins and needles here because I know it is out of my control, and when it happens, it happens!

So, to sum up my good news - My work(for now) is complete and it is just time for us to put this in the Lord's hands and hope for the best. It's nice to have the responsibility off my shoulders. At this point in the process, I'm not super anxious, because I expect it to be a while for us to get our referral. Once we see a picture of our baby...then I can assure you I will be more than anxious. I will be giddy with anxiety! The bad news is that I probably won't have much of anything exciting to post for a while...hopefully I'll be posting soon!