Number!!

I just got an email back from AGCI. We are number 46!! It seems like it will take so long to be to number 1. I am praying God gives me patience.

Dossier!! (part 2)

Sorry to leave you hanging. I wasn't able to get on the computer the whole weekend since being at the conference. Kate called Thursday night to say that our dossier was being sent to the U.S. Department of State and the Ethiopian Embassy to be authenticated on Friday. The only thing we had to do was send an additional picture of our passport photographs. I just sent those out in the mail today. I was so excited that everything was perfect. So the only number she has given me so far is our overall number of 46. Hopefully she will call tonight with the breakdown of numbers. Thank you all for your prayers!!

My mom and I had a great time at the Women of Faith conference. It was great to get away after the last few months of constant paperwork and relax and be refreshed in my walk with God.

I will update you with our official numbers when I get them!!!

Dossier!!

I just got an email from Kate (AGCI) telling me that she received our dossier and she will be going through it today and giving me a call this afternoon. Oh boy do I pray that everything is perfect!!! My heart is racing a mile a minute.

Tomorrow my mom and I are leaving for Ohio to go to a Women of Faith conference. I am so excited!! The last conference that my mom and went to I was pregnant with Katelyn. I find it so fitting that now we are so close to the waiting list for our next child. I can't wait to just be in that arena filled with thousands of women praising God.

Please continue to be praying for us and our child.

Fingerprint Appointment!!

Wow!! We already got our appointment to have our fingerprints done. We go the week of April 29th. Maybe this is normal to get it back within a couple days, but I thought we wouldn't hear anything for about a week or two. It says Pittsburgh office processing time is 6-8 weeks from receipt date of Home Study. I can't believe it!!!

Dossier Off to AGCI!!!

Well, we have officially mailed our dossier to AGCI!!! I am so excited. I am going to be so lost when I go to work tomorrow and not have to take all my paperwork with me. For the last 2 months I have carried everything with me just in case I would need it. I was always going through everything at work so I knew just what I had to do that week. I am praying without cease that all of the documents are correct and don't need any changes made. I do know that this is probably impossible but we worship a God who does the impossible.
Yesterday I mailed out our I-600A application to US CIS. I do know that they had already received it at 11:00 a.m. today. (thanks to UPS tracking) How did people go through adoptions years ago without being able to track their package at the touch of a button. I sure do hope that somebody is working overtime to process our request!! Ha Ha!
Funny thing about the UPS Store today. I had said to Matt on our way there that we should just pay the extra money to have it over-nighted to AGCI. He said yeah that's fine. So when the girl asked how we wanted it shipped we told her and she said ok that will be $80. Needless to say its going ground (cheapest way)and should be there by Wed.

Once again keep us in your prayers until we hear back from Kate @ AGCI!!!!!

I just remembered that I forgot to update everyone on the Policy change at our agency. It used to be that you had to wait until after you were fingerprinted and got you Favorable Determination Letter from immigration to be added to the waiting list for your child. Know as soon as your dossier is checked and on its way to Washington DC to be authenticated you are then added to the waiting list. This means for Matt and I once our dossier is approved we will have a number!!!!!! Before we would have had to wait at least another 2-3 months before that would have happened.

I will let everyone know when we have any news!!!!! THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR LOVE AND SUPPORT!!!!!!

Finalized Home Study Report!!!

Sorry I have been so behind at posting news. Today our social worker is coming to the house to give us our finalized, notarized home study!!! I can't believe that this part is all done. I should be sending out our completed dossier by the end of the week. Tomorrow I am sending the application for US CIS. The bad thing about getting all the this paperwork done is that then everything is out of your hands. There is nothing else to do except wait. If you know me, you know that I am not a patient person. I try so hard but it just is not in my genes. Ha Ha!!! I keep reminding myself of Habakkuk 2:3: "But these things I plan won't happen right away, slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, be patient, for it will surely take place. It will not be late by one single day." God knows the exact day that we will meet our child and I find comfort and peace in that.

I am looking for ways to raise money for the adoption. Does anyone have any good ideas of what to do? I do know that we are having a couple yard sales in the summer and I am trying to make decorative pillows to sale. Other than that I am fresh out of ideas.

Katelyn's new hair cut!!

Here is Katelyn with her new hair cut!! Sadly it makes her look so grown up.

We are quickly finishing up all our paperwork for our dossier. Today I met the notary at Matt's doctor and she notarized his health form. Tomorrow I will be meeting her at my doctors to notarize my health form. All that is left to do is to then find all of our pictures we need. It is so hard to think that we are already at this point. I have thought about adopting for so long and it is crazy that this is all finaly taking shape. (Crazy in a good way.)

Matt is out of town for the next few days with work so its just Katelyn and I chilling out at home. We sure do miss him when he is gone. Our house is just different without him.

We still didn't hear anything about our homestudy. They said to allow 5-7 days but I thought maybe we could hear something before that. I am not a very patient person.

What do you do while waiting for your social worker to arrive for your first visit? Take pictures.

Long time no blogging.

Sorry it has been so long. We have been so busy trying to get everything wrapped up with our home study and dossier. We fit 4 visits into 9 days. CRAZY. I forgot to mention that all of them were at our house. As I sit here typing, the rough draft of our home study should be in Martha's (@ AGCI) email. This process takes about 5-7days for her to read through it and have our social worker make any changes necessary.

I only have a couple more things to put into our dossier and them I am finished with that. I should be able to send it into AGCI by the end of next week. It all depends on when we get the final copy of our home study. I am getting very excited, but yet very nervous just not knowing if the dossier papers are all right. Did anybody else feel this way? I will feel better when they have looked through it and said "yeah everything is perfect."

I am enclosing the pictures of our nursery. It not at all finished. I still have so much to decorate. That I am saving for after we get to see the picture of our child.