On it's way!

Our dossier is finally on it's way! We recieved our immigration approval on Friday, February 16. This completed our dossier checklist of documents to send to Ethiopia. We got it all sent out to Washington DC to be translated and certified the next day. It was an AMAZING feeling, like a weight had been lifted from our shoulders. We are done with paperwork! (at least for now) There is nothing in limbo, not waiting for paperwork to be returned, or signed, or notarized. It just feels good.

Now the real waiting begins. We are hoping that the paperwork will be sent to Ethiopia in the next week or two which will put us on the waiting list. It looks like we will be number 20 on the list. However, not everyone on the list is waiting for the same age or gender of a child. Fromm the way I counted it, there are 7 families ahead of us who have similar preferences. So once they have accepted a referral, we would be next in line for an infant boy.:)

I have been watching youtube videos of "meetcha days" and different adoption stories....I cannot wait to watch ours unfold! I am so excited to hear that phone ring with the news that we have a referral....that our boy is waiting for us like we are waiting for him. I read a poem last night that brought tears to me eyes:

Kisses in the Wind:

I hold you in my heart and touch you in my dreams.
You are here each day with me, at least that's how it seems.

I know you wonder where we are... what's taking us so long.
But remember child, I love you so and God will keep you
strong.

Now go outside and feel the breeze and let it touch your
skin...
Because tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the
wind.

May God hold you in His hand until I can be with you.
I promise you, my darling, I'm doing all that I can do.

Very soon, you'll have a family for real, not just pretend.
But for tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the
wind.

May God wrap you in His arms and hold you very tight.
And let the angels bring the kisses that I send to you each
night

It's getting so real now. I just want to see his face and hold him in my arms. Hopefully in a few months, we will have a little face put in a picture frame until we can actually meet him.

So close I can taste it!

After we resent our immigration request, we received a letter about a week later with our finger printing appointment on it. It was all set for January 3, which is today. Buuut, we went early and although they were not thrilled about it, they took us anyway on December 16. I have been hearing that we should get an approval sometime around mid-January, as this has been the trend over the past few months. Once we hear back from immigration, we will need to get our dossier state sealed. Then we will be ready to send all of our paperwork in! From what I understand, we first need to send it to the Assistant Stork, who then brings the dossier to the Embassy of Ethiopia in Washington D.C. to get authenticated. They will send it back to our agency within about 10 days. Then AAI will be sending it directly to Ethiopia!! (assuming all of our fees are paid) It is at that point that we will finally be a "waiting" family!! We are so excited to be on the wait list! This is when the "real" waiting starts...which is funny considering we feel like we have been waiting since we first decided to adopt and turned in our preliminary application in March of 2011. Once we are officially moved to the wait list, it can be any day that we will recieve a phone call from our case worker that they have a baby for us!!!! We have an estimated wait period of 0-4 months. So it could be any time! We are so ready to hear some good news and be able to share it with our family and friends! Stay tuned!!!!!!

Oops

We sent our immigration packet off almost 4 weeks ago, with the knowledge that it would take around 8 weeks to get the approval back. We planned to use that 8 weeks to complete the rest of the paperwork for our dossier. Well....apparently they expect you to sign all the dotted lines....which we failed to do. OOPS! So we just got our packet back in the mail to sign. Now we have to resubmit it and wait another 8 weeks for approval! AHHHH!

After the emotional roller coaster of the past few weeks...I probably should have cried over this mistake. However, at this point, all I can do it laugh. I am tired of worrying and crying. I am ready to laugh, ride the ride, and enjoy the journey. This may set us back a few weeks...but that just means that our baby isn't going to be ready for an extra few weeks. Soooo, we will sign the portion we missed, resend it, and wait.

The good news is, everything else is almost completed! We are just waiting on Andrew's work to correct a letter they wrote as a referral. They have all theses policies about releasing info and have been a little difficult. But, it will all work out!!!!

I keep reminding myself that we will only get the baby we are suppose to get. I may make mistakes along the way, but God never does. He will provide us with the only child for us at the end of all of this. That makes me smile.

Beautifully Different

We are SO close to being done with our dossier, the paperwork for Ethiopia. Once it is completed, they will send it to Washington DC, and then off to Ethiopia! We will then OFFICIALLY be a "waiting familiy." It's so funny because I feel like all have been doing since March is "waiting," on things. But, this kind of waiting seems different. It's more like waiting at the end of an airport terminal. You know your person is coming soon. You will see them soon. You will watch them walk out of that terminal. You just don't know where in line the person is. All the previous waiting seemed so endless. There wasn't a light at the end of the tunnel. At least not one that was in sight. We knew there would be eventually, but now I feel like we can see it!!

I was talking to a good friend the other day who has also had biological children and chose adoption. We were laughing at some of the "waiting" similarities. I remember being pregnant for Maya and becoming so emotional about anything to do with children, babies, and even animals! All those sad commercials on t.v. would pull at my heart strings like they never had before. I blamed it on my raging hormones.:) I also, like most pregnant women, went through a nesting stage. I wanted everything ready and clean for Maya's arrival. I needed everything packed and in order. Planning was SO fun! And if you know me at all, you know I made endless amounts of LISTS! Every day we get closer to a referral and a child to hold, I feel some of these things starting again, and I have to admit, it's a good feeling. There are so many things that I was worried I would miss by not carrying my own child in my belly. (we carry our child in our heart instead.) But I have begun to be emotional about things again. I cannot hear a sad story or watch ANY of those horible infomercials on t.v. about abused pets or hungry children without sobbing. I am also feeling very protective of Maya, almost like I can feel that things are about to change for her and I am worried about how she will react. I want to protect her from any uncertainty. I can also feel that our time as we know it together is going to change as well. It will never be just the 3 of us again. On top of that, I feel nesting setting in. I have had this urge to cook and clean, and prepare again. Lists are everywhere!;) It's just funny to me how although my body is not necessarily preparing, my mind and heart have taken over to prepare me for another child.

I have begun to understand little by little that although this process is different, it is no less amazing and wonderous. Just because something is different than you are accustomed to, doesn't make it any less beautiful. Different is not always bad, just different. And different is beautiful too.

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Changes...

With change always comes uncertainty. We are in the process of making some big changes with our adoption journey. We are in the process of switching agencies...and we are feeling a little overwhelmed right now. We do not have anything bad to say about our previous agency and we are nothing but greatful to them for getting us to this point in our journey. However, we feel we are being lead in another direction. It's best described as one of those "God things."

A friend of mine, who has also adopted from Ethiopia, received an email from her agency asking for families who were desiring to adopt infant Ethiopian boys. They have a number of young children waiting, and no families to refer them to. Knowing that where we stood currently at our agency, we had an 8-14 month wait before we should expect a referral, she was very tentative to tell us about this. She didn't want to confuse us or add pressure. However, thankfully, she listened to her heart and felt God was telling her to pass the information along to us and let us decide what to do with it. I was immediately intrigued due to our long wait period. I want nothing more than to hold my baby boy in my arms...and if you dangle that possiblity in front of me...I am going take the bait. So we began looking into this other agency. There were some road blocks, as always, but overall, it seemed like the best decision for us at this time was to switch. Instead of an 8-14 month wait for a referral, we are being told we could have a referral in as little as 2-4 months!!

I have always been a believer that God has a plan for me. I have always felt that things happen for a reason. However, I have not, until recently in my life, actually known what this meant. Over the past couple of years, I have begun to understand. When I look at the timeline of my life and consider all of it's events, I am overwhelmed by gratefulness. I am so grateful that God knows my heart. He has placed people in my life at just the right moments and he has blessed me so much. I will never understand why everything happens, and I don't really want to. There is a sense of calm and peace in the knowledge that it is out of my hands. Some things in life just aren't up to me, and I love that. I have the peace of mind of knowing that things will turn out the way God intends them to, when he intends them to. No matter what decisions I make along the way, I will end up where I am supose to be. This is something that feeds my faith and my soul and keeps me going, even during the hardest of times.

So I am putting my faith in Him, again...as I will continue to do over and over again. I have faith that God blessed us with this information about waiting children for a reason. One of these children could be ours!!!!!

Maya Drew

All of my posts up till now have been all about our adoption journey...but I just have to add some about my little nut, Maya. I know we will be waiting for a long time for news about our son...and there won't be much to blog about. So this is dedicated to my Maya...and I'm sure there will be more to come.

I just simply can't believe how old she is getting...I know aging in inevitable...but it just happens so fast when they're little. Maya will be 21 months at the end of July. She just went potty on the toilet for the first time this week, which blew my mind! I had been letting her sit on it for about a month and a half, because she asked to, not because I wanted to start potty training her already. I thought, what they heck, it's a good idea just to get her acquainted and comfortable with the potty. Little did I know that she would start using it at 20 months! I guess I shouldn't have been surprised since she has been a little go getter since she was born. She NEVER wants to be left behind with anything. She walked early, talked early, got teeth early. HAHA, not that she had any control over the last one. She is just constantly trying new things, being a monkey, mimicking everyone, and being goofy. She makes me laugh about 6, 000 times a day. You would think I would have better abs by now.

I wish there was a way to document all of her life so I can always remember every little detail. I want to remember how she sticks her tongue out to the side of her mouth when she is really concentrating on something, how she says, "Mmmmmmmuah!" whenever she gives kisses, how she hops EVERYWHERE she goes instead of simply walking, how she is finally saying, "Yuv you." I want to remember how she uses her spoon so diligently to scoop the marshmallows out of her lucky charms and is very careful not to get the actual cereal on the spoon, and how she loves macaroni and cheese, and loves hot dogs, but if you mix them, she won't eat it, and how she asks for a "manana" (banana) about 15 times a day, and would actually eat 15 bananas if we let her, and how she gives everyone in the room a hug and a kiss goodnight before bed, even if she doesn't really know them. I even want to remember how she likes to do things she shouldn't, just to see my reaction. For instance, climbing onto the coffee table and jumping off of it onto the couch, or walking over to a very unsuspecting boxer just to rudely awaken her with a swift kick. Or when she gets onto the kitchen table and just as I see her, she grabs the closest cup of water from one of the childcare kids and dumps it all over the place. And how when I ask to change her diaper, she starts running away laughing as if she wants me to chase her down....which I always end up having to do.

I love that she is getting to be so full of her own personality. She is so goofy and fun, and so loving! She loves hanging out with "the big girls" during our smut nights where we watch The Bachelor, American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance, or any other trashy show that the Lindseys and I can't get enough of. She thinks she is just one of the girls...and she is. She loves to dance, and sing too! She has liked music since she was a baby. I wonder if she will be more musically inclined than her dad and I. Neither of us cansomuch as read music. I can play Mary Had a Little lamb on the piano!

She is also sooo athletic! She LOVES going to gymnastics with her friend Karissa, and can run, kick a ball, and climb onto just about anything she can reach. She hangs and swings from the kitchen table. She can swim like a fish, as of last week. I know she doesn't probably remember the pool from last summer. She liked the pool the first time we got in it this summer, but was leary of letting go of mom or dad. She didn't want anyone else to hold her in the water either. But after a few times of being in it, she is now swimming on her own with just swimmies on! She will jump to me off the side of the pool, and will swim in off the steps all by herself. She's actually really good! She is using just her legs to get around now, but I'm working on getting her to doggie paddle with her arms as well. Maybe by the end of summer;)

I never knew the pride I would feel as a parent. You always think of the love, and responsibility you have....but don't think about the pride you feel. I am SO proud of my daughter. She is an amazing child and I feel so blessed God chose us to be her parents. I'm so glad we have Maya to keep us so busy and to focus on while we're on this adoption journey. I really want to focus on our time with her...she won't be an only child ever again...I want to enjoy this time with her. I think it will help the adoption wait not feel as much like waiting. Time will just pass naturally as the timeline of our life. Nobody really has complete control over when they will add to their family. It's all in God's hands, whether adopting, or trying to get pregnant.