WE RECEIVED OUR REFERRALL!!!!!!!

Today is a life changing day! 7 months 2 weeks and 4 days since beginning this journey, we have a referral for a wonderful boy. I am so desparate to share his name, picture, and information with everyone, but we are legally bound to keep his personal information confidential until he is legally ours. Even though we can't share that information, we can't keep this a secret!!!!!!!!

Alicia will be busy over the next few days running quite a few errands.
-- Finding a pediatrician who specializes in international adoptions to review his medical reports. There are quite a few of those around. We're lucky to have one or two in San Diego. To Alicia and me, he looks great, but we'll trust a professional's opinion over our own.
-- Getting a handfull of immunization shots that the CDC recommends when traveling to Ethiopia. Thanks to Navy medicine, I just need one more shot and I'm all done.
-- Taking our updated Home Study to the local Immigration Office. The udpate was completed just this week, and Alicia should get it in the mail in a few days. We need to get it to the Immigration Office so they can update us in their system and forward that update to the American embassy in Ethiopia.
-- Looking a baby clothes at Khol's!!!!!!!

I am still in Newport, RI, attending a Navy school, and I will finish the end of June. I've got about six weeks to go in this four-month separation from Alicia. We call this a "mini-deployment." We had a feeling there was a chance we would get a referral before I finish this school, but we didn't expect it so soon! I'm flying home for Memorial Day weekend so we can celebrate together!

Ok....so what's next? Here is what we think will happen:

-- We have one week to accept or decline the referral. At this point, we see no reason to decline!
-- We are put in the rotation for a court date in Ethiopia. This is where we appear before the Ethiopian judge and swear we will adopt this child. Upon passing court, the boy is legally ours ------- FOREVER!!!!!!!
-- Based on families who have gone before us, the court date could be as early as 6-8weeks from now. I think there's a pretty good chance our court date could be later because a significant number of referrals were recently issued - much more than usual. This may cause a small backlog in the system and push our court date a little later.
-- After the court date, the American embassy conducts is own investigation to validate all of the paperwork - to include another triple-check that the child is a legitimate orphan. This usually takes around 6-10 weeks.
-- After the embassy's investigation, we are issued an appointment with the embassy. Once we get that appointment date, we travel to Ethiopia to get our child and bring him home. Adoptive parents call this date the "Gotcha Day."

This is a life changing day!

Updating the Home Study

We are updating our Home Study because we have moved to CA. I would recommend not updating a HS unless you absolutely have to. Not letting the across-the-country drive slow us down, we completed forms and made copies of the various HS and Dossier documents and mailed them from Memphis TN to the agency in CA who is helping us with the update. We have found an adoption agency in CA (Across the World Adoption - ATWA), and a great social worker in the San Diego area was recommended to us.

I say don't update the HS unless absolutely needed for a couple of reasons.

#1. Updating it is state specific. CA requires a full HS redo (essentially repeating everything). Much of the info already with AWAA will carry over, but there are various forms that don't.......and then there's the finger printing. We both had to get finger printed because the background checks (all 3 - CA, FBI, and Dept of Justice) do NOT carry over from AWAA and must be redone. This has added $211 to our expenses total along with the $850 fee to ATWA. Our AWAA Family Coordinator will get everything. Needless to say, repeating everything is just a wee bit frustrating.

#2. Our USCIS case must be transferred from the Norfolk office to the San Diego office. That sounds simple, but we've heard it could take up to three weeks. This is required because our updated HS needs to go through the local USCIS office. From there, our update will go through the National Visa Center to the Embassy in Ethiopia. We have no idea how long this takes, but it doesn't sound short.

That's as far as we have discovered so far. We'll keep the updates coming as we figure out the extent of the HS update.

The Dossier is on the Way to Ethiopia!!!!

One clock stops and another begins.

The folks at AWAA finally made it through the winter tundra of the DC metropolitan area! Our Dossier made it through the State Dept and is on the way to Ethiopia.

The paperchase clock has now stopped! 19 weeks and 1 day ago we began the paperchase of our adoption journey. The waiting clock officially begins! I say "officially" because the term "wait period" is used to describe waiting for the Referral after DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia).

Our move to CA may add time to the current waiting period estimate (3-6 months). We have to update our Home Study and submit that update through USCIS. From other families who have had to do this, we've heard the update process has its challenges. That's my polite way to say "it adds too much time and frustration dealing with layers of bureaucracy when all we want is our son." We have worked hard to get through the paperchase quickly, and we'll apply that same mindset to get through the update as quickly as possible.

The Dossier is Complete!!!!!!!!

17 WEEKS!!!!!! All of the forms are finally in, and the Dossier is complete! It's been 17 weeks since we received AWAA's e-mail chocked full of forms to officially begin our adoption journey.

Alicia overnighted the Dossier and a bunch of copies to America World today. Now the real waiting begins. For the past four weeks, we have been waiting on USCIS to complete their review of our paperwork (the I-600A Form and the Home Study) and fingerprints. We're lucky to have that office here in town so I could go by and talk with the lady who actually does the review. I learned the local office actually does the review and issues the I-171H Form. Armed with the knowledge that the 171-H only has to travel about 10 miles through the mail system, I naively believed we would receive the form in a matter of no time. Taking into account that no bureaucracy moves at the speed of light (or even the speed of an eager adoptive couple), I guess three weeks could be considered "no time."

As I've said before, the "real" waiting begins because now our Dossier makes its way through the Ethiopian government. Once we're accepted by their system, we wait for a child to be referred to us. We're hoping for an infant boy (younger than 2 yrs), and the latest estimate for wait times is 4-6 months. Before anyone starts counting on a calendar and thinking we could have our son before September, there are two not-so-small details that will only add time to this process.

Detail #1: The Ethiopian government shuts down for holidays from sometime in August to late September / early October. Even if we get our referral before they shut down, we won't be able to travel to Ethiopia until after the government recess. The corollary to Detail #1 is after the referral, the Ethiopian judicial court formally reviews the case of our child to determine beyond any doubt whatsoever that the child is a legitimate orphan and may be legally adopted. The court date usually is about 4-8 weeks after the referral. The good news is the day of that successful court date, the child is legally ours!

Detail #2: We're moving to San Diego - at the end of this month! I'm here in SDGO attending a Navy school, and I took a few days before school to find a home to rent. Isn't the view from the patio in the back yard pretty neat?! The move adds time because we must update our Home Study to reflect we're in a new home. We have yet to contact a social worker agency in CA to figure out exactly what is required for the update. Every state is different. I may have said this before, but the "update" could be a simple one-time visit by the social worker to our new home or a re-do of most of the Home Study. Obviously the latter will require more time.

You may notice when looking at our Timeline that I'm posting our expenses every so often. I'm including everything from AWAA program fees to copier and FedEx expenses. I'm doing this for couples who are thinking of adopting who happen to discover our web site. When we were "blog stalking" other adoptive families, their timelines helped shape our expectations on how quickly (or not so much) the paperchase would progress. I've chosen to add our expenses to the Timeline for the same reason. So far, our experience has matched AWAA's estimates. The biggest variable is the cost of the plane tickets. I hope we'll be able to speak to that later this year!

Finalized Home Study!!!!!!

This is me with the FedEx envelope as we overnight our finalized Home Study to USCIS. Since it's Saturday, it won't get out until Monday for delivery to the USCIS office in Texas on Tuesday.

This is a significant milestone in our adoption journey. The Home Study is the key ingredient for both the USCIS approval as well as our adoption application (the "Dossier") that is submitted to the Ethiopian government. With the Home Study finalized, we only have three items left to get the Dossier to Ethiopia.

We received the Home Study from our adoption agency (AWAA) today - just 52 days after our Home Study Orientation at the AWAA headquarters in McLean, VA. USCIS needs this to finalize our application. With any luck, we'll get fingerprinted in January and shortly thereafter receive the Immigration approval form (the all-important I-171H Form) that we'll take with us to Ethiopia. This form allows us to legally bring our son into the country for the first time - kind of important! That means we can't lose it while we wait to travel.......which will probably be about this time next year.

AWAA periodically updates the waiting time for the various age ranges of boys and girls who are adopted. Last week's update showed the wait time for infant boys at 4-6 months, considerably shorter than when we first started (about 9-12 months). The official start of the wait time is when the Dossier gets to Ethiopia. That's why we're anxious to complete all of these steps as quickly as possible. If we can get our Dossier to Ethiopia in January, then we may have a referral (the Ethiopian Govt nominating an infant boy to us for adoption) around July-ish.

We're not holding our breath for a referral just yet. We have a lot to do between now and then (just read my mini-tirade in my last posting). We head to Florida next week to spend Christmas with family. With any luck, I can finish shopping before we leave!

Baby Steps with the Paperwork........Almost Done!

9 weeks and 4 days. That's how much time has elapsed since we received the paperwork from AWAA (our adoption agency) to begin this process. Forgive the pun, but we're taking baby steps at this point. AWAA is reviewing our Home Study and will finalize it very soon. We hope to have it in hand by the end of the week so we can forward it to USCIS.

Speaking of USCIS, we received notification in the mail today that they received our I-600A Form. While it is a standard notification, it indicated the next step is a fingerprint appointment. This gives us some slight encouragement that there's a slim hope to get fingerprinted before I leave for Navy schooling in February.

As Christmas fast approaches (I just realized we'll be driving to Florida for the holiday in just 8 days......I've got to start shopping soon) and we continue to make incremental progress on the paperwork and read a couple of the adoption books we've purchased, I realize that it's quite possible we could have our son by this time next year. Following the adventures of other families through their own web sites and the Ethiopian adoptive families Yahoo Group have been invaluable. Their experiences show that we are not even half way there yet; most of them have taken at least 12 months before traveling to Ethiopia for their child. That still seems forever away at this point.

As with all other challenges we have already faced and those still in our future, we will rely on the Lord's strength instead of our own. Luckily for us, our path between here and Ethiopia has plenty of intermediate challenges to get us warmed up: (1) looking for a house to rent in San Diego - a city we barely know, (2) packing and moving everything....again, (3) renting this house while we're in San Diego, and (4) taking command of a ship.

As always, we will rely on your prayers throughout this journey!

Almost Complete with the Home Study

We had a great Thanksgiving with my mother visiting. She and Alicia were gracious enough to allow me to cook the Thanksgiving dinner.......all by myself.
With Alicia's expertise on the pie, we had a fantastic dinner. I cooked a bone-in turkey breast with vegetables. I opted to enclose the turkey in a foil tent to keep it moist. I took the additional measure of placing a number of butter pats between the skin and meat. I'm sure that was the key to a moist bird......and a few extra calories!

We're almost done with the Home Study process. Chuck the social worker has conducted all of the visits, and he is now writing up his final report. He expects to complete that sometime next week. After that, he will submit it to AWAA for final review and completion. Only the background checks from the various police agencies are required to finish this stage of the paperchase. We submitted that paperwork a while ago. We must have criminal and child abuse checks by the VA State Police, CA (we briefly lived there a couple of years ago), and also a second check done by the Child Protective Services of VA. Oh......and a fingerprint and background check by the FBI. Needless to say, we hope all of those background checks are processed quickly and get to AWAA to complete the Home Study. With the number of times my background has been checked and rechecked for various security clearances and accesses throughout my Naval career, I just wanted to tell AWAA to trust me that if I had any skeletons, they would have been found by now! I wonder how many background and criminal checks birthparents go through before they welcome their child in their home? The Home Study is only half of the pile of papers we'll submit to the State Department as our official adoption application. We're almost done with the other half. Luckily, we're still on track to complete the dossier before the end of January - about four months after we started this journey - super-quick compared to what we've heard from fellow Ethiopian adoptive families.

With any luck, I'll be able to say our Home Study is finalized in our next posting!

Home Studies are Almost Done!

We must do four Home Studies; the first one was the Orientation back on Oct 28th. We've met with our social worker, Chuck, two times, and the final meeting (the one where he meets with Alicia alone) is next week. Chuck has been very encouraging and has done a great job putting us at ease throughout the entire Home Study process.

Today was the in-home visit with all members of the family, to include Chloe. Chloe was well-behaved during Chuck's visit. In the spirit of making a good impression, I vacuumed last night to get most of Chloe's black hair off our light-cream colored carpet. I wanted to tell Chuck that our carpet is rarely this clean and he should make special note of our cleaning abilities in his final report. This is an especially-tremendous achievement now because the unusually mild weather has transformed Chloe into a four-legged shed monster. Alicia was grateful that I didn't share that detail with Chuck. All in all, it was a great visit.

I must confess the Home Study process is going much quicker than I expected. Chuck met with me last week; he visited the house today, and he'll meet with Alicia next week. It looks like our Home Study final report will be all wrapped up and submitted to AWAA by early December.

Home Study Orientation

We completed the Home Study Orientation yesterday and remain supremely excited about this journey! It was very clear the entire staff is well grounded in Christ and works very diligently to ensure every T is crossed and I is dotted so our adoption paperwork gets through all of the bureaucracy as smoothly as possible. There are literally dozens of documents required for the Home Study and another few dozen required for the Dossier, so this is no small task!

Lesson #1 for anyone considering embarking on this journey : be super-aggressive in completing as many forms as possible before the Home Study Orientation. The Orientation is considered visit #1 of 4 of the home study process so it all starts with the Orientation. David worked very hard over the past couple of weeks compiling all of the information and forms - to include notarizing! Because we turned in so many completed Home Study forms last night, we expect the first in-home visit (technically Visit #2) by the social worker to be within the month. The Home Study Coordinator who conducted the Orientation last night expected us to be able to complete the Home Study before David heads to Newport, RI, for his Navy schooling in January. That would be fantastic and is what we were secretly hoping for!!!!!

We drove to the AWAA National Headquarters in McLean, Va, for the Orientation, and it was great to see the folks who will be guiding us through the next few months. We met our Family Coordinator, Caitlin, who was as excited to meet us as we were to meet her. She is one of three Ethiopia (ET) Program Family Coordinators, and she currently represents about 40-50 families. The ET Program has nearly doubled every year for the past few years, and AWAA recently added a third Family Coordinator (Caitlin) because of the increased work load and to minimize the time consumed by paperchasing. She was so excited because she rarely gets to meet her families in person - as we're spread throughout the country. All of the Family Coordinators for AWAA work out of the national headquarters office. As we exchange what I'm sure will be dozens of e-mails with Caitlin as we compile the 20-30 documents required for our Dossier (official "adoption package" that will be routed through the State Dept and to the Ethiopian Govt), it will be nice to put a face to those e-mails.