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!

Almost There!!!!!

We are fingerprinted!!!! I planned to take a picture of us with our blackened fingers outside the local USCIS office......that's about all I can do to make fingerprinting exciting, but the office threw me a curveball. Our fingerprints were digitally taken! I didn't ask to have them taken the old fashioned way for the sake of our picture. I don't want to slow this final step! After almost 17 years in the Navy, I know my background is clean; now we just wait to see what's in Alicia's closet.

We are so close to the end of the paperchase we can taste it! We now wait for the all-important I-171H Form from USCIS once they complete our background check. We will easily wrap up the few remaining items before that form arrives. As soon as we get it, we'll mail our Dossier to America World (our agency). America World will thoroughly review it, walk it over to the State Department for certification, and then ship it to their folks in Ethiopia who begin the beaurocratic process with the Ethiopian government. Surprisingly, America World only takes about a week to get the Dossier to Ethiopia after receiving it. The date of Dossier to Ethiopia (DTE) is the next significant milestone. Then the waiting really begins.


We had a great Christmas with family in Florida, and we wonder how different our next Christmas will be. There is a small chance we will have our son by then. Even though we expect to be DTE by the end of the month, the Ethiopian government shuts down for vacation from mid-August to October. That vacation period makes our chances "small." The silver lining about waiting is we can distract ourselves with moving to San Diego!

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!

There's Always Another Form

So there I was......thinking we were near the end of the paperchase. We indeed are well past the half-way point, but I noticed a major form I had forgotten - the I-600A Form. Fortunately for us, another couple adopting from Ethiopia posted when they had submitted the form.

The I-600A Form is what prospective international adoptive families submit to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) to begin the process of applying for an entry visa for the child. Like everything else, this form requires other forms to accompany it. We also have to get fingerprinted again. We've been fingerprinted already for the FBI's background check (which came back clean....scheeewww!). This fingerprinting session is for USCIS to do their own background check, just in case the FBI overlooked something. Of course, this isn't as simple as mailing another fingerprint form......oh nooooooo. We now wait for USCIS to contact us with our appointment. Yes, we'll travel to the local USCIS office and get fingerprinted. I'm just hoping that office isn't three states away.

This is where things could get complicated. I start my Navy school pipeline in February. Therefore, we really need the fingerprinting appointment in January. Here's the other complication - our Home Study isn't finalized yet, and we're not sure if we can get an appointment without the Home Study. Our completed report will be sent to America World next week for finalization. I decided to mail the form without the Home Study in the hopes of getting a fingerprint appointment without it because I figured it couldn't hurt.

We are still super-psyched to have come this far so quickly; keep tabs of our timeline on the right side of our website. We still hope to get the Dossier through the State Dept and to Ethiopia before the end of January. We've come to think that "Dossier" is French for "ginormous packet of forms that requires hundreds of signatures and notarizations."

And no....this hasn't sunk in yet. I think when the Dossier is finally to Ethiopia, we'll begin to realize we'll soon be parents of a wonderful boy.