Forms and Fingerprints

On Wednesday I came home around noon, so Michael and I would be able to make it downtown in time for our 1:00 fingerprinting appointment. Much to my surprise, their was an envelope in our mailbox from the Secretary of State. They had sent us back the forms that we needed to be certified... which meant that we now had in our possession all of the documents required for the dossier. Kudos to Madison for their fast work... I sent these forms Friday evening and got them back the following Wednesday!

Michael met me at home and posed for a photo op, before we traveled downtown to the Department of Homeland Security. Glad we left with plenty of time to spare... since my map & directions weren't overly helpful. Also, thankful to have our friend Peter, who's a government employee home on "paternity leave," to lead us there via phone.

So now our fingerprints are in some national database... and we await another form that tells us we are who we think we are. I believe this form will also allow us to ultimately get a visa for bringing our child into the United States.

After our trip to the Department of Homeland Security, I spent the next 3 hours getting all of our documents (letters of recommendation, medical exams, tax forms, bank letters, background checks, etc...) notarized, triple copied, checks written and everything (AKA the "dossier") sent to Children's Home Society and Family Services. Now we await their review of our dossier to tell us if it looks complete or needs any tweaking. This will mean lots of obsessive email checking on my part - for news of their review!

Book about Ethiopia and Adoptions

Michele and I have just finished a book called "There is No Me Without You" by Melissa Fay Greene. It is about a women in Ethiopia who starts an orphanage, for children whose parents died of AIDS. It can be a depressing but uplifting and inspirational book that educates you about the hard life in Ethiopia, and the struggles that they continue to have. The book is extremely recent, so there are a lot of great details of what is currently happening. It also covers international adoptions and why they are so popular in Ethiopia.

If you have any interest in learning more about this country or adoptions, we strongly recommend this book.

Below is a link to the book on Amazon to get a better idea of what the book is about.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product//1596911166/ref=cm_rv_thx_view/105-0488467-4548414

Our Adoption Plan

It feels like we have known for a long time that our family will soon have a new addition... following a long paperwork trail and plane flight. But it has only been since September.

We were led onto this path following several events-

1. Michael and I became eager to parent a child


2. We learned and decided that the traditional method of having children was not an option available to us


3. We opened our hearts to adoption and were excited by all the different possibilities that lay before us


4. After many conversations, much research and meeting with 3 different adoption agencies we determined that we would adopt internationally


5. Our hearts and minds led us to seek out adopting a baby from Ethiopia

And now almost 5 months after sending in our application to our adoption agency, here we are. Perhaps in 5 more months we will have name and picture of our little one.

Some Milestones

Hooray! We have officially been accepted into the Ethiopian Program at Children's Home Society and Family Services!!! Also, we have a date, January 24th, for getting our fingerprints at the Department of Homeland Security. This means our dossier (approximately 30 pieces of paperwork needed to show we would be able to provide for a child) is almost complete! By my prediction our dossier could feasibly be done by next week... which means that we now have a 4 to 6 month wait until we receive a referral (information regarding our child) and then travel 2 to 3 months after that. Very good news!!! It is hard not to put an exclamation point at the end of every sentence :)