Homestudy

We met with our social worker last Wed. to proof read the home study. It was ALL about us. We had to make any corrections needed. The only other piece she needed was Dave's physical report. When we went in for our physicals a while back he forgot to go back in 48 hours later to have his BP test checked. He just kept forgetting but finally got it all done last week. Once she gets that she can send the HS to the state for approval.

Now there are other pieces we need for Bethany Christian Services to be able to send the HS onto US Citizen Imigration Services. So, we are cramming on our training which is the last step. Once it's off to USCIS it could take them 2 months to approve it. While we wait we will work on our dossier documents which will be sent to Ethiopia after USCIS approves us. We're getting there. . . YEAH!

Two days of training in Idaho Springs

We're home from two 8 hour days of adoption training. We were nervous about it cause he had to take Gabriel with us. He's fairly high maintenance compared to Liam at this age. He doesn't always nap well in other places. SO, we just didn't know how the weekend would go. Gabriel did fabulously well!! He napped in his pak'n'play in a little office during our training and never even cried before falling asleep. All the other couples loved him. He was a very good boy. We went back to the hotel and got A LOT of rest. We were all asleep by 9:45. I know, we are old fogies now. LOL We had a long week this past week with house sitting for some people and taking care of their three teenagers and 6 year old. We NEEDED the sleep.

The training was great. A lot of it wasn't very applicable to us as it was about domestic adoption and about getting a baby at birth. Things are very different when it's a domestic adoption vs. adoption international like us.

One big difference is whether or not you can meet the birth mom. With domestic you get to choose if you want it an "open adoption", "semi-open adoption" or "closed adoption". These terms refer to the level of involvement the birth mother will have in the life of the child. We learned that in a lot of ways it's a GOOD thing to allow some involvement. This minimizes your child growing up with hard questions and someday going to search for their birth mother. I think most of the other couples in this training came thinking they would want it as closed as possible but they left today feeling like openess is the best choice.

After this training I realized that it will be difficult that we may not know anything about our baby's birth parents. We may never know what they looked like, health history, their story. We may have no answers to the questions our little one might have. I know the Lord will work through those things and offer healing to our baby in other ways. He is good! He is in control!

We are SOOOO close to being able to finish our home study. We need to finish our online training (we should get it done this week), Dave needs to get back to the doctor for his BP test so his physical can be complete, we need to meet with our social worker one more time, and we need to read a book and write a short paper on it.

Email we received from our pastor

Greetings,
Came across this passage this morning in my sermon prep. Thought of you guys.

Rob

Ps 68:4-6

4 Sing to God, sing praise to his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds —
his name is the LORD —
and rejoice before him.
5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
6 God sets the lonely in families,
he leads forth the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.
NIV

Pray of the Ethiopia program

So, we heard from Bethany Christian Services that there are some worries about the program. I guess a lot of the American families are taking their new Ethiopian babies/kids out shopping and staying in hotels while in Ethiopia and Ethiopian citizens aren't happy.

Given that the vast majority of American and European families adopting from Ethiopia are Caucasian or other non-black, the adoptive families and their Ethiopian child are easily distinguished and are often a point of curiosity among Ethiopian citizens. Understandably, due to misconceptions about adoption some Ethiopian citizens even look upon American and European adoptive families with suspicion. Cultural differences in parenting and child behavior are contributing to this suspicion.

It's a cultural thing so I don't totally understand it. The locals are complaining to the government. So, Agencies are asking that adoptive parents stay in guess houses and not take their babies/kids out in the local shopping centers. Some families are not following these recommendations and are jeopardizing the program.

Please pray that this will get worked out, that families will be sensitive to the culture and that the program will continue to thrive. They are expecting over 3000 adoptions out of Ethiopia this year. That would be amazing for these kids who need forever families.

online training & thinking about my baby

sigh. . . it's a lot of reading. Dave and I have to do the training on separate computers but we're doing it side by side cause they recommend that. We had to print a bunch of articles that we're required to read and it's probably around 100 pages. The hard part is that they assume you know nothing about adoption. Since we've educated ourselves a lot so far most of the training is old news. So, it's a little tedious. I know it's important though so we press on.

I was thinking about our baby today wondering if he or she is born yet. Wondering if he/she is alive today, how are they doing? Are they in a good and safe place? Are they in the orphanage yet? I get so excited when I think about the first moment I lay eyes on God's gift to us! The day our baby is united to his or her forever family! What a glorious moment!!

Pacing the excitement

I remember our social worker asking me during my one on one interview if I was excited (about the adoption, obviously). Of course I said 'yes'. She then proceeded to tell me to pace myself. Right now a lot of the time line is in our hands. We're working on the Home Study training. We are doing a 8 to 10 hour online course and have finished maybe 20 minutes of it. It's tough because Dave's taking correspondence classes to get his Masters and it's hard for me to ask him to set aside that home work to do the adoption home work. So, I just don't know how long it'll take to finish. But then we also have a couple in person classes we have to take. We need a total of 24 hours. I don't know if that'll be in town or in Denver. Who knows. Anyway, my point it that right now we have a little control. Kendra reminded me that once the dossier (all the paper work) is sent to Ethiopia then it's out of our hands and only God knows how long we'll have to wait. So, I must pace myself. I want to keep posting on this blog but I just don't have any news. I must keep my head above water or I might go crazy.

people who get excited with me

Today I got to talk with a few friends about the adoption. They hadn't heard the news so they were excited and asking a lot of questions! I can tell when someone asks questions because they are simply unsure of what else to say or how to react. These dear friends were very obviously thrilled and asking questions only because they truly wanted to know the details. Numerous times they said they were so happy for us and thought it was wonderful. I need to talk with people like them to keep my spirits lifted. It's so different when my belly isn't growing. People don't 'notice' when we make progress towards the day we are united with our baby. Some people just have a hard time grasping the 'why?' in our choice to adopt. No one ever asked us, "why did you get pregnant?" when we announced Liam or Gabriel were on the way.

grace

please make sure you've read my post on October 5th otherwise this one will not make sense. :-)


Yesterday in church there was a couple visiting from Kenya. They are staying with Thom and Shari who are the ones who started the orphanage in Kenya. Keith, who's American, shared some prayer needs. He introduced his wife. Her name is GRACE.

home study interviews

Dave and I had our one on one interviews with Kendra today. Painless. She asked a lot about our childhoods and our siblings and parents. I felt like I was just telling a story. Anyway, the crazy thing is that she is going to give our home study approval for TWO. Yes, that would be two kids if twins might end up needing a home WE would have the option of adopting two without having to go back and do everything over again. This is what she said, "You never know what God has in store for you guys."

First meeting with the social worker

WOW! We just got done meeting with our social worker, Kendra. She was a very nice lady and very excited for us. We thought this meeting was just to talk about what would happen during the home study. Well, we're in the middle of talking about 'why Ethiopia", 'what age child', 'family traditions', 'square footage' etc when she says "we'll go ahead and do the inspection today and then we should only have to meet two more times. WHAT? we felt there was a lot of things we needed to get done before we were comfortable with having the inspection done. So, we warned her that there were a couple things we knew we needed to do (put up a banister in the stair case and get fire extinguishers). She was so cool about everything and just told us to get them done soon. i asked if she'd need to come back to check on us and she said, "nope." Then she told us the only other things we need to do as far as her involvement is concerned is for both Dave and I to meet with her one on one for an interview. We set up both interviews for THIS Monday! Then we're done with our social worker. Isn't that incredible?! We still have to do our 8 hours of online training and I think there's a couple classes we need to attend before the HS is approved. Bonnie thought we might be done by the end of Nov. but at this rate we could be done a lot sooner.

YEA!!

hmm . . .

As you know, we are not requesting a specific gender. We know God has a baby for us and just like with Liam and Gabriel, it wasn't up to us what gender our kids would be. We had a girl's name picked out when we were expecting Liam. We changed our minds and picked out a new name when we were expecting Gabriel. We also have a couple other boy names picked out. However, we have NO idea if we'll even want to use these names as our baby will probably have a name. I know a lot of people will change the baby's name to an American name, others might give them a new first name and make their given name their middle name. I don't know what we'll do. I don't think we'll even be able to think about that until we see a picture of our baby and know the gender and name. However . . . a very dear friend gave me this black angel as a gift today. It brightened my day (after my last post). Adoption is dear to her heart too. Anyway, as I walked over to my wall (where I display all my Willow Tree figurines) I looked at the bottom of this angel. It is called "The Angel of Grace". Hmmm, Grace? I looked at Dave before placing the angel in it's spot and said, "Maybe this is a sign. Maybe our baby is a girl and we should name her Grace." Dave smiled and said, "I like that name."

An update on my heart condition

I don't have any news. As I shared the home study starts next week. That's exciting. I just have been struggling a bit with my emotions. We decided not to share the news with Dave's family until we can do it face to face which will be in December. I imagined a huge announcement and a million friends and family over joyed with us about this whole adoption. It's been anticlimactic to say the least. A lot of people know but not everyone. I think we'll start to share with our small group and my ladies Bible study as now we're getting into where we'll need prayer. But I am reluctant for some reason. God laid adoption on our hearts and most people don't have the same passion about it that we do. I am trying to prepare myself for a lot of "whys" and a lack of enthusiasm. I am praying that somewhere through out this journey we'll run into someone who is SO stinkin' excited for us that they read this blog religiously and ask us about the journey on a regular basis. May God bless my heart with that. I have been feeling a little lonely in this whole thing for some reason. Don't get me wrong, Dave is super excited about it but I am doing everything. I make the phone calls, fill out the paper work etc etc. He's working full time and taking correspondence classes. He has no time to dedicate to the adoption stuff right now. Which is ok, cause I can get it done. But I find myself thinking about it all the time knowing Dave (and everyone else in my life) has other things consuming their thoughts.

Anyway, there's my heart right now. Please pray for me.