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!

waiting and waiting

We're all done with our home study and just waiting for our agent to send it to us..... it's been maybe 2 weeks now... I don't want to bug her too much, though... ugh! It's hard to wait! We're not even officially waiting yet! We have a lot of our dossier docs ready to go... COME ON! ugh....

this round of paperwork is DONE

As of today, 09-04-08, we are done with this whole round of paperwork. Yesterday, we went to Milwaukee to get fingerprinted for the orphan visa. Tomorrow, I will send off the last bit of paperwork for this stage and then we will wait for our home study to be approved, then we will wait to hear from CHSFS as to what the next step is (sending the dossier to Ethiopia, I think). So, maybe within this month, we will be PAPER PREGNANT....

Our Final Home Study visit was 08-21-08.

This time, our adoption agent came to our house! Needless to say, we made sure everything was clean and that all our smoke detectors were working and that all the outlets had safety plugs in them, etc… Our house was really already baby-proofed, but we just had to make sure! I remember our agent telling us that she likes unflavored, black coffee and unsweetened iced tea, so I made my favorite coffee (Organic, fair trade Lovebuzz) and I made fresh brewed iced tea and Steve went to the store and bought herbed cherve, some other kind of fancy cheese, and fancy crackers and iced ginger cookies. It might have been a little over the top, but we wanted to be good hosts.

Julie came over and we gave her a tour of the house. She made us feel very comfortable and she complimented us on how we decorated and the colors we chose for our walls. Then wee sat down and got to business.

We talked about the essay questions we had to answer for CHSFS regarding our cultural backgrounds and traditions we practice and how we will incorporate our new daughter’s culture into our lives.

We discussed how to deal with racism that our whole family will face. Steve thought we should take the “turn the other cheek” approach. I disagreed with this. Honestly, I think we will teach our children to deal with mean or ignorant comments by coming up with a calm, smart comment to say back to them, which points out the offender’s ignorance. I don’t know if this is the right approach or not. Julie reassured us that we will learn together how to deal with issues like this. We have zero experience dealing with racist comments now because we have never had to face them. We will grow and learn together as a family.

All we have left to do for this round of paperwork are our autobiographies, statement of net worth and medical exams.

Our Third Home Study visit was 08-06-2008.

During this home study session, we discussed some of the more official paperwork that we need to complete, especially the application for an orphan visa, the I600A. Our adoption agent had us fill out a sample form so that we would not get it returned to us for being completed incorrectly. We also went over other paperwork we need to complete for the home study, including the statement of net worth and the autobiographies.

I know we talked about other important things, but I just can’t remember what those things were! That’s what happens when I put off updating my blog for a month!

On another note, we had a big birthday party for our daughter Maia on Saturday! She is 2 years old. The party was a lot of fun for everyone.