The Waiting Game

This post is an effort to answer questions many of you have had about where we are in the adoption process!
We are currently in the "paper-chasing" phase of our adoption. This is where they collect more information about you than you ever knew about yourself and then notarize it! (yes, please notarize how much I weigh - be sure to get that documented!) We've collected financial papers, medical forms, recommendations, employment verifications, insurance verifications, pictures of our family and house, and the list goes on. We've met with a social worker 4 times and she is in the process of writing an oh-so-interesting home study which includes all the details of our lives! We are anxiously waiting for her to complete this step since we can't go any further without it. (Is there a polite way to say, "Hurry up, you're holding up the show!".........I didn't think so)

Once our home study is complete (next week...?!), we will make necessary corrections and finalize it to send off to USCIS (immigration) and we will wait again (wait is a popular word when describing adoption!) for them to send us our I171-H form which states we can in fact adopt an orphan and bring them home! Please pray for this to be processed quickly - we recently heard of a family who waited 3 months!

This will be the last thing we need before we can send our dossier (all of our papers, home study, etc.) to Ethiopia. - THEN we will officially begin the wait! From that time our agency estimates that we will wait 7-9 months for the referral of an infant of either sex. Once we accept our referral, we will travel 8-12 weeks after that.

Whew - it's quite a process....makes me tired just typing about it.