June 28, 2011 WE DID IT!

Wow! It has been a while since I have written.  The waiting is so hard sometimes that I have to put reminders of how long we have to go out of my mind.  We definitely made some huge strides this week!  On May 31st we did our biometric fingerprinting for USCIS.  Then waited until Monday June 27th.  We got our approval letter in the mail.  MTM and I tried to figure out how we would accomplish our next step.  We needed to get a stamp of approval from each notary's county court house.  Little did we know, we had to go to 5 different county court houses yesterday (Hamilton, Clermont, Butler, Warren, and Madison).  We ended our day by taking all of those approvals to Columbus, the Secretary of State of Ohio's office, to get the final seals of approval.  I had six maps with directions, stacks of papers telling me what papers needed to get approved at each court house and a very calm and eager husband to get me through the day.   I can't imagine if I had tried to go it alone.  We started out the day at 9:30 am with just the two of us.  We went to the first 2 court houses and then went home to get our 2 youngest.  They had to endure the rest of the journey with us which included a high stress mom and lots of speeding down the highway.  Our challenge was to get all of this done in one day so that we could get all of our paperwork to our agency before the holiday.  The Ethiopian Courts close from the beginning of August to October, so nothing official can happen during that time.  We are trying to race against that clock.  We made it to Columbus by 4:25 and the office closes at 5pm.  They graciously began collecting all of our papers and checked and stamped them all with no complaints.  We left the building at 5:07 pm.  Whooh!  I reflected on the drive home about all of the nice people we encountered throughout our day and knew that we must have had a guiding hand to make it through all of those hoops!
Today I will make a copy of our Dossier (official name of the stack of official papers) and overnight it to Children's Hope International.  We will be notified in the next few weeks when we are officially on the waiting list for our 3-4 year old girl.  The next phase of waiting begins!  If this process isn't a test of a person's patience, I don't know what is!

Until next time,
DMM

USCIS Appointment Scheduled!

We recieved our appointment letter today!  We are scheduled to have our biometrics taken(fingerprints and pictures) downtown on May 31st.  Another step in the right direction.

 I will keep you posted on what happens after that day.

Thanks for checkin' in!

DMM

Tuesday April 19, 2011

I thought I might go back a few months to explain how we got to this point.  I am sure many of you think, "Why would a family of six want to add another child to their family?"  As a matter of fact, we had to ask ourselves that very question.  It began with a series of events beginning in January of 2010.  We attended our first Kids Against Hunger (www.achildshopeint.org) packing session where we were all blown away by the message about not only hunger around the world, but orphans around the world.  I quickly related the orphan issue to my Grandma (Nan) who in her last weeks of life had so many visitors that I had never known.  Each of them telling the story of how they knew her and many talking about how they had lived with her at some point in their life.  I was so touched by how she had opened up her home to so many people when they had no place to go.  I thought about adoption for weeks, trying to imagine what each member of my family might think (esp. My husband).  I talked to my Mom.  I knew she would understand, because she had once considered adoption when we were kids.  She was very supportive and said if it is meant to be that it will happen.  My husband and I talked and prayed about it for 9 months.  We had discussions with the boys about how they felt and asked them to pray about it too.  Before we made the decision we waited patiently until each of us was on board.  Then came the big questions, girl or boy, how old, from where?  Each of these questions we thought carefully about before making a final decision.

You know the rest of the story!
DMM

Thursday April 14, 2011

Another hurdle to check off the list!
Today we mailed off our U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services petition to classify an orphan as an immediate relative.  This petition, if granted, will allow our daughter to enter the U.S. with us on our way home.  Also, when this petition is granted we will be put on the list for a referral of an Ethiopian child.  This means that we will be sent information about a child that lives in a local orphanage that matches with our family.  If we accept the referral then we travel to Ethiopia to go to court to ask for permission to adopt the child.  Wow!  It really feels like we are getting somewhere today!

DMM    

One For One Movement - A Pair Of New Shoes Is Given To A Child In Need With Every Pair Purchased - TOMS.com

One For One Movement - A Pair Of New Shoes Is Given To A Child In Need With Every Pair Purchased - TOMS.com

Sunday April 10, 2011

We got the official word that our home study has been approved by CHI and we are ready to launch the next step.  YEAH!!!  We also got the official word on Thursday that The Ministry of Women's Affairs in Ethiopia will be reducing the number of adoption files looked at per day to 5.  That is a reduction from around 30-50 in the past.  The point behind this reduction is to ensure that MOWA has exhausted every possibility to ensure that the children do not have any parent or relative that can care for them in Ethiopia.  No one is really sure what this will mean exactly except that things will certainly slow down.  We are just relieved that they didn't completely shut down.  Many countries have gone through similar things and then closed their doors completely.
- That's the latest!

      DMM


"I am only one; but still I am one.  I cannot do everything, but still I can so something; and just because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do."-Edward Everett Hale

Tuesday April 5, 2011

The process of adoption is the most exciting, scary, and tedious adventure I think our family has ever taken...
 The youngest of our kids think everyday is the day their sister will finally be coming.  I feel the older ones think it will never happen.  We have talked about it for so long that it just seems like a topic of conversation, not something that will REALLY happen at some point in time.
We are well into the process but the time line is so unpredictable.  Right now we are waiting for our immigration application to be approved.  After that we will be able to be put on the waiting list.  We had been looking at a little girl that was on the "waiting child" list, but our paperwork wasn't ready and another family adopted her.  I was happy to see her find a family, but sad that it wasn't us. 
Our girl is still out there looking for us and we are here trying to get through this process so that we can find her!  Your prayers for her and all the orphans around the world would be most appreciated!