**Update**

Found out yesterday that our dossier could possibly be on its way to Ethiopia in the next week! This is much, much sooner than anticipated. And for that, we are all very excited!

As for now, our dossier is in transit to Washington state (see post below.) Should be there by Tuesday. I'm trying not to track it every few hours!

A little obsessive, do you think?!? :-)

Nah...

Also, we changed our requested age. We have now requested a girl age birth-5 years.

A sweet lady at AAI informed me that we could possibly wait longer for an older child. That goes completely against what I have always thought. She said that the average wait for a girl age 18mo and up will be longer than for an infant. (An infant is a child under 12 months of age.)

I was told that the average wait for the request of a girl age infant-5 yrs is about 7-8 months. Could be longer, could be shorter.

So since we are not opposed to a baby (actually, the more I think about it, the more excited I get about having another crawler around the house!), we had our homestudy changed to the new age request.

We've had quite a reality check the last couple of days. This is really happening!

When I told Billie that our dossier could be headed to Ethiopia so soon, the first thing he said was, "we really need money".

Yup.

We lack about $14,000 or so to complete this. $6,500 for the Ethiopia program fee and the rest for travel and Ellagrace's visa. We're not worrying though. Yeah, it's a little nervewracking...especially if we recieve our referral as fast as Emily and Jay did...but what will we gain by worrying?

Not a dern thing. Not a minute, not an hour, not a day...and definitely NOT $14,000!

My job this coming week is to fill out and mail grant applications. If you know anyone that would be willing to donate frequent flyer miles, please let me know. I'm not sure how all of that works, but I'm more than willing to find out!

Thank you for your prayers and support. We treasure it all!

Dossier complete!

Our dossier is complete. Finally. All of the running around and notarizing and phone calls are done!

By 3:00 today, our dossier will be on a lovely brown truck being driven by a lovely man in a lovely brown uniform. On its way to the airport for its big trip across the country.

Whew.

I can equate this early part of the adoption process to the first 8 months of pregnancy.

All of the excitement thinking about this new life. A lot of work getting organized and prepared.

Clothing purchased...bedroom ready...name chosen...

I have a feeling that this next part is going to be like that last 4 weeks of pregnancy.

All of the anticipation. And then you still have to get through that last month.

It's long.

Very long.

Like the "begging the doctor to deliver you early because you can't handle being preggers one more day" kind of long.

That's what I'm anticipating.

You see, we are so excited about this new member of our family. We absolutely can't wait to feast our eyes on her face.

The waiting from here on out is going to be the hardest part.

But that's okay.

Because once the due date is here...all of the waiting...is worth it.

Here are a couple of photos from the last 2 days:

Dossier (laid out on our 6 person table)

Our family at the UPS drop off. (It was very difficult to hand this envelope over. Billie asked me if I would rather drive to Washington state and hand it over myself! I told him that that's not a bad idea...he just rolled his eyes. Seriously though, I almost made the man pry it out of my hands. I wanted him to understand the importance of what was in his hands!)

And it's off...

Our I600A is on its way to the Atlanta Citizen and Immigration Services office. Hopefully it will be there tomorrow.

What's next?

We wait for our fingerprinting appointment.

We get the appointment.

We wait.

We drive 2 hours to Atlanta to get fingerprinted.

We drive home.

We wait some more.

Eventually we will receive our 171H...this will allow us to bring Ellagrace back into the country as a United States citizen.

And that, my friends, will be a glorious day!

We covet your prayers and support.

Thank you!

A huge sigh of relief...

Today in the mail...I received...yes, you guessed it! Our homestudy report is finally in our hands! I am so relieved. I cannot even begin to explain the relief.

I'm so thankful that this part of our process is over.

Next step...mail our I600A form to Atlanta and await our fingerprinting appointment.

I'll have our dossier in the mail to AAI in the next few days.

Then we're about halfway there. We just need to pray that we get our fingerprinting appointment quickly. It could take us anywhere from no time up to a few months for that part of the process. I would love to have this part finished before Christmas.

After USCIS stuff, the wait for a referral begins.

This is really happening!

YIPPPPEEEE!

If you can't tell, I'm just a little excited! Why, you ask? Well, 30 minutes ago, I emailed the OK to our homestudy agency for our report draft. And that, my friends, is such a load off.

What's next, you may ask? Hopefully next week we will have 3 copies of the report in our hands. One report for AAI, one for the USCIS paperwork, and one copy for us. Our dossier is just about completed (with the exception of final notarizing, and a few more passport-sized photos) then we can mail off our end of the process.

Our I600A application will be mailed off to USCIS next week, as soon as we have our homestudy in our eager little hands.

Then the wait begins.

So that's all I know for now. I'll let you know what I know when I know it!

The end is in sight!

Well...the end of the homestudy process anyway! This part has taken longer than we expected. Like 3 months longer. I received an email this afternoon from our new caseworker. Bless her heart...she has been so bogged down with extra homestudies that she shouldn't have had to mess with...but praise the Lord, she's about done with ours! So after several phone calls to the DFCS office (those people are near to impossible) and a couple of visits (to DFCS) for our last paper, the light is getting brighter!

Hi Shana,

I have the DFCS clearance! Technically this is supposed to come from the DFCS office fax (rather than the family) so I will need the original one by mail. Please put that in the mail today, ok?
I am not about to ask you to have them fax it to us again under the circumstances.

I am off the hook for jury duty today. My plan is to finish your homestudy tonite – but I may have a few questions so if you can, please check your email periodically. I will email you if I have any questions. So, look for a few emails from me and/or a draft copy to review.

As soon as the draft is approved by you, I will print several copies and get them in the mail to you. Please let me know if they need to be notarized. Assuming Im on jury duty tomorrow, that may be hard for me to take care of immediately, so just let me know.

Thanks!
S****

I never thought I would be so glad to see anything finished. Of course, this just means that we're on to the next step of waiting! But that's okay...one down, a few more to go!

We're coming sweet girl!

Getting it together...

We are slowly but surely getting our home study together after the upheaval of our caseworker not being on the "case" anymore, if you will.

Just have to mail a few things to One World, then we can start wrapping this up. I'm so ready to be done with this part. It has definitely taken longer than we had originally anticipated.

I have to admit to a bit of concern over the next step. Once we turn our dossier in to AAI and send them a check for the first part of the international fee, the money that we have saved up will be gone. We are saving monthly for this endeavour, but what we are saving is simply not enough money as fast as we will need it.

So I said all that to say that once the dossier is turned in, our "security net" of having funds available is no longer in existence. We will be in a free-fall of God's grace and provision. And that reality is completely exiting and completely terrifying all in the same breath.

We've said from the beginning that this was a step of faith for us and our family. Never will that statement be more true than in the very near future.

We covet your prayers that all of our needs for this time will be met by the one that owns the cattle on a thousand hills. For all of this is His anyway!