Dossier Waiting List

The way our agency does the waiting list is by numbering dossiers as they arrive in Ethiopia. This gives us some idea as to the number of families in front of us. Not all families in front of us are requesting the same age/gender of children.  In the past month our agency has referred 7 children to 7 families! We know the timing will be perfect for our family!!!

Our dossier is currently #23!!!!!

Feeling overjoyed today!!!!

Very exciting day!!! Our dossier (paperwork) has made it to Ethiopia!!!!

We are finally on the waiting list!!!!!!!!!! Now to pray for patience!!!

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you can live as you wish."

Mother Teresa

The Dossier

We sent our dossier today (to our agency rep)!!!!!!! Lots of hours of hard work are in that envelope:) It's exciting to send it off...one step closer to meeting our baby boy!!!

ETHIOPIA!!

Well, a lot has happened since our last post. To make a VERY long story short...over the summer our journey has changed directions. We are now adopting, with the same agency, from Ethiopia!!! We are so excited! Our hearts have been drawn to this region due to the extreme circumstances that devastate this area. Ironically our World Vision child (who we have supported for the past 7 years), Tesefenesh, is also from Ethiopia. This change has not put us behind any, we are actually moving along a little quicker. We now have USCIS (federal) approval, which is a big step. We are now working constantly on our dossier, which is a packet of notarized and certified papers that will go to the government of Ethiopia. We hope to have this complete in the next month or two. We wanted to thank everyone for their continued support and prayers as we continue with this process!!

http://www.westsandsadoption.org/ws/countries/ethiopia/transitional-home-guest-stay/

(Transition Home in Ethiopia where we would stay during our two, week long trips.)

Heartbroken...

It went very quickly getting the additional medical records from Taiwan. We had them by Monday morning and submitted them immediately to our adoption doctor, Dr. Staat. We knew we needed to act quickly because our agency rep informed us that the younger children (he's 6 months) do not stay on the lists long. She was able to get back to us hours later....with the worst case scenario. We knew that it was not even a question, we could not accommodate his condition. We were devastated. It is so hard to be emotionally involved and have to say no to a precious child! Our doctor was wonderful. She was able to give us comforting words. She too had turned down two separate referrals and has adopted twice. Adoption is not for the weak of heart! Thank you for all your prayers and support!!

11.1

Ok, finally an update! I wasn’t forgetting to write, we just haven’t had any interesting news:) It’s a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’.  We would like to ask our family and friends to pray for us this week. We have received a referral of an adorable little boy. We have sent his medical records to our Doctor (who heads up the International Adoption Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital) for review and have consulted with her yesterday. There are a few things we need more clarity on before we make an informed decision to accept this referral. This information needs to be requested from the orphanage. We are very anxious at this point. We are beginning to fall in love with this precious boy, but don’t know how many other families from other agencies are following our same path or if his medical issues are too great for our family. This is the time that we trust our “Forever Family” is in God’s hands! It’s just so hard not to become emotionally involved when dealing with children. We hope to get a little more information in about week. Please pray for wisdom, discernment, and peace!!

The Kiddos:)

Moving Forward

Our final interviews and home inspection is complete. The reports are being written and we also need to obtain records from Mississippi. Our Immigration paperwork (I-600A, Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) will be submitted along with one of the notarized copies of our home study. A copy will also go to our Agency in Alabama, in which we are adopting through. One is for the First Stage of our Dossier that will be sent to Taiwan and one is for the Second Stage Dossier, which will be hand-carried by us when we travel to Taiwan for our adoption.

However, the minutes leading up to our case worker coming to our home was all but fun! Expecting her at any minute, one of our smoke detectors went off, indicating a need for a new battery (working smoke detectors are on our home study checklist). Did we have that battery in stock at our house…of course not! Micah ran to the store only to come home to realize our computer didn’t work. This was important because a requirement was to have a home line in order to be able to call 911 in an emergency. We purchased MagicJack which is a cheaper way to have a home line, but it runs out of our computer. A picture then fell off the wall (nobody being near it) and in the final seconds Little Micah had a tantrum and ran up to his roomJ Our home is not usually that exciting!  Nevertheless, we made it through the next 3 ½ hours and we are moving onto the next step.

The other day, Little Micah brought up the idea of having a little brother. I think he got this idea from a book we read. He said if he had one he would take care of him and teach him many things. I told him it would be a good idea. He then, to my surprise, asked me if the baby would grow in my belly. I explained to him that this time instead of growing in my belly his little brother or sister would grow in my heart. That was the end of that conversation! Not sure what he thought of all of it, but we are beginning to plant the seedJ We also purchased a huge map of the world and posted it downstairs. Lit’ Micah is fascinated with geography….his imaginary cubs are from China, Russia, and England (sometimes Australia)! We will be putting markers of family and friends that were born all over the US and World….again preparing our kids' minds and hearts for our little one from Taiwan.

Cathwel Service Taipei, Taiwan

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers for our family!!! We'll keep you update.

Our Journey to Taiwan Begins...

We are continuing our family journey...this road leading us to Taiwan and leading us to our third precious Lyman baby!

I am by NO means a blogger, so I first attempted to start sending out emails when big steps in our adoption process took place. However, I then gave in and decided to start our family blog. I thought it would be a great way to help keep me journaling the process and organize our thoughts along the way. Here's the latest...

On January 23rd our case worker will be coming to our home to complete our HOME STUDY. She will stay for 3+ hours interviewing and looking in every drawer and behind every door:) We've checked a TON off the list so far to get to this point...LOTS of reading for our educational credits, autobiographies, parenting questionnaires, phone interviews, physicals, obtaining passports, having great friends complete references, filing for criminal, abuse records, lots of copying/notarizing and hours on the phone talking to agency reps...to name a few.  We have several more T's to cross and I's to dot this month. We truly appreciate your prayers and support throughout this adventure to bring our baby home!!! I also wanted to ask that you pray for the safety and protection of our little one as he/she is beginning this life without us by his/her side. It pains me to know that we cannot be there to kiss and hug our baby every day!! 

http://www.lifelineadoption.org/