AWAA Ohio family gathering

Yesterday we were invited to join all the other Ohio America World families adopting from Ethiopia. We were delighted to meet the Richardsons, the Lows, the Harbaughs, the Mozombites and the Gomez family. We met up at a park in Columbus and then made our way to the Blue Nile for an Ethiopian feast together. It was nice to put faces to the names of all the people we've met through our Yahoo group and their blogs and to be surrounded by people who "get it". Most of these families are much farther along in the process (and one family is already home with their kids) so it will be exciting to follow along with them as they bring their sons home. All of us are awaiting referrals for sons! We laughed at the idea of how busy our get together will be next year with 4 more baby boys running around. We can't wait for that to be true.

Matt Low, Jose Gomez, David Mozombite, Cale, Roscoe Richardson and Seth Harbaugh at the Blue Nile
Jackie Gomez, me, Haven (!), Kristy Low, Amy Mozombite, Julie Richardson and Apryl Harbaugh

Thanks to Kristy and Julia for organizing. We look forward to gathering with these families again soon!

Another Z on the way!

We are DTE today! Basically that means that our dossier is on its way to Ethiopia. We have officially been added to the list! We are so thankful that this day has finally come and are praising God for His perfect timing. We have hoped for almost a year that we could be at this point in the process by the end of August. We just made it!

So from this point on we will be referring to ourselves as being "paper-pregnant". We're about 9 months away welcoming another beautiful baby into our family (5-7 months wait for referral and then 8-10 weeks to pass court and then travel). We are so excited!

We're off to celebrate. Let the wait begin!

Out of our hands

And it's off! Our dossier is on an overnight trip to our agency's office as we speak. I went this morning and made 3 copies of everything and then we crammed it all into a flat rate Express Mail envelope. Honestly, it's not as much paperwork as I thought it would be, but I am still impressed with our stack.

Three sets of everything!

Haven wanted to carry it down to the post office (we walk to ours), but then decided it was too heavy for her.
Not our best family portrait, what with the sick Cale, the glaring glasses and the goofy girl, but it's a historic day in the history of our family and we wanted to remember it. (Sadly, this is the best picture we could get after several tries!)

And just like that, it's out of our hands. It's certainly been in the Lord's hands all along, but physically letting go of all that we've been working towards for the last 5 months is a huge moment. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that all these pieces of paper some how will add up to us adding another child to our family. I'm not quite there yet, but I've got a 5-7 month wait ahead of me to figure it out.

-kate-

We got it!

The mail this morning contained an especially happy piece of mail: the I-171H that we've been waiting on for exactly 4 weeks! We were so excited, and actually surprised by it's presence, that we decided to just drive up to Columbus today to get the necessary certification. Thankfully we made a few calls before going and knew exactly what we needed to have before we got there or we would have been in some trouble. So a few stops near home for a notarization, a county certification and we were off. It was really a quick and easy process once we got there and we couldn't be happier.

Tomorrow I will go make 3 copies of every document we have and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon all our paperwork will be in an overnight envelope on it's way to America World's offices.

We are officially done paperchasing! Praise the Lord!

-kate-

Ethiopia at the 2008 Summer Games

We watched the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics the other night (on 8/8/08) and saw the atheletes from Ethopia march in. They have 22 competitors this year, all but one of which are distance runners (the other is a flyweight boxer). We're excited for the distance running events to start in a few days. We'll be cheering them on!

Still waiting on the I-171. Hopefully it will show up soon!

-- cale

Goodbye July

I am having a hard time believing tomorrow is August 1. August has loomed in my mind as being very far away. For the last 6 months, before we even officially started the adoption process, August was our check point. August was going to be the month that everything was done and we began our official wait. August was THE month.

And here we are...ready to begin this new month and to finalize our paperchase. As of today we are just waiting for our I-171 from USCIS and then we can get everything certified, authenticated and on its way. On one hand I am thrilled that Cale and I have gotten our end of the deal finished with time to spare. On the other hand it's frustrating to be waiting on other people so we can move ahead. The Lord has been gracious to me and kept it far from my mind for the most part. There's nothing I can do to make it go faster so there is no need to stress and worry about it. I am certain in the Lord's perfect timing and have no doubt that His sovereignty covers the day that final piece of paper gets put in the mail to us. We will be ready and waiting...

In other news, we got an update from America World today that they met their goal of 10 referrals for July. While that in and of itself is fantastic news, what's even better is that the wait times are getting shorter for boys! Right now the estimated wait times are 5-7 months for an infant boy and 7-9 for an infant girl. If these time frames remain the same then it looks like we just might be adding a baby boy to our little family! Who knows but the Lord!

Track it

Who knew tracking numbers could be so exciting?! We got an email last night that our home study was on its way to USCIS! The first of many tracked packages...yippee!

-kate-