We've been accepted....

We've officially been accepted into the Ethiopia Program as of this afternoon!!!!!

Our next step is to wait for the Program Coordinator to contact us to discuss what to expect from here. I will anxiously wait to hear from her. I'm not sure if it will be by email, phone or mail, but I am on the edge of my seat either way. I will share more details as I know them.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support.

If anyone is out there actually reading this blog, please leave a comment. I feel like I'm writing into space and no one is listening.

Another Blog

Our sweet friend Bethany, who has also adopted from Ethiopia and is in the process of bringing home her precious baby daughter soon, recently posted about us on her own blog. Check it out!

http://bethany-withthesehands.blogspot.com/

They are an amazing couple and have encouraged us in our own adoption journey. They have answered tons of questions for us already and are so willing and eager to support us however they can.

Getting Closer

So our homestudy write up was sent to our agency by our social worker today! The agency has confirmed they have received it, but it's in the review status right now. I'm hoping this will only take a couple days and that there aren't any revisions to be made before being approved. Each country is pretty specific with what kinds of information is required to be included. Fortunately it seemed like our social worker was comfortable with the Ethiopia requirements, which is good.

We did find out today that our agency still hasn't received the official copy of Sean's Child Abuse Clearance form. No fear though, as they have confirmation he is cleared... in case any of you were concerned! They just need it in writing. It's strange that they received mine within a couple days of submitting (back in early March), but haven't received Sean's -considering they were submitted at the same time. The agency said this isn't common, but it's not the first time they've seen them come through separately. I'm hoping this doesn't delay us getting on "the list" this week. I have an email in to find out.

I hope to be posting again later this week with GOOD NEWS of being accepted into the Ethiopia Program. So please stand by.

Dossier? ....Check

We received our documents back from the WA Secretary of State on Saturday, which completed our Dossier. I dropped it in the mail yesterday which means our portion of all our initial paperwork is complete! It is SUCH a good feeling! We're still waiting for our Social Worker to complete our HomeStudy write-up, but no time frame on this yet.

Thank YOU

Today we received our last reference letter! We are so grateful to all of those who have been willing to either complete a questionaire regarding Sean and I as individuals, as a married couple and as parents and also to those who so graciously wrote reference letters on our behalf. We are so blessed to have friends and family who were willing to take their time to put into words some thoughts they have about us and our family and our ability to be parents. We know how difficult these letters and questionaires can be to write, and we want you to know how much we appreciate each of you who wrote on our behalf. So thank YOU!

After we picked up our last reference letter, we headed down to the Secretary of State to have our documents which were notarized in Oregon verified. Basically this means we pay the state to have someone look up each notaries' information to confirm they are indeed a notary. Then they slap an official looking gold stamp on the front and call it good. It seems to be quite a racket for the state!

Now we're waiting for our documents which we had to send to the WA Secretary of State (for the same thing) to be returned. I called today and it sounds like we should have them within a week -or less.

Almost there

We have submitted our final documents to complete our portion of our homestudy. We are just waiting for our social worker to complete our write up, which I am HOPING will be done by the end of this week. Once it's done, it will take about a week to get our home study approved by our agency.

We are waiting for one more reference letter, which we anticipate receiving this week. Then we will take most of our Dossier documents to the Oregon State Secretary of State to receive the OR state seal of verification. We'll do this in person, so should get it done the same day.

In the meantime we have mailed off the rest of our Dossier documents to the Washington State Secretary of State to receive the WA state seal of verification. I'm not sure how long it takes them to process and return these to us -since we couldn't do it in person, but we're hoping not long.

Once we get the documents back from the WA State Secretary of State, we should be able to assemble our entire Dossier and send it to our agency, who will then send it to Ethiopia on our behalf. At that point, if I understand correctly, I think we will be added to "THE List".

Being on "THE LIST" means that we'll be waiting to be matched with our precious daughter who is waiting for us in Ethiopia. So, we're almost there.