Miss Maia

I haven't posted a picture of Maia lately, so here she is!

short line!

OK, so of the 6 families that are part of the Oct 21 waiting group, 2 of the families have referrals already! wow, that was FAST! The other 4 families (which include us) are waiting for infant girls. Another family who is AFTER us said that they are #6 in line for an infant girl, which means that we are either #1, #2, #3, #4, or #5! ummm... I am very excited. Maybe we will have a referral by Thanksgiving...... maybe even sooner. I am sooooo happy we switched to BFAS! Of course, I still have a fear that something will go terribly wrong, like after the referral, the court will deny us for some reason, but I have lots of HOPE and excitement! yaaaaaayyyyy!!!!

OFFICIALLY WAITING!!

We (and 6 other families) received an email tonight saying:

Hello everyone!

Your dossiers have been authenticated in St Paul and left our office today for Washington DC for processing. Once received by our office in Addis we will let you know. It should be about 1 week.

We are very happy for all of you. You are all officially awaiting your referrals!!!

Sincerely,

Angela Wagner

Program Administrator

Better Future Adoption Services, Inc.

Yaaaay!! They are estimating that we will be waiting 6 weeks until we receive a referral, and we may travel within 3 months of that, possibly longer. We're sooo happy!

DOSSIER APPROVED!

So, BFAS received our dossier on Wednesday and by yesterday at 5, they approved it (that was fast!). So, now it will get certified, then authenticated in DC and then it will be on its merry way to Ethiopia! THEN we should be officially waiting. YAAAY!
My friend Meg found a great blog about what happens once you reach the top of the wait list, written by a woman who is near the top of the list at her agency:
http://www.kevindhendricks.com/abby/2008/10/16/10/

Our Dossier is off to see the Wizard!

We're DONE with our dossier! I sent it overnight USPS this morning and it will arrive at BFAS before noon tomorrow. Then, they will review it and let us know if there is something else we need, or if they are approving it. If it is approved, they will send it to Ethiopia and then we just sit back and wait for a referral!

Parting is such sweet... its just sweet...

OK, so... we're switching international agencies. The agency we were with (CHSFS) projects that there will be 12 month wait from dossier submission to referral (and then travel within 3 months after that). CHSFS is a very popular agency. I have no complaints about them so far, except that we don't want to wait that long for our baby! SO, I've been reading forums and I came across one where the family waited only 4 months from dossier to TRAVEL.... they are called BFAS (Better Futures Adoption Services). So, I read everything I could about them online, called them, compared notes and discussed the decision at great lengths with Steve and my friend Meg (who is also adopting from ET) and we decided (and Meg did, too) to switch agencies! BFAS has a 4 to 6 month wait from dossier to travel. WOW. They are a much smaller agency. They have a care center called Kinkunt (sp) and it sounds like the children taken care of really well. For some reason, they have access to all of Ethiopia to receive orphaned/abandoned children, whereas CHSFS only has access to a small portion of southern Ethiopia. We will only lost our app fee to CHSFS by doing this. So, we're doing it.
We applied last week to BFAS and we were approved yesterday. Now, we are getting all the pieces of our dossier together and we expect to send that out next week.
We might have a baby by summer or sooner! YAAAAAAYYYYY!