No New News...

Hello Again,

Well, just wanted to give an update...which isn't much.  Our dossier has been in Ethiopia for three weeks as of yesterday.  No real news.  We will have a phone training/conference call with our agency the 2nd week of December to go over referral and travel information - so we are prepared when the time comes. 

We are both keeping busy with work and school.  We will both complete graduate degrees mid-December, so we have plenty to do and keep our minds occupied while in this stage of "waiting."  There are lots of unknowns in international adoption, but if our particular case ends up falling into the "typical" category for our agency...we may receive our referrals in the next 3-5 months (since we have nearly 1 month down already). We could get referrals much earlier than that time frame...or later, but that's at least a rough idea of what we are expecting.

I guess that's it for now.  I should really get to my final project for my M.A., which is on coaching others through procrastination.  Hmmmm... as I sit here writing this post, procrastinating from finishing up my research ON procrastination.  Guess I picked a good topic...something that resonates with me! 

Anyhow, I hope everyone is doing well.  Have a great Thanksgiving if I don't get back on here and write anything further before then!

Oh yeah, almost forgot... I think I fixed the comments thing on this blog.  It wasn't working for a while, I apparently messed it up a while back when I changed to this new background and was fiddling with all the settings.  It should work now.   :-)

Sean

Our Dossier is in Ethiopia!!

Yay! Our dossier arrived in Ethiopia today and was signed for at 7:59am by Tilahun!!


Jaime

We are awaiting our Referrals!!!

Sean and I are VERY excited to announce that we are now awaiting our referrals! We just got an email from our agency on Friday, 10/23, and they informed us that they just mailed our completed dossier to Ethiopia! They gave us the DHL tracking number so that we can track our dossier's trip and rest assured once it arrives at its final destination. We are so very thrilled to tell you that we are currently waiting to see who God blesses us with to increase our family. In case we haven't already mentioned, we are "requesting" a baby boy, age 0-18 months and a second child, age 0-3 1/2 years. Yes, you heard right! We are doubling our family! Sean may have already mentioned that, but it bears repeating. We will soon be welcoming two children into our family, and we could not be more excited. There is plenty to do to get ready, but we are counting down until we make the long and much-anticipated journey to eastern Africa! Thank you for your continued support and prayers! We are very grateful, and we will continue to keep you posted!!


Jaime

Dossier Delivered!

Today we received a confirmation (via e-mail) from FedEx that our dossier has been delivered to our adoption agency! So, now we wait to see if we turned in everything and did it correctly...... Will keep y'all updated once we actually know something!

Have a good weekend everyone! We will be resting and trying to get over this cold/flu...or whatever it is we have had for about a week.

Sean

Moving Right Along...

Happy Tuesday Everyone! Well, I suppose it'd be a lot happier (for most) if it were a Friday...but, whatever - just have a good stinkin' night and get on to reading the rest of the post already! ;-)

Just wanted to let anyone that is following this blog know that we received our last two documents (with State Authentication) in the mail today! This means, that as of this evening, our dossier is complete!  WooHoo!!

I spent a good portion of the evening psychotically pouring over the dossier requirements and our documents to make sure that everything was in order. I've checked, re-checked, verified, and then confirmed that everything is ready to go to the adoption agency. Yeah, I know - I'm anal... not really a newsflash for most of ya. I will be taking the completed dossier in to the local FedEx tomorrow during lunch. Yay! Hopefully, it will arrive to them safely (and quickly) and as they audit our file they will find everything done correctly. I really don't like do-overs. Having to do something (you've already put quite a bit of effort into) over is lame...like making more than one trip with your grocery bags from the car!! How USELESS is that? Just suck it up, put 20 bags on each arm, walk fast, and get it over with!! The 2 minutes of pain is worth it...and the little marks on your arms/wrists where the bag dug into you and cut off your circulation will quickly go away! I'm just saying...

Anyhow, if everything goes as planned, our dossier will arrive at our agency on Friday morning. This is good news... the paperchase is coming to a close!

Now, before we received these last few documents in the mail we had to have my aunt come over and notarize the last bit of documents (this time last week). Thanks aunt Glee for being a notary public and being willing to travel all over creation to get a zillion documents taken care of -- a blessing indeed! Anyways...we took some pictures of us signing our last bit of paperwork.

Here is one of them:

That's it for now! Have a good one....

Sean

Hallelujah!!!

Another quick update!!

Jaime and I got back from the fair last night and got the mail on the way in. To our surprise we had received something from the Department of Homeland Security. It was the I171H approval!! We were not anticipating receiving that for another couple of weeks or so... So, we are thrilled that it came only 9 business days after I filed our home study report at the Los Angeles USCIS office.

Anyhow, now I have to scramble up some paperwork real quick and have it notarized and send in some documents to Sacramento. By the end of next week we should be sending our dossier off to our agency in Oregon....

That's it for now... oh yeah, yes - we did have fun at the L.A. County Fair! Just looked at the exhibit halls and did some shopping. We don't care about the games, rides, concerts, food and all that - so we were just there a few hours which was plenty!

Sean

Paperwork turned in to USCIS

Hello All,

Just wanted to give a quick update. First of all, for those of you that don't already know, Jaime and I have changed our request to two children. Besides a boy 0-18months old we will also be adopting a child 0-4yrs of age (we are not specifying gender... so, we will see what God has in mind!!). We are excited that in the coming months we will be doubling our family!! Okay, a little nervous too... it will be an adjustment for sure, but we will figure it out as we go. That's pretty typical with parenting anyhow... right? Yeah, no need to respond.... I know I'm right, and humble too - apparently! J/K.

Anyhow, as for an update on where we are in the process: as of tomorrow (Friday Sept 25th) it will have been 2 weeks since we drove our home study report in to the immigration office in Los Angeles and turned it in. The approval they give (called an I171H, which clears us to bring two children into the U.S.) should arrive in a couple weeks or so. This document is the last item we need to complete our dossier. So, as soon as it gets in I will be sending (a copy of) it to be state certified. Once that gets back we will send the whole packet to our adoption agency. After they review it and have a couple documents certified in Washington DC.... .THEN our dossier will be sent to Ethiopia. We are hoping that our dossier (reminder: a dossier is just a fancy name for "exhaustive mound of paperwork.") will arrive in Ethiopia by the end of October. At that point we will be officially "waiting" for the referral of our children.

That's it for now! Hope all is well with everyone! Have a great weekend and behave yourselves...

Sean