One Step Closer

As most of you know, international adoption requires an inordinate amount of paperwork gathering, paperwork authenticating and unfortunately for some, paperwork updating.

When we started this process back in, oh, the last decade (ok, 20 months ago) the average wait times were estimated to be only 3 - 5 months so I didn't think we would have to cross this bridge of expiring documents. As it turns out, most of it hasn't been all that bad, but the timing has been somewhat nerve wracking. You can't update things in advance like I would have preferred so it's all going on now and I have had a few sleepless nights worrying that things won't happen in time, which would delay our ability to get these boys home.

Our recent challenge has been getting our CIS fingerprints updated. I sent in the request for our fingerprinting appointments as soon as we were allowed to, back in early November. Eleven days later we received our appointment date and all seemed to go smoothly when we showed up for our appointment on December 16th . But then we waited...and waited...our original fingerprints expired and still we waited. It only took two weeks for them to process our prints last year, and that timeframe included the Thanksgiving holiday, so when we hadn't heard anything after six weeks I started to get worried.

I tried emailing them...

Nothing.

I tried emailing them again with "URGENT PLEA FOR ASSISTANCE" in the subject line and an explanation that we had received our referral, were expected to travel to Addis soon, and that this delay could impact our ability to bring these children home...

Still nothing.

I got our case worker in on the act and she emailed them, and a week later emailed them again...

Still nothing!

On Thursday, Kristin (our case worker) and I emailed back and forth about it. I asked if she thought it would help if I physically showed up at their offices in Hartford. She said it might. I asked if she knew the address. She sent me the address and I replied to say that I would drive up there the next day. I hit send and low and behold, while we had been emailing back and forth, CIS had emailed Kristin to say that our prints had just been processed!

PHEW! And what crazy timing but mostly just phew! It will still take about a month for them to make their way to Addis Ababa so this really happened just in time.

The moral of the story? Don't be afraid to get your stalk on!

In spite of all this, I have been surprisingly at peace with this stage of the wait. I know it is the hardest part for most people, but we waited so long for our referral and those last two months were full of so much uncertainty, that this feels like a walk in the park. Something about seeing the boys' faces has made us feel like everything is going to be ok. And we have been overwhelmingly blessed with pictures and videos from traveling families, so we know that they are doing alright and are being well cared for.

Monday marks the completion of seven weeks waiting for our court date. The boys have gotten cuter and we have fallen more in love with every passing day. I have been trying hard not to think too much about our court date. Trying hard not to do what I did when waiting for our referral and get my hopes up too early. Trying really hard.

But I do hope it's soon...I do hope so, I do...

Jumping for Joy!

It's done! Our home study is finally done! Wahoo wooooe!!! Yippieeeeeeee....e'hem.

Apparently our adoption agency requested a lot of changes to the original draft, which our social worker made fairly quickly, probably because I turned into a giant stalker! Then our agency had to review those changes, which took another week. Anyway, it's DONE! Our social worker mailed it off to USCIS yesterday afternoon and now we are waiting for immigration approval, which will come by way of US mail anywhere from 2 weeks to 3+ months from now. Once that's done we will take the form they send us, have it notarized and then off it will go on it's authentication journey (see "happy anniversary" posting on October 10th if you want to know what that means). So, we are one giant step closer and on the final leg of the all this paperwork madness. Apart from waiting for the USCIS approval form the only other thing we are waiting for is official approval from our adoption agency, which should come any day now that they have our home study.

What have we been doing to pass the time, you ask? How is the nursery coming along, you wonder? Well, we sort of stalled out on the nursery project, mostly because we still haven't figured out what to do with the box spring and mattress that we no longer need and have no place to store. Maybe if it stops raining this weekend I will drag it out to the street and pin a "free" sign on it! In the meantime, I am teaching myself to knit. And if you know me with a project, once I start there is just no stopping me so the nursery will have to wait for a bit longer. Here is my first project, a scarf of course...

I know, it might be a little small, even for a baby. I got kind of bored with the one stitch, one color thing so I switched to a baby hat....


And then another hat! I think it needs a blue pom-pom...

I am into the hats and can get one done in 2 or 3 evenings, but I think I need to branch out and figure out how to do a sweater or something, otherwise these kids will have 100 hats waiting for them by the time they finally get here! LOL!

Maybe I'll make something for Mark, since he's such a great husband and has been asking for one and keeps trying to wear the baby hats!


“Patience and fortitude conquer all things” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Green Light Go!

Well, the draft of our Home Study report finally arrived on Thursday afternoon! We made some changes and sent it back Friday morning before work and now it is in the hands of our adoption agency for their review and feedback. I have been told this takes about a week. I am not holding my breath. After that the report goes off to CIS and we wait for our approval form. Then we have this last document notarized and off it goes through the authentication chain! Getting closer...but still a long way to go. Waiting is something we had better just get used to!

Lot's to do today so this post is going to have to be short and sweet. Off to Lowes to get some tools to strip the guest room of that old wall paper. Anyone need a barely used double mattress and box spring? Sorry, dear friends, it's back to the couch when you come to visit from now on!

Happy Anniversary...

...to us! We celebrated our 3rd anniversary this past Thursday. It was a beautiful sunny 75 degree day...nothing at all like the blustery, rainy, cold weekend we got married! We were so happy that day I think the only time I really noticed the cold was when we were having this picture taken! We celebrated on Thursday by having a romantic dinner at a terrific tapas restaurant down the street from our house. Apparently the restaurant has been in business for 19 years, but we only just discovered it! We will definitely be returning. It was the best food and service that we have had since moving to CT!

You probably aren't reading this to hear about our dining experiences, so the adoption update is that all the documents we gathered for our dossier have been sent out for authentication. Huh? OK, let's take a step back. The first step in creating a "dossier", aka the set of official documents that will eventually be submitted to the Ethiopian government as proof that we are fit to parent, involves collecting medical reports, financial statements, letters of reference, FBI clearance, proof of insurance, proof of employment, color copies of our passports, a written statement explaining why we want to adopt from Ethiopia, birth certificates, marriage certificate, and a few other things. Each and every one of these documents must be authenticated, and the authentication chain looks like this:

1. Person writing the letter signs the document

2. Notary Public authenticates signature and date

3. County clerk of court authenticates notary's seal (some states skip this step)

4. Secretary of State authenticates county clerk or notary's seal

5. U.S. State Department authenticates the state's seal

6. Embassy of the foreign government authenticates the U.S. State Department's seal

7. Finally, after being mailed all over the place and stamped within an inch of its life, the document is ready for the dossier!

8. When all the required documents have been authenticated, the completed dossier goes off to Ethiopia

Phew! I am tired just thinking about it! I know this all might sound crazy, and it does at times feel like we are puppets on the string of a sadistic governmental puppeteer, but authenticating documents from another country is standard practice for all sorts of business dealings between countries and if you think about it from the perspective of the foreign government it makes sense. The foreign country sets up requirements that they think will "prove" that prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) are mentally, physically and legally up to the task (and believe me, Ethiopia's requirements are easier than some). Then, since they obviously can't just take our word for it, they need proof of the authenticity of the documents. In this day of high quality technology you can imagine how one might be able to trump up official looking documents that a foreign official might not be able to detect...and how do they know that the signatures are legitimate and not just the signature of someone's brother-in-law with a fancy stamp from Staples? You see where I'm going with this....

So, our documents have begun their world tour, and since we had documents originating in NY, CT, NH, ME, MI, CA, NJ, MA and probably a few other states that I am forgetting at the moment, the pages of our dossier are currently off visiting State Houses around the country. The Secretary of State will not notarize documents that aren't absolutely to-the-letter perfect, so for those of you who had to create these documents for us, this is why you received that long list of weird and detailed guidelines! It is also why the notary's commission needed to be good for two years. As soon as the notary's commission expires, so does our document, and we would have to go through the whole crazy authentication process all over again. As you can imagine, this could bring an adoption to a grinding halt! We have had one small hiccup so far...one notary's name could not be deciphered but we think it has been quickly resolved with another letter. Fingers crossed that the rest go through without a hitch!

FBI Approved

All our paperwork is done and we reached some key milestones over the past couple weeks. First of all, we had our finger prints taken for the FBI and then a few days later for CIS (immigration). We weren't sure what to expect but we anticipated something akin to the DMV with long lines and slow turn around times. I am pleased to report that the experience was the complete opposite and the whole thing was quick and easy. We sent our prints to the FBI and received our clearance letters back a mere 7 days later! Shocking!

The big thing that we are waiting for is the completion of our Home Study report. Mark and I have done all the things that we needed to do, which included ten hours of adoptive parent training, meeting with our social worker as a couple and individually, as well as an inspection of our home. I am pleased to say that we passed all of these things with flying colors...I even got a big hug at the end of my last appointment!...and the whole thing was pretty painless in spite of some pretty personal questions that we had to answer. Our social worker was wonderful and always made us feel like she was an advocate for us. Now the ball is in her court to write up the report, submit a draft to Gladney for their approval and feedback, and then send us five notarized reports (one for CIS, two for Gladney, one for our dossier and one for our records). Really nothing else can happen until this report is done so we are hoping and praying that she is able to get it done soon! She estimated three weeks from our last appointment so that would mean October 16th...stay tuned!

After the home study is done, CIS approval and Gladney approval will be the next big milestones. I don't think the Gladney part will be too hard and we have already submitted everything else that they need from us. CIS approval will just be a matter of waiting and I really can't figure out how long a wait it will be. Looking at other blogs has only shown me that the time frame varies widely from as fast as two weeks to as long as 3 months! It is my hope and best guestimate that we will get through these last steps by the end of December and officially enter the wait list some time in January. From there it’s just more waiting…Gladney is still predicting 3 to 5 months so our referral, which is when we know who our child(ren) will be, could happen in the spring or early summer!

To pass the time we are shifting our energies to the nursery. The nursery!!!! As I mentioned in our last blog, we have started visiting baby stores, testing out strollers and shaking cribs to see which ones are sturdy enough for our little ones! When we went to our appointment for CIS fingerprints we happened to park in front of a big baby store that had some very reasonably priced cribs that we may in fact purchase. First we need to do some rearranging by moving all the guest room furniture out of the little bedroom and moving all the office furniture (the VERY heavy office furniture) into the little room. Then we plan to put up beadboard and paint the walls in the old office/now nursery! This will keep us plenty busy for the next few months!

We are getting together with some of the other Gladney Ethiopia Families in our area next week for a Pumpkin Carving party. This may be more fun when we have little ones of our own but we are still looking forward to getting to know these families better. I will try to take some pictures and write about it next week.

Check, Check, Check!

Home Visit, check! Physician's reports, check! Reference letters, check! Employment letters, proof of insurance, fingerprinting appointments, check, check, check! I can hardly believe it but we can count the remaining to-do's on one hand and all we have to do (all we can do) is wait for them to happen. This includes our Home Study report (probably completed by mid to late October), Gladney Approval (this can happen after our home study is completed), CIS Approval Letter (the picture below is of us holding our fingerprint appointment dates, which we received in the mail on Friday), and for our FBI Clearance Letter. I am unsure how long we will need to wait for these two government documents but I don't think too long.

The best part of our week was the Gladney Ethiopian Families dinner in Chinatown on Thursday. There were about 150 people in attendance including Gladney employees and lots of local (CT and NYC) families who are either in the process of or who already have adopted from Ethiopia. It was so wonderful to meet the Ethiopian children, from 6 mos old to teenagers, and I know I might be biased but I think these children are SO beautiful! We were also able to connect with several families who live out near us in CT and we are organizing a pumpkin carving party and a dinner at a local Ethiopian restaurant. Everyone was so warm and seemed so down to earth and we are really looking forward to getting to know them better. We are the only childless couple in the bunch so I expect these events will give us a little preview of how our lives are about to change!

The best part of our weekend was an exploration of a couple local baby stores. We know it's still early but with all the paperwork done it is so much fun, and, ok, a bit overwhelming, to start thinking about all the stuff we need to get! Mark was particularly enamored with the strollers, which I attribute to the fact that they are vehicles of sorts and so many of them come with cool sporty wheels and bright high tech fabrics! Right now our favorite one is this cool orange all terrain contraption!

Or perhaps we will need this one!

And here is the happy expectant couple holding a letter from CIS. Who ever thought someone could get this happy about an appointment to have their fingerprints taken!

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

While we were on vacation our Gladney Application and Dossier Manual arrived, both of which sent us to whole new levels of paperwork madness last week! The good news is that here we are at the start of a new week, a little sleep deprived, but with a clear view of the light at the end of the paperwork tunnel. Yeah! We have a few odds and ends left to complete but the bulk of what we have to do is DONE! Now begins the waiting….and just the first level of waiting…but hey, no one gets to decide they want to be parents and have a baby home overnight, and that's probably a good thing too. Now is the time to feather our nest and acquire all that baby stuff we are going to need! For those curious about the details, here's where we are with everything:

• Waiting for our completed home study – we had to postpone our home visit last week because I had a work conflict but the home visit is going to happen this coming friday and our final interview is 9/25. Then we wait for our social worker to complete the report, which I think takes a few weeks or so.
• Waiting for Physician’s Report of good health – we had our physicals and fortunately we are both in good health. Now our doctor needs to complete the reports (poor guy, there are three for each of us so it’s no minor task). I am bringing a notary public to his office on Friday so hopefully all six reports will be done by then.
• Waiting for Personal References - thanks to you wonderful people who are doing this for us! See below for a picture of Amy holding her reference form package!
• Waiting for notarized letter from our insurance company stating that the child will be insured as soon as he or she is in our custody.
• Waiting for notarized letter of employment from my company (Mark already got his!).
• Waiting for appointments to get our fingerprints taken.
• Waiting for Gladney approval and CIS approval (neither of which will happen until all of the above happen)

When all these things are done we will officially be on the Gladney wait list!!! From what I can tell the referrals are coming about 4 or 5 months after people get on the list. Fingers crossed that those wait times don’t change before it’s our turn!

Our other news is that we made a decision on age, gender and number of children. We are requesting an infant of either gender age 0 - 12 mos (likely the child will be 6 - 12 mos when we bring him or her home). We are also open to adopting an infant 0-12 mos plus a sibling 0-36 mos, although we have stated that we do not wish to significantly extend our wait time waiting for a sibling. We could have been more specific but we like leaving a little bit up to chance. Either a boy or a girl is going to look adorable in this little red sox hat (the filthy, ripped and faded hat on the right is Mark's, of course, and it will be kept far away from Baby Newcombe for obvious health reasons!).

Amy holding her reference letter package!

Onward Ethiopia!

Our hearts have won the debate and we are sticking with our plan to adopt from Ethiopia! No surprise to those of you who know us well. This feels so right - head, heart and soul - and we are ecstatic!

Our agency estimates that we will have our baby home in 9 – 11 months…in other words, sometime late spring or summer. This means that our baby EXISTS in some stage of development and could even be a little newborn. Wow! If you are the praying kind, please help us pray for our baby’s safety and happiness while we make our way through all the red tape, and for our baby’s birth family, who must be going through a very tough time.

We just returned from a week at the beach which necessitated a pause in our progress with all the paperwork. Although frustrating for me, task master that I am, it was good to take a step back and let it all sink in and just spend some time together as an expectant couple. Poking through the tourist shops we couldn’t help ourselves and made our first baby purchases…a teeny tiny Red Sox hat and three stuffed animals that look like our three dogs. My sister and brother-in-law also got us a scrap book that is so cute and made especially for adoptive families to record and share their journey with their child. Little Baby Newcombe has his or her first hat, first book and first toys!

The week before vaca we made major strides forward with the less fun stuff (aka paperwork! Although I have to admit, even the paperwork is somewhat enjoyable for me since each completed form gets us one step closer to bringing that kid home!). We submitted our Form 1-600A*, completed our agency orientation, had our first interview with our Home Study** social worker and spoke with someone about helping us with our dossier***! As soon as I finish this entry I am going to turn my attention to the Gladney application and some of the dossier paperwork. We are getting there, inch by inch!

*I-600A: This is a petition to the USCIS (formerly the INS) to obtain pre-approval to adopt a foreign born orphan. It entails completing forms and submitting documents like birth and marriage certificates. The Home Study must be completed and submitted at which point the adoptive family receives appointments to be fingerprinted and then they wait for approval. This takes about 3 months to complete.

**Home study: (adoption study) The Home Study an investigative study of the family and home usually completed in 3 visits with a social worker plus successful completion of 10 hours of adoptive parenting classes. The home study will approve or deny the adoptive family for placement of a child.

***Dossier: This is a packet comprised of all the forms necessary to complete an international adoption. Most dossiers require birth and marriage certificates, background check clearances, fingerprint clearances, approved home study, employee letter, INS Clearance, medical evaluations, and photos. These forms must be translated and legalized. This is the official document that goes to the government of the foreign country.

A Fork in the Road

Just when we thought we had left the endless trail of decisions behind us....

A couple days ago I had a conversation with a friend of my mother. This woman has a private adoption practice in the state of NH and what I learned from her is that some of our fears and doubts about domestic adoption are unfounded. We had read and heard many scary things about birth mothers in crisis, birth mothers using drugs and alcohol, and birth mothers changing their minds. We also worried, at the grand old age of 40, that we would sit around waiting forever for a birth mother to choose us. But apparently all those scary birth mother stories, however common in other parts of the country, are extremely rare in good ol' wholesome NH. We also learned that this woman has a 90% success rate, which means not many birth mothers are changing their minds and deciding to parent. She only has 12 other couples waiting for a referral and they are all old foggies like us. She thinks, although there are no guarantees, that it would probably take 1 - 1.5 years to complete an adoption (Ethiopia would be one year or less if things go right).

So, since our prior reasons for ruling out domestic adoption are out the window, we are AGAIN looking at the differences between a domestic vs. Ethiopian adoption. We think there are advantages to holding your child the moment she is born, to knowing the health and background of the mother, and it would be less complicated (not better, just less complicated) to have a child who looks like us. We think there would be fewer health risks and there certainly would be less paperwork if we went domestic! All that said, our hearts won't let us forget that we have been truly excited about adopting from Ethiopia. When we started this journey we never thought we would be adopting from Africa but now, three months later, we can't see ourselves not adopting from Africa. We are giving ourselves the weekend to think it over, but here's a video and song by Sarah Groves that says a lot about what we are feeling. This was filmed in Rwanda but it also applies to Ethiopia. (Turn up the volumn and listen to the lyrics. If you are the sentimental type you might want to get the Kleenex!)



I Saw What I  Saw
~by Sara Groves


I saw what I saw and I can't forget it
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
I know what I know and I can't deny it

Something on the road
Cut me to the soul
Your pain has changed me
Your dream inspires
Your face a memory
Your hope a fire
Your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
And what I know of love

We've done what we've done and we can't erase it
We are what we are and it's more than enough
We have what we have but it's no substitution

Your pain has changed me
Your dream inspires
Your face a memory
Your hope a fire
Your courage asks me what I'm made of
And what I know of love

Something on the road
Cut me to the soul

I say what I say with no hesitation
I have what I have and I'm giving it up
I do what I do with deep conviction
Something on the road, cut me to the soul

Your pain has changed me
Ooohhh...
Your dreams inspire
Ooohhh...
Your face a memory
Ooohhh...
Your hope a fire
Ooohhh...

Your pain has changed me
Your dream inspires
Your face a memory
Your hope a fire
Your courage asks me what I am afraid of
Your courage asks me what I am made of
Your courage asks me what I am afraid of
And what I know of love,
And what I know of God.

Step Two!

We made some big and exciting decisions today! We have chosen our country (Ethiopia), our agency (Gladney), and we have an appointment to start our Home Study next Thursday! It felt like we would never arrive at these decisions (because I am such a research junky) but it was worth all the time and effort. Read on if you want to know more about how we came to these decisions...

Why Ethiopia
There were so many things to consider and we wanted to be sure that it was not only our hearts, but also our heads weighing in on what is right for our family. Here are some of the reasons we choose Ethiopia:

Overwhelming Need: Due to extreme poverty, there are approximately 4.3 million orphans in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is unique in the world of adoption because most of the children in orphanages are “true” orphans, poverty and disease having left multitudes of children without parents. I know all the children available for adoption need us but we feel that Ethiopia needs us a just a little more than most.

Upbeat Culture: In spite of extreme hardship the Ethiopian culture is warm and upbeat and many of the children are loved and cared for before ending up in an orphanage. The orphanages are also very well run and children receive superior medical and emotional attention. For these reasons there are far fewer cases of attachment or other emotional disorders, unlike children in the over crowded institutional orphanages of other countries.

Babies!: How long a child experiences institutional life is critically important. I read (on http://www.drspock.com/) that children adopted before age six months usually recover emotionally, even if they have experienced severe deprivation, but after that the risk of emotional problems rises. We will love this child no matter what problems arise but being new to the world of parenting we would like to minimize our risk of long term challenges (other than the usual ones!). Ethiopia, unlike many countries, has young infants available for adoption.

Health Concerns: Ethiopian children have far fewer cases of FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome) than other countries. Even though most countries test for HIV, PCR HIV testing is the gold standard for HIV testing in youngsters less than 2 years of age but the resources are limited for this type of testing in countries outside of the U.S.. Ethiopia is the only international adoption program where it is available. Malnutrition, bacterial infections, and parasites are common health issues but all of these things are treatable with minimal long term effects. Also, the renoun Doctor Jane Aronson (at least renown to those of us in the international adoption world) operates out of NYC and has an adopted son from Ethiopia. We expect that she will be a tremendous resource for us. Check her out: http://www.orphandoctor.com/

Wait Times: Unlike many countries, Ethiopia has a fairly quick turn around time. The woman I spoke with today at our agency said, “If you are an aggressive woman (and if you know me you know that I am!), it will take 11 – 12 months from today’s phone call to bringing your child home”. Eeek! So exciting! There are no guarantees in the world of adoption but Ethiopia is a fairly stable program and they have to go through 13 government agencies to make any changes so change does not come quickly.

Extended Community: We have found a few families in our area who have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. These people have already been tremendously supportive and helpful and we love the fact that we will have a local support group of “families like us”. Thanks again to those of you who helped us get to where we are now.

Gut Feeling: Ok, all those bullets above are our “heads” weighing in. The part that I cannot put in a bullet list is just how right this feels. We are so happy and can’t stop the tears of joy at the thought of our future family (Mark will kill me for telling you that he too is crying but I think it’s wonderful!).

Why GladneyWe also did our due diligence when it came to choosing an agency. This was an even harder process than choosing a country because there are SO many agencies to choose from. We started looking at agencies in our local area, thinking that the face to face contact would be important, but ultimately we decided that reputation, experience, humanitarian efforts, how the agency responded to our questions, and wait times mattered more than having a local office. Here are some of the reasons we chose Gladney:

• 
  
  
  They have been facilitating adoptions for 120 years and are highly ethical
• 
  
  
  Their Ethiopia program is one of the oldest and largest in Ethiopia and they do more than just facilitate adoptions. They are also very active in providing for the many children who will never be adopted.
• 
  
  
  In spite of the fact they have an established Ethiopia program, they do not have a problem with wait times because they work with several orphanages and have over 80 staff living in Ethiopia. Some of the other more established agencies operating in Ethiopia were estimating wait times at 18 to 22 months (compared to Gladney’s 3 – 6 months)
• 
  
  
  They have three private care facilities in Ethiopia that the children are taken to. The children receive excellent medical care and lots of love and attention in these wait houses.
• 
  
  
  There are several families in Fairfield County who have adopted from Ethiopia through Gladney and they all rave about what a great agency it is.
• 
  
  
  They have been easy to deal with.

So that's all for now. I need to stop writing and start cleaning and baby-proofing the house so that we pass the home study!

And So The Journey Begins!

I never really thought of myself as the 'blogger' type but the path to adoption is full of so many twists and turns and decisions and emotions, and I have found such comfort and support from reading other adoptive parent's stories, that I decided what the heck. Maybe our story will help someone else, and it certainly will be nice for us, for our children, and hopefully for our family and friends, to have a record of this amazing journey. I promise I will try not to sound like one of those 'look at me' mass produced Christmas update letters!

So here's where we are. After attending information sessions, searching the Internet, reading books, looking at blogs, talking to everyone we know who has adopted, and asking a million questions on Yahoo Groups, our hearts and our heads are leaning toward Ethiopia. When I showed Mark the picture of this little girl he sounded like he wanted to jump on a plane and go looking for her immediately! Can you blame him? Just look at that cutie! There are so many good reasons to adopt from Ethiopia, but I will save that for another day.

We have discovered a few new people to talk to about domestic adoption so we have reopened the door to that possibility. We are also very close to choosing an agency should we decide to move forward with an International Adoption from Ethiopia. In the interest of keeping the ball moving forward while we decide between these two options, we have chosen someone to help us complete our Home Study and I plan to call her first thing tomorrow morning! Yippee!

I want to say a special thanks to our family and friends for their enthusiastic support. Telling you our decision to adopt has been so rewarding and you have heightened our joy and excitement. I also want to thank those of you out there who have done this before. Your stories have touched us and you have helped us navigate this, at times overwhelming, sea of decisions. How did people do this before the support of kind strangers on the Internet?!

Anyway, that's all for now. We are overjoyed to finally be on the path to finding our child. Stay tuned, there's lots more to come!

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ~Dr. Seuss