Building our little family

Welcoming, warm, and helpful people!

I've chatted with so many warm, helpful, and wonderful people on the CHSFS forum lately! I've only been on the forum now for about a week or so and it's a great way to connect with people going through the same things. I am so excited for everyone who has gotten referrals and are planning their trips to Addis Ababa! Yeah!!

BUBBLES and BALLOONS- I want to buy some boxes of bubbles and balloons and send them to kids in the orphanage. I'm going to look into that! I don't want to wait to give these to the kids until when I travel. I want the kids to have them now.

We are moving along in our adoption process! We have completed our home study, applied to CHSFS, had our dossier accepted by the Ethiopian government in May of 09, and have now been waiting for close to 9 months, so, we're a few steps closer to our beautiful little Ethiopian toddler! We are waiting for a boy or a girl up to 42 months old.

We've been buying children's books to start a great library for our little one. So far in our collection we have Babar books, Curious George, Madeline, Make Way for Ducklings, and other books that were our favorites growing up.

The Ethiopian adoption blogs that I've been reading are so wonderful and make me look forward even more to adopting a child from Ethiopia. The people I've contacted about their experiences have all been so warm, helpful, and informative, which has made me so much more comfortable with the adoption process, which otherwise would be a bit overwhelming. I'm so looking forward to attending a gathering of other adoptive parents and their gorgeous children after we've adopted our own little one.

Timeline-

-Fall 2008- We met with our adoption caseworker about international adoption.
-January 2098- We started our very informative international adoption classes.
-February 2008- Decided to proceed with the adoption process! Yeah!
-March 2009- We completed our home study, applied to CHSFS, and started our dossier process. We hope things all go smoothly and as quickly as possible!
-April 2009- We found out that our home study was accepted by Ethiopia. Yeah!! :)
-May 2009- Submitted our dossier to CHSFS
-May 20 2009 Our dossier was accepted by Ethiopia yeah! and we were placed on the waiting list for a referral. We were told that we will have a 14-18 months wait for a referral.

July 29, 2009 Waiting is harder than I thought it would be, but I know that our little baby will be worth the wait. I know that part of the reason the wait is longer now is because there are more orphanages working in Ethiopia now. If it means that more kids are placed in loving homes, then I'm willing to wait. I just hope that too many agencies don't make the wait so long that adopting from Ethiopia turns into adopting from China, with a 3-4 year wait for families.

***June 16, 2010- We received a REFERRAL for an adorable 3 year old boy named Degnet! Yeah! :) After all this waiting we were actually surprised by our referral. We were really not expecting one at least 18 months of waiting.

-Now we have to see if we will be traveling before or after the court closure....

- My mom will be traveling to Ethiopia with me for the first trip for court and my husband Bill will be going with me for the second trip to meet and bring home little Degnet!

- I have now been buying Deggy cute clothes and toys at second hand shops and at outlets. He already has over a drawer full of clothes and some very adorable outfits. He will be one little sharp dressed man!

July 12, 2010- We went to Baltimore to have our Homeland Security fingerprints retaken and then spent 4 hours at the fun and beautiful inner harbor.

July 14, 2010- I just went to a travel clinic to get my immunizations needed to travel to Ethiopia. I am now ready to travel the world!

Great Adoption Books I've read that I highly recommend:

-Adoption Journeys
-Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother
-There Is No Me Without You

This is Great Site for Ethiopian Tours:

http://www.getts.com.et/addis_ababa.htm

There's Ethiopian music for free on this site. I listened to some and it's great!

http://www.addislive.com/