What do we have left?

Several of you have asked about the status of our adoption. Earlier in the process we received an email from our case manager and so I thought I would share it with you. I have modified it a little bit because we have completed some parts and are waiting on others. I hope that this clears up any questions that you might have.

• We sent a set of our home study documents to CIS, for our I600A. We will receive the response from CIS (most often identified as the I-171H form) after both our fingerprints and our home study have been completed and submitted to CIS. We need the I-171H in order to travel to Ethiopia. It is our approval from the US stating that we can adopt.

• Our dossier was sent to Ethiopia on June 4, 2008. It takes 1-2 weeks to arrive to Addis. When it arrives, it will need to be translated from English to Amharic.

• We are added to the waiting list for a referral upon shipment of your dossier to Ethiopia. At this time your case will also transfer over to the case managers who work with referral, court, and travel processes with all families.

Now, the waiting begins…Habakkuk 2:3 “For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay.”

• Our child will have to be re-adopted in our local/state court after arriving home. It is state specific and the process varies widely by state. Our child will not be a U.S. citizen until the re-adoption process is completed.

The Referral process and timeframe to adoption - Please note, these timeframes are estimates only, and vary by individual case.

• On average, we will wait approximately 2-3 months for a referral. Depending upon the number of families already on the waiting list, the specific gender those families are requesting, and the number of children in the orphanages who need a family, our wait could be less or more than 2-3 months. Typically, more families are requesting a girl referral, so the waiting time for a girl will probably be longer.

• When we receive our referral, the child will be living in an orphanage. We will usually receive photographs, and a report of medical conditions. We will take this info to a pediatrician for an evaluation and consultation.

• If we accept the referral, the child will then be moved out of the orphanage to a care facility in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. This is a CWA care facility. Before the child can be moved to the care facility, we must have received our CIS approval.

• When the child arrives to the care facility in Addis, he/she will be taken to a medical clinic for a complete physical exam. This process can take up to two weeks, depending on our child’s age. The results of the medical exam and tests will be given to us, along with new pictures of the child. If necessary, we will share this info with your pediatrician again for additional consultation.

• If the medical results are acceptable our staff will then submit our case to the court to request a hearing date for our adoption. Typically the court dates are scheduled 3-5 weeks out.

• Sometimes the scheduled court date is postponed due to missing paperwork, or the inability to get a birth relative into the city to attend the court hearing. Hearings are rescheduled for as soon as possible.

• After our adoption has been approved in the Ethiopia court, we will travel approximately 3-6 weeks later to get our child.

We have been busy this past week. The main activity has been staining our pool and deck. This needed to be done last year and we finally got to it this year! It looks so nice. We also opened our pool. I give Chris the majority of the credit. I started staining while he hooked everything up.

My grandpa came over and helped us do some maintenance on lawn mower. Boy, are we thankful for the timing! I guess that we were close to burning up the engine because we hadn’t added any oil to it for a long time.

Our cousins, Greg and Cari, had a baby girl on Friday morning at 12:17a.m. Elliot Rose (Elli) is adorable and we are happy for them! We actually had the opportunity to see Elli this evening. She is adorable. She is so tiny. We are used to our nephews who weighed 8-9 pounds. Elli only weighed 6.

Please continue to pray for our adoption process. We have been so blessed by each of you and we continue to see God opening doors for us.