The "Paper" Pregnancy

Our next step in the adoption process is our Home Study. This will be a written report based on interviews and home visits to assure all concerned that our family is able to provide all necessary means to give the child a good home. In addition, we will be collecting the following paperwork.

• Autobiographies
• Birth and marriage certificates
• Police and FBI reports
• Medical reports from dr.'s for whole family
• Financial Records
• Reference letters
• Home visits with a case worker(family and individual interviews)
  

We will then apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and have fingerprinting done.

The last and final step is to complete our Dossier. This includes getting originals of all documents above and a whole lot more paperwork. This will all be sent along with our HomeStudy to the Ethiopian government for review.
It can take 3-6 months to complete all the above processes.

After submitting our Dossier we will wait for a Referral, this wait can be 3-4 months.

Referral:
A referral is when your agency contacts you and says they have a child available for you. You will be given a picture and some information about your baby.

Travel:
Yes, we will travel to Ethiopia to bring home our baby. We would travel 1-2 months after getting our referral. We will spend about 7-10 days in Ethiopia visiting orphanages, experiencing the culture and loving on our new baby.

and then.....home we will come to start our journery as a family of 5.

They say this whole long process can take 8-12 months. It sounds so long but I will not complain, I will not be throwing up!!!!

I hope this answers some of your questions...thanks for reading !

Application Approved!

June 25, 2007

Dear Cheryl & Eric

Congratulations! Your application for adoption has been approved by the Program Director.

We will be mailing out your approval packet today or tomorrow with instructions on how to proceed.

We are very excited for you, and wish you well as you begin your adoption journey!

What great words to receive today...We are so excited to be moving forward! Several of you have asked about the process and I will post that soon. Thanks for your continued prayers.

Eric and Cheryl

We are adopting!

Over the last 8 months Eric and I have been in deep discussion and prayer about expanding our family through adoption. We want to provide a home and loving family to one of the millions of children that may otherwise not have either. We recognize the amazing blessings God has given us throughout our lives--in our family, friends, life and church community. We are overjoyed at the thought of sharing these things with another child.

We made our final decision in April 2007 after attending an informational meeting at Childrens Hope International. Over the months we have read, researched and had many conversations that lead us to adopting from Ethiopia. We learned that Ethiopia has allowed International adoption for several years. We have learned that there are roughly 5 million orphans in need of homes in Ethiopia, and that the culture is such that, though the people are very poor and ill, they value their children and try to treat them as kindly as they are able, even in the orphanages.

Everyone who decides to adopt is faced with many decisions (above and beyond the first big decision to adopt); such as the country from which to adopt, age range of the child etc...We always new Africa! There are not many countries in Africa, who allow international adoption and ultimately this feels best for our family. It has been difficult to explain every thing involved in our decision to pursue Ethiopian adoption, but once we did, there was no turning back.


So....This is the day that the official process begins to bring home our baby girl!

Please keep our family and this process in your prayers...
Eric and Cheryl

I'll Stand by You!

I don't claim to love country music, but let your heart be touched by this video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xstLRWHgD2Q