So... you might ask why I haven't written lots and lots about Haiti yet.. The truth is I've kind of hit a point where I need to take an emotional break from processing it. I've been blessed to have family and friends that truly want to know about the things I saw and what I learned there. I have had opportunities to talk in short and also at length about it. I've had time to cry about little things that I remember. I was able to go to the Global Orphan Project Haiti summit on Friday night where I saw pictures of my Haiti children up on the screen and hear stories about them from the leadership that I have a very personal connection to already. Because I was THERE. I held them. I smelled the smells. I saw their scars... and I know their stories. Amazing stories of faith in our God and horrible stories of horrible things happening to little babes that I love.
I have moments that bring it all back.. like when I get a whiff of diesel fuel on the highway.. or see a construction pile of rubble or when I think how far along one of my pregnant little girls is. She is due in April with a baby girl, and she is 13.
I'm still processing the faith of the pastors of Haiti and how they bring praising the Lord in times of trial to a level I can barely comprehend.
You know how there are moments in your life when you take mental pictures of things that you will never forget. I think my time in Haiti was more pivotal than many of the other experiences in life in terms of how it impacted and changed me. I was changed when Lucas was put into my arms... but I was renewed in a different way while holding children in the back of a truck in downtown Port au Prince.
That is all I have for now. I thought it was time to touch on it, but I'm not really in a place to unleash all details to the world of Blogger just yet.
Monday, March 15, 2010
March adoption update
I haven't written in almost a month, but I have fantastic reasons. Shortly after my last post I left for Haiti. When I returned from Haiti on the 3rd, I jumped right into working on the dossier in a major way. That pretty much consumed all nap time for the last few weeks.
Just before I left for Haiti, Ted and I were able to hand in all remaining pieces to our Homestudy that we had any control over. Since we had everything done that was possible on our end, Holt set up times to send out our social worker. Barbara came out on March 10th and the 12th for our interviews and looking at the house. Since we've done this before, and lots of positive changes (stay at home Mom, Dad finishing medical school, we live somewhere that doesn't have "stairs of death"....) we weren't really worried about passing as much this time ;-) Everything went great, and Barbara was wonderful. She is working on the final written documents of our Homestudy right now, and we anticipate that to be done in the next week or so. Even after it is finished, however, there will be some time of sending it around to various places to get signed and then it heads to Holt's corporate office to be fully accepted by the Ethiopia staff.
While they are doing all of that, we needed to turn our attention to finishing the dossier- which is Ethiopia's stack of documents that they want. This includes things that were in our Homestudy, along with a few other random pieces. We're done with a little over half of it... and the rest of it is quite doable. This week we are trying to wrap up documents that needed to be created by us, and next week I will have to run around getting stamps on a few different things. I still need a notarized letter from the police, Ted's birth certificate from Minnesota to come back, my letters of recommendation back from a couple gals, a listed statement of benefits from Ted's HR dept (notarized of course and on their letterhead), and a bunch of random documents that Ted and I have to create, notarize, and have state authenticated. It's just nice to be able to look at my list and at least understand what there is left to do.
Things got a little interesting in the Ethiopia adoption front this week. I'm going to be vague, only because there is no reason for great alarm because we don't have enough details to be alarmed yet. Basically, due to a few incidents over in Ethiopia of people coming to get their child only to find out that their agency had lied to them (ie: their child was severely disabled but the agency had said they were healthy, or children being years older than their agency had said they were). The result of those indiscretions has resulted in the Ethiopian government issuing a statement that now all adoptive parents need to be present for court to testify that their child is their child as they were told it would be. Let's be positive- Ethiopia cares about their children that they want to ensure the correct placement and they are willing to step up the game to protect all parties involved. That is GOOD. It also means that we can get the same time of visa that we had for Lucas which makes things much easier when you get home. Oh...and then there's that little tid bit of spending time with our baby when they are a bit younger and more picture opportunities! The bad? Plane tickets to Ethiopia aren't cheap... and people in Ted's position at the hospital can't "just take vacation time" like most working adults. The man can barely get any sleep or come home, let alone leave the country for an undefined period of time.
We don't know yet just how interesting this will get. This news is fresh from the adoption headlines and our agency is really scrambling to get us all answers. There are a lot of dossiers sitting there ahead of us in Ethiopia right now... and those folks will have to do the same thing before we do. Many of them are in more difficult places than we are.. in that they have more children at home to find childcare for. In our situation... 2 of the 3 members of our family are easily portable and it doesn't cost anything for those 2 people to be away... it's just our breadwinner that we worry about :-)
IF only one of us has to travel to testify at court- we are only looking at an addition $2,000 of cost, if we both have to, it will be more like $3,000 more. If we both have to be fully present both times.. and each time for awhile... then the Sibley family may need to take a break from this process for a bit to re-assess the finances. Will that be hard? Yes... BUT we will not lose all sanity in the pursuit of another child so as to take on so much debt that we can't feed the child when they come home. At this time, we are cautiously optimistic... and have decided to just work on our dossier in our own sweet time.. and instead of rushing to get it there as fast as possible, we will just work on it as we feel like working on it. If and when we do have to go for the court appointment, it will be 6-8 weeks or so after referral.. and we aren't really expecting a referral until late summer or early fall... so this is all a ways off and not worth panicing about.
In the meantime, we continue to pursue God's will in all of this and HIS direction. HE will bring our 2nd child home when HE sees fit. He is the God of all orphans and the God of all money. He is the giver of grants, donations, and low interest adoption loans... and this is in His hands. The more I remember that, the more peace I have, and the more I enjoy this fantastic life that He has given me.
And now, it is time to turn off Thomas the Tank Engine and read Lucas some books :-)
Just before I left for Haiti, Ted and I were able to hand in all remaining pieces to our Homestudy that we had any control over. Since we had everything done that was possible on our end, Holt set up times to send out our social worker. Barbara came out on March 10th and the 12th for our interviews and looking at the house. Since we've done this before, and lots of positive changes (stay at home Mom, Dad finishing medical school, we live somewhere that doesn't have "stairs of death"....) we weren't really worried about passing as much this time ;-) Everything went great, and Barbara was wonderful. She is working on the final written documents of our Homestudy right now, and we anticipate that to be done in the next week or so. Even after it is finished, however, there will be some time of sending it around to various places to get signed and then it heads to Holt's corporate office to be fully accepted by the Ethiopia staff.
While they are doing all of that, we needed to turn our attention to finishing the dossier- which is Ethiopia's stack of documents that they want. This includes things that were in our Homestudy, along with a few other random pieces. We're done with a little over half of it... and the rest of it is quite doable. This week we are trying to wrap up documents that needed to be created by us, and next week I will have to run around getting stamps on a few different things. I still need a notarized letter from the police, Ted's birth certificate from Minnesota to come back, my letters of recommendation back from a couple gals, a listed statement of benefits from Ted's HR dept (notarized of course and on their letterhead), and a bunch of random documents that Ted and I have to create, notarize, and have state authenticated. It's just nice to be able to look at my list and at least understand what there is left to do.
Things got a little interesting in the Ethiopia adoption front this week. I'm going to be vague, only because there is no reason for great alarm because we don't have enough details to be alarmed yet. Basically, due to a few incidents over in Ethiopia of people coming to get their child only to find out that their agency had lied to them (ie: their child was severely disabled but the agency had said they were healthy, or children being years older than their agency had said they were). The result of those indiscretions has resulted in the Ethiopian government issuing a statement that now all adoptive parents need to be present for court to testify that their child is their child as they were told it would be. Let's be positive- Ethiopia cares about their children that they want to ensure the correct placement and they are willing to step up the game to protect all parties involved. That is GOOD. It also means that we can get the same time of visa that we had for Lucas which makes things much easier when you get home. Oh...and then there's that little tid bit of spending time with our baby when they are a bit younger and more picture opportunities! The bad? Plane tickets to Ethiopia aren't cheap... and people in Ted's position at the hospital can't "just take vacation time" like most working adults. The man can barely get any sleep or come home, let alone leave the country for an undefined period of time.
We don't know yet just how interesting this will get. This news is fresh from the adoption headlines and our agency is really scrambling to get us all answers. There are a lot of dossiers sitting there ahead of us in Ethiopia right now... and those folks will have to do the same thing before we do. Many of them are in more difficult places than we are.. in that they have more children at home to find childcare for. In our situation... 2 of the 3 members of our family are easily portable and it doesn't cost anything for those 2 people to be away... it's just our breadwinner that we worry about :-)
IF only one of us has to travel to testify at court- we are only looking at an addition $2,000 of cost, if we both have to, it will be more like $3,000 more. If we both have to be fully present both times.. and each time for awhile... then the Sibley family may need to take a break from this process for a bit to re-assess the finances. Will that be hard? Yes... BUT we will not lose all sanity in the pursuit of another child so as to take on so much debt that we can't feed the child when they come home. At this time, we are cautiously optimistic... and have decided to just work on our dossier in our own sweet time.. and instead of rushing to get it there as fast as possible, we will just work on it as we feel like working on it. If and when we do have to go for the court appointment, it will be 6-8 weeks or so after referral.. and we aren't really expecting a referral until late summer or early fall... so this is all a ways off and not worth panicing about.
In the meantime, we continue to pursue God's will in all of this and HIS direction. HE will bring our 2nd child home when HE sees fit. He is the God of all orphans and the God of all money. He is the giver of grants, donations, and low interest adoption loans... and this is in His hands. The more I remember that, the more peace I have, and the more I enjoy this fantastic life that He has given me.
And now, it is time to turn off Thomas the Tank Engine and read Lucas some books :-)
Friday, February 19, 2010
Homestudy Update
Hello everyone!
So yes, we are prepping for baby. We weren't trying to be all crazy buying the 2nd crib early, it was more just an opportunity of having the money and being near an Ikea store in Minnesota so that the cribs will match :-) They still had Lucas' model at a nice price! I have such attractive models!
I have been meaning to get on here and let you adoption folks know how the homestudy is going :-)
So here is the deal. After being accepted in the middle of December and me being gone in Minnesota (and thus unable to sit down and make a huge mess and get organized) we really didn't get cooking on things until the first week in February.
I am returning to this process as a "more seasoned" veteran that somewhat knows what is important and what is expected. Would it be easier if I was in the same state with the same agency and the same country requirements as we used with Lucas? Yes. BUT.. all of the same pieces are generally there with roughly the same process.
The good news is that all of the things that require processing time are gone and "cooking" ie: Mn background checking, MO background check, FBI fingerprints, and recommendation letters.
We had to get 6 medical letters this time rather than 2 for Colombia. Ironically, MY letter gave us the most trouble! Will NOT be seeing that primary care physician again.. will be switching to Ted's. I almost got up and walked out from her visit. I almost wanted to send her a cautionary letter that giving your long winded opinion about why the adoption process is so annoying for physicians is not a way to make a good impression on a woman who won't be conceiving babies anytime soon. NO ONE wants to be the person standing in between an adoptive mother and completed dossier without a good reason (and I am the healthiest 28 year old woman imaginable. I kid you not). I expect the occasional issue in this process, but MY health was not one I was prepared for. If she had concerns it would be one thing.. but it seems she just wanted to complain about the system. As if I DON'T struggle with wondering why I have to get my children in this way???!! She just about saw my teeth. Don't worry.. I was courteous and thankful in the end. I understand that I come at adoption with emotional baggage other people aren't thinking about when they talk... but it took some will power. They also took 2.5 weeks to give me ANY info about my HIV screen that is required when Ted has his back in 2 days. Physicians: just examine me, voice any concerns you may have, ask me parenting questions if you would like, take a good look at my son as an example... DON'T grump and whine. If you don't want to be involved in this type of screening, say so, and I will gladly go elsewhere :-)
So.. long story in a nutshell.. our medical letters are finally done! We even obtained a written summary of care from Ted's oncologist from the 90's in Minnesota which is FANTASTIC.
The only thing left in the homestudy that we can control are our personal statements. Once all of those things get back to Holt, they will send out the social worker for a few visits for our interviews. Then we are done with that piece and will be finalizing our dossier that will require a few more documents. Immigration I600 stuff will be in there too.
If things stay on track of how I guess right now, we will be dossier ready by the beginnings of April roughly, which is a nice place to be. We aren't rushing this, because the sooner the referral, the sooner all of this money has to be ready to move, and referrals seem to be coming fast in the world of Holt these days. When we started this, we didn't think anything would be happening until spring 2011 and we were prepared financially for that type of scenario. Please pray for adequate time to be considered for grants (I can't apply till homestudy is done, but I can't accept a grant after I accept a referral... you see my predicament. Small window of time)
Please pray for God's timing to be evident to me as to when I submit papers. I don't want to rush things when they aren't supposed to be rushed. So we are going with the flow :-)
As is customary, I will leave you with a snapshot of cuteness. Lucas is getting more used to babies. He does a fantastic job. He points out babies when we're out and about. This was our first of many African American dolls you will be seeing in our household.
So yes, we are prepping for baby. We weren't trying to be all crazy buying the 2nd crib early, it was more just an opportunity of having the money and being near an Ikea store in Minnesota so that the cribs will match :-) They still had Lucas' model at a nice price! I have such attractive models!
I have been meaning to get on here and let you adoption folks know how the homestudy is going :-)
So here is the deal. After being accepted in the middle of December and me being gone in Minnesota (and thus unable to sit down and make a huge mess and get organized) we really didn't get cooking on things until the first week in February.
I am returning to this process as a "more seasoned" veteran that somewhat knows what is important and what is expected. Would it be easier if I was in the same state with the same agency and the same country requirements as we used with Lucas? Yes. BUT.. all of the same pieces are generally there with roughly the same process.
The good news is that all of the things that require processing time are gone and "cooking" ie: Mn background checking, MO background check, FBI fingerprints, and recommendation letters.
We had to get 6 medical letters this time rather than 2 for Colombia. Ironically, MY letter gave us the most trouble! Will NOT be seeing that primary care physician again.. will be switching to Ted's. I almost got up and walked out from her visit. I almost wanted to send her a cautionary letter that giving your long winded opinion about why the adoption process is so annoying for physicians is not a way to make a good impression on a woman who won't be conceiving babies anytime soon. NO ONE wants to be the person standing in between an adoptive mother and completed dossier without a good reason (and I am the healthiest 28 year old woman imaginable. I kid you not). I expect the occasional issue in this process, but MY health was not one I was prepared for. If she had concerns it would be one thing.. but it seems she just wanted to complain about the system. As if I DON'T struggle with wondering why I have to get my children in this way???!! She just about saw my teeth. Don't worry.. I was courteous and thankful in the end. I understand that I come at adoption with emotional baggage other people aren't thinking about when they talk... but it took some will power. They also took 2.5 weeks to give me ANY info about my HIV screen that is required when Ted has his back in 2 days. Physicians: just examine me, voice any concerns you may have, ask me parenting questions if you would like, take a good look at my son as an example... DON'T grump and whine. If you don't want to be involved in this type of screening, say so, and I will gladly go elsewhere :-)
So.. long story in a nutshell.. our medical letters are finally done! We even obtained a written summary of care from Ted's oncologist from the 90's in Minnesota which is FANTASTIC.
The only thing left in the homestudy that we can control are our personal statements. Once all of those things get back to Holt, they will send out the social worker for a few visits for our interviews. Then we are done with that piece and will be finalizing our dossier that will require a few more documents. Immigration I600 stuff will be in there too.
If things stay on track of how I guess right now, we will be dossier ready by the beginnings of April roughly, which is a nice place to be. We aren't rushing this, because the sooner the referral, the sooner all of this money has to be ready to move, and referrals seem to be coming fast in the world of Holt these days. When we started this, we didn't think anything would be happening until spring 2011 and we were prepared financially for that type of scenario. Please pray for adequate time to be considered for grants (I can't apply till homestudy is done, but I can't accept a grant after I accept a referral... you see my predicament. Small window of time)
Please pray for God's timing to be evident to me as to when I submit papers. I don't want to rush things when they aren't supposed to be rushed. So we are going with the flow :-)
As is customary, I will leave you with a snapshot of cuteness. Lucas is getting more used to babies. He does a fantastic job. He points out babies when we're out and about. This was our first of many African American dolls you will be seeing in our household.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Belated Minnesota Christmas and visiting
Like I said when I first put up this blog, here are a few pictures of our time in Minnesota in January.
We spent New Years Day at Ted's parents back in Minnesota with his siblings, inlaws, and our niece and nephew.
Here are a few pictures of all of the craziness that exploded with our toddlers.
Ted went home on the 7th and Lucas and I spent the rest of the month visiting friends and family and doing some play dates!
My Mom also came up for an extended weekend. During that time, Lucas enjoyed some quality learning at the Children's Museum in downtown St Paul.
He should probably stop trying to run over his Grandmother with a bus.
Little boy with some big dinosaurs... or "roar"s as he calls them
And what trip to Grandma's house could be complete without a few rides around in the big red car. This is of ultimate importance.
We have been back in Missouri for about a week and a half and we are up to our EYEBALLS in Homestudy and preparation for Haiti. That will be the next post though :-)
We spent New Years Day at Ted's parents back in Minnesota with his siblings, inlaws, and our niece and nephew.
Here are a few pictures of all of the craziness that exploded with our toddlers.
Ted went home on the 7th and Lucas and I spent the rest of the month visiting friends and family and doing some play dates!
My Mom also came up for an extended weekend. During that time, Lucas enjoyed some quality learning at the Children's Museum in downtown St Paul.
He should probably stop trying to run over his Grandmother with a bus.
Little boy with some big dinosaurs... or "roar"s as he calls them
And what trip to Grandma's house could be complete without a few rides around in the big red car. This is of ultimate importance.
We have been back in Missouri for about a week and a half and we are up to our EYEBALLS in Homestudy and preparation for Haiti. That will be the next post though :-)
Monday, February 1, 2010
Erin goes to Haiti
That's right. I said it. I leave for Haiti on February 25th and will be there through March 2nd.
I will spare the details at this point regarding how I arrived at this decision.. because it's a wordy wordy thought process.
In a nut shell, I could not come to peace with writing a check (although I'm very thankful for anyone else who wrote a check!). I spent a lot of time praying for God to either take away the desire to go, or give me a tangible way that I could help that would give me some peace. My girlfriend Angie posted something that was right up my alley.
I will be going with The Global Orphan Project based out of Kansas City. They already had orphanages in Haiti outside of the capital and are now receiving many of the children coming from the capital that have been released from the hospitals or whose parents are lost.
I will be traveling with a team of 9 from Kansas City and will be working directly with the children during the time of trauma. Lucas will be with his Grandma during this time.
I am thankful to be in a position in life where I will be able to do this. Once the next baby comes home there will be no traveling for me sans-children for many years. It was the right time where I could leave without affecting the adoption and Lucas is at an age where I think he will be okay with Grandma for a few days.
Please pray: for my nerves (cause I'm scared), for my emotional health during and after, for the $1,750 to be raised, and for my safety getting in and out of Port au Prince.
Committing to this trip meant sacrificing some of the money we had set aside to start the adoption. We are trying to be faithful with every $1 that God gives us. We trust that He will provide when and how He wills.
There will be more fundraising details in the future, but for now please note the new "Donate" button at the top of our blog. We are attempting to raise $8-10,000 for Ethiopia from private donors, friends, family, and adoption grants. Please pray that God's will would be clear as far as timing and that we will be at peace regarding whatever He decides.
Since I hear a crying toddler that is my motivation to wrap this up. Thank you everyone for reading up on us!
I will spare the details at this point regarding how I arrived at this decision.. because it's a wordy wordy thought process.
In a nut shell, I could not come to peace with writing a check (although I'm very thankful for anyone else who wrote a check!). I spent a lot of time praying for God to either take away the desire to go, or give me a tangible way that I could help that would give me some peace. My girlfriend Angie posted something that was right up my alley.
I will be going with The Global Orphan Project based out of Kansas City. They already had orphanages in Haiti outside of the capital and are now receiving many of the children coming from the capital that have been released from the hospitals or whose parents are lost.
I will be traveling with a team of 9 from Kansas City and will be working directly with the children during the time of trauma. Lucas will be with his Grandma during this time.
I am thankful to be in a position in life where I will be able to do this. Once the next baby comes home there will be no traveling for me sans-children for many years. It was the right time where I could leave without affecting the adoption and Lucas is at an age where I think he will be okay with Grandma for a few days.
Please pray: for my nerves (cause I'm scared), for my emotional health during and after, for the $1,750 to be raised, and for my safety getting in and out of Port au Prince.
Committing to this trip meant sacrificing some of the money we had set aside to start the adoption. We are trying to be faithful with every $1 that God gives us. We trust that He will provide when and how He wills.
There will be more fundraising details in the future, but for now please note the new "Donate" button at the top of our blog. We are attempting to raise $8-10,000 for Ethiopia from private donors, friends, family, and adoption grants. Please pray that God's will would be clear as far as timing and that we will be at peace regarding whatever He decides.
Since I hear a crying toddler that is my motivation to wrap this up. Thank you everyone for reading up on us!
Homestudy in Process...
It has been a really really eventful week. Eventful enough to make my head spin and require some deep breaths so as to not panic.
I will keep this post only on the topic of Homestudy and Ethiopia adoption things for the sake of not overwhelming you my reader! I'll leave taxes, fundraising, and Haiti out of this one.
So for the majority of the month of January, Lucas and I were camped out up in Minnesota seeing family and friends. During our time there, we got some bulk emails from Holt both on the Homestudy (United States) front and also the Ethiopian program details.
Our process for this child will differ than Lucas' in that we will be working on the Homestudy and Dossier concurrently rather than one at a time. We found that we needed to get additional letters (signed and notarized of course) from some Dr's in Minnesota regarding Ted's cancer history on top of our regular letters for safety. It took a lot of phone calls and messing around, but these have all been obtained! Ted also saw his physician here in Missouri and got all of his documents (and HIV screen) taken care of. You would all be happy to know that Ted does not have HIV :-)
Now that I am home, it is my turn to do all such things. I go to the Dr tomorrow for all of my papers.
We have a slight predicament in that we need to obtain a Minnesota form for background checks. No idea how to get that yet. So far nobody in Minnesota wants to help out. Turns out I'll have to do some whining. Please keep this part in your thoughts that his particular piece of red tape will work out.
We will be scheduling one first round of fingerprints here in Missouri this week. We are hoping to have everything that we can control at least in process in the next few weeks. All of that has to be done and returned and cleared prior to our 2 visits with our social worker from Holt. We are really hoping to have all of these paperwork pieces done by the end of March. That is the current timeline we are shooting for.
For those of you who remember my posts on our old caring bridge website for Lucas, there were times of high stress and processing.. and times for sitting around waiting for stuff to come back.. and months of waiting for a referral. As overwhelmed as I am (and trying to figure out how I did this all before but don't seem to remember much of it now) I know there will be plenty of months later where we will just be here waiting for a referral.. and then waiting for court.. and then waiting for approval to travel.
We love you very much baby Sibley #2 :-) We think you might already be born or be born soon based on what we know of the children in the program and the wait. Be safe and we will get there as soon as God says its time :-)
I will keep this post only on the topic of Homestudy and Ethiopia adoption things for the sake of not overwhelming you my reader! I'll leave taxes, fundraising, and Haiti out of this one.
So for the majority of the month of January, Lucas and I were camped out up in Minnesota seeing family and friends. During our time there, we got some bulk emails from Holt both on the Homestudy (United States) front and also the Ethiopian program details.
Our process for this child will differ than Lucas' in that we will be working on the Homestudy and Dossier concurrently rather than one at a time. We found that we needed to get additional letters (signed and notarized of course) from some Dr's in Minnesota regarding Ted's cancer history on top of our regular letters for safety. It took a lot of phone calls and messing around, but these have all been obtained! Ted also saw his physician here in Missouri and got all of his documents (and HIV screen) taken care of. You would all be happy to know that Ted does not have HIV :-)
Now that I am home, it is my turn to do all such things. I go to the Dr tomorrow for all of my papers.
We have a slight predicament in that we need to obtain a Minnesota form for background checks. No idea how to get that yet. So far nobody in Minnesota wants to help out. Turns out I'll have to do some whining. Please keep this part in your thoughts that his particular piece of red tape will work out.
We will be scheduling one first round of fingerprints here in Missouri this week. We are hoping to have everything that we can control at least in process in the next few weeks. All of that has to be done and returned and cleared prior to our 2 visits with our social worker from Holt. We are really hoping to have all of these paperwork pieces done by the end of March. That is the current timeline we are shooting for.
For those of you who remember my posts on our old caring bridge website for Lucas, there were times of high stress and processing.. and times for sitting around waiting for stuff to come back.. and months of waiting for a referral. As overwhelmed as I am (and trying to figure out how I did this all before but don't seem to remember much of it now) I know there will be plenty of months later where we will just be here waiting for a referral.. and then waiting for court.. and then waiting for approval to travel.
We love you very much baby Sibley #2 :-) We think you might already be born or be born soon based on what we know of the children in the program and the wait. Be safe and we will get there as soon as God says its time :-)
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Post Christmas wrap up
Hello everyone!
I'll have to wait awhile to get the 2nd round of Christmas pictures posted, but I promise I will once I get back to my computer in Missouri.
Lucas and I are currently up in Minnesota with the in-laws visiting friends and family. Ted flew back to Missouri on Thursday to return to his rotation after his much needed week of vacation.
We got a call from Holt International yesterday letting us know that the Homestudy is now underway! Unfortunately, it will have to be slowed a little bit since I'm up in Minnesota and can't run around for the fingerprinting etc. We won't be able to get some of the pieces that require physical presence to get done until February. At this time, we're hoping to have the homestudy done by the end of March and be working on immigration.
Both Ted and I have already had our internal freak out about baby #2 being on its way and things are getting very "real" here. Like I told a girlfriend, we spent 5 years (or in my case my entire life that I can remember) thinking about a baby.. but we haven't given as much time thinking about our 2nd baby??!! Time to get in gear! Time to get excited!! But not too excited.. because its international adoption.. so we can only get SO excited as to be able to survive a loss. But, we CAN be excited about the day that our son/daughter is placed in our arms in Addis Abba, Ethiopia.
Until then, we will continue to ask for constant prayer for our child's birth parent(s), our little baby, and safety of our papers. We don't know what could be happening in these people's lives at this very moment on the other side of the world. They may be making choices or grieving and going through pain that I can't even imagine.
Please keep them in your prayers everyone :-)
I'll have to wait awhile to get the 2nd round of Christmas pictures posted, but I promise I will once I get back to my computer in Missouri.
Lucas and I are currently up in Minnesota with the in-laws visiting friends and family. Ted flew back to Missouri on Thursday to return to his rotation after his much needed week of vacation.
We got a call from Holt International yesterday letting us know that the Homestudy is now underway! Unfortunately, it will have to be slowed a little bit since I'm up in Minnesota and can't run around for the fingerprinting etc. We won't be able to get some of the pieces that require physical presence to get done until February. At this time, we're hoping to have the homestudy done by the end of March and be working on immigration.
Both Ted and I have already had our internal freak out about baby #2 being on its way and things are getting very "real" here. Like I told a girlfriend, we spent 5 years (or in my case my entire life that I can remember) thinking about a baby.. but we haven't given as much time thinking about our 2nd baby??!! Time to get in gear! Time to get excited!! But not too excited.. because its international adoption.. so we can only get SO excited as to be able to survive a loss. But, we CAN be excited about the day that our son/daughter is placed in our arms in Addis Abba, Ethiopia.
Until then, we will continue to ask for constant prayer for our child's birth parent(s), our little baby, and safety of our papers. We don't know what could be happening in these people's lives at this very moment on the other side of the world. They may be making choices or grieving and going through pain that I can't even imagine.
Please keep them in your prayers everyone :-)
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