Biometrics DONE

We had our appointment today at 2pm. Now we wait for the golden ticket. To celebrate, we went to a nearby Ethiopian restaurant to get our first taste of Ethiopian food. All I can say is nom, nom, nom! Loved it.

My heart aches.....

Today, innocent children were taken away from their parents, never to return.  I cannot fathom the thought of ever losing a child.  And I can't even begin to imagine what the parents in Connecticut are going through right now.  Today was a very sad day across the U.S., as we watched the senseless tragedy unfold.  My heart aches for the families that lost a loved one today, for the children who's lives will forever be changed as a result of this incident and for the community that has been shaken.  My prayers are with them.  Hug your children a little tighter tonight, tell them that you love them and remember not to sweat the small stuff.  You never know when we will have to say goodbye. 

Biometrics Appointment!

I am a little late in posting this, but we received our notification for our biometrics appointment on 12/8 and we are scheduled to be fingerprinted on 12/27!!! It seems that it happened so fast. Definitely much faster than we anticipated. What a wonderful early Christmas present!
xoxo

USCIS Acceptance Confirmation

Wooohooo!!!  We received the following email today at 5:08 pm.  Great way to start the week.  :-)

Dear Applicant/Petitioner:

Your USCIS application/petition has been received and routed to the National Benefit Center for processing. Within 7 - 10 days by standard mail you will receive your official Receipt Notice (Form I-797) with your Receipt Number XXXXXXXXXXXX.

They just received our application on 11/28/12, so we weren't expecting to receive notification this quick.  Hopefully they will be quick with the fingerprinting appointment as well. 

XOXO

Mailing off I-600a

Our home study was completed last week, but due to the Thanksgiving holiday we were not able to pick it up until today.  But we are excited to be sending the I-600a application off and we hope that we receive USCIS approval soon!  Prayerfully, we are hoping to have our fingerprints completed and have the approval by Christmas. Wouldn't that just be an awesome Christmas gift?  :-)

We are one step closer...

Wordless Wednesday!

Home Study #2

We have completed home study #2.  I am not sure why people typically get nervous for the home study, but we were not nervous at all.  Amber arrived at our home, she walked through each room of our house and then we sat down and answered questions.  Here are some of the questions that were asked:

How do we argue?
How we discipline our children?
How we plan to discipline the child that we will be adopting?
What do we do for date night?
What do we think our own individual strengths and weaknesses are?
How would we describe our kids?
Do we attend church?
How would we preserve the adopted child's culture?


Honestly, we felt very comfortable the whole time and were not at all nervous.  We answered the questions honestly and truthfully, as everyone should.  It was like talking to an old friend about things that we had gone through in life and in our relationships.  No biggie.  :-)

Couple of suggestions, make sure you have the following:

fire extinguisher
carbon monoxide detector a maximum of 15 feet from the bedrooms.
an exit plan in case of a fire
fire ladder (if you have a two - three story home)

Some of these things may not be required for your home study visit, but they were required for ours.  Fortunately, we had everything already in place except for a ladder.

I hope this information helps :-)

Home Study #1

Yesterday we had our first home study visit with our social worker Amber.  It went very well and she made sure that we were comfortable.  She asked questions about our childhood, our most memorable moments, our parents, how we met, how we parent and etc.  It was a little difficult to summarize our lives in an hour and a half, but we managed to do it.  LOL.  We have out second visit scheduled for next Monday, and if all goes well, this will be our final visit and she will start preparing the report.  Things are moving along...

Have a Wonderful Wednesday....xoxo

Happy Friday!!!

Happy Friday everyone.  We received the 10 hour online coursework yesterday from our social worker and we started on it last night.  Our plan is to have it completed by Saturday.  She also recommended that we start reading a book, The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis.  We haven't started reading that yet, but we plan on starting once we complete the online adoptive parent coursework.  The course that we are taking online is through Heart of the Matters Seminar and thus far, it has been very informative.  

Well, that is all for now.  I hope that everyone has a happy Friday and a GREAT weekend.  :-) 

XOXO

I saw this as I was browsing for images to personalize my debit card, and I fell in love with it.  

This pic says it all!  :-) 

First Home Study visit SCHEDULED!!

As you can imagine, I am SUPER excited that we finally have our first official home study meeting scheduled with our social worker Amber on 10/9.  Woohoo!!  Our second visit is scheduled a week after that!  Things are moving right along!  Just think....in two weeks, we could possibly be done with our home study appointments, just waiting for the final write up!   :-)  

Waiting...

Well, we are waiting for our home study appointment, so no real updates yet.  We are having our documents authenticated at the Secretary of State today, so that will be the last thing to do for our dossier (outside of the home study).  We are supposed to receive a call this week to schedule our first home study appointment, so hopefully that call will call soon!  Until then, I hope everyone is having a great week! 

65% off Delta!!!!!

I decided to call Delta Airlines to find out if they offered any discounts for those that have to travel for an international adoption. Well.....they do!! 65% off!! This is definitely a HUGE savings considering we will have to travel to Ethiopia at least twice. With this discount, it will allow us to make an additional trip or two so that we can start bonding with the child (once the child has been identified). Delta is also my preferred airline, so I will be able to rack up a lot of miles with them during this time. Thanks Delta!!

Fingerprinting Friday!

Happy Friday!  Dion and I were able to get our fingerprints completed today!  All we have left is our physical and we will be 100% complete with our home study packet!  So what happens after that?  Glad you asked....We will be assigned a social worker and she will schedule our first official in home, home study.  She will meet with us for a few hours during the initial visit to learn more about us and our family.  This is must be done before we can receive a referral for a child.  The home study can sometimes take up to 3 months to complete, but we are believing God that ours will happen much faster!

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!


XOXO

First home study appointment!

Who knew that there would be a lot more paperwork to fill out?  We certainly didn't, LOL.  We just had our first home study visit and we now have to fill out about 50 more forms as well as have our fingerprints taken.  This appointment wasn't technically our actual home study appointment.  It was to meet with the agency that will be completing our home study.  We are both schedule to be fingerprinted on Friday.  Once we complete that task and the paperwork, we will then be scheduled for our first home study visit.  We can hardly wait!  Each and every form we complete, brings us one step closer to bringing home our son or daughter so it is well worth all of the paperwork.  ;-)

Another day....another step!

We have completed just about 75% of all of our initial paperwork!  Tomorrow we have our appointment for our home study, and we are excited to start that phase of our journey.  Radu with Adoption Avenues has been extremely helpful with answering our questions and providing us with additional information.  We are glad that we made the decision to go with him.  We are looking forward to working with him.  

How much does it cost?

This is a question that comes up almost immediately after I tell someone that we are adopting.  Adoption is expenses, and it will vary from country to country.  Ethiopia is not as expensive as other countries, such as China.  There are different agencies that charge different fees, although you are adopting from the same country.  Thankfully, my sister Adrienne had already done thorough research about the adoption process over the last few years in preparation for her adoption process.  She was able to provide me with a lot of information as well as a contact for an agency that has a lot of connections and contacts in Ethiopia.  His fees were also cheaper than every other agency that I had considered!  He is well respected by all of the families that have used his service.

So how much does adoption cost?  Here is the breakdown.

Agency Fee-$4450
Home Study Fee-$2700
Home Study Post Placement Fee-$800
Foreign Processing Fee-$9000
US Immigrant Visa for Child-$380
Notary & Document Authentication-$200

Total-$17,530 (does not include travel accommodations to Ethiopia. Two trips required)

As you can see, adoption is expensive, but there are programs that offer grants if you qualify.  Although it is expensive, the ability and opportunity to give a child a better life is priceless! 

Every journey starts with a single step...

What was once a topic of conversation has now transpired into an action, the first step in our journey.  Adoption had been a topic of discussion that my husband and I would casually discuss, but never really made any commitments or decisions until 9/11/12.  It was on this day that we would make the decision to adopt a child from Ethiopia.  The purpose of this blog is to journal our experience, provide insight to those considering adoption and to hopefully raise awareness for the need of adoptive parents.