Monday, January 28, 2008

Home Study Complete!

Our Home Study is now complete. The ONLY things I'm waiting for with the Dossier is one more referral letter which is coming in my mailbox today and a Calif. document which will come in the mail tomorrow. Then, I meet with my agency to APPROVE it. I then drive it (ain't gonna mail something this important) to the Dept. of State which is here in the city and wait for it all to be CERTIFIED. Then we mail it to Washington for AUTHENTICATION. Then Washington mails it to Ethiopia............and we wait for a court date. Once we know a court date, which could take, I don't know, but guessing 4 to 8 weeks to get the court date???? We can then book our flights to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to meet our girls for the first time and never let them go!!

I'll keep updated as the steps grow closer. Our boys are still incredibly excited and worry that this may not really happen. It would absolutely devastate them should this not go through. But it will, not to worry.

David and I have many great ideas involved with the orphanage that the girls will come from, so we look forward to sharing them down the road. We are surely blessed!

9 comments:

Mitchell Mischief said...

Great job! I'm sure you have a feeling of one important step accomplished. It sounds like that along with the dossier are the most work other than waiting. I enjoyed reading the boys' blogs. They are wonderful little men.

Grace H. said...

How exciting! You've done a lot of work. Do you know what orphanage your girls are coming from yet? Thanks for sharing your process!

Lisa said...

Grace,
Most likely they may come from an orphanage called "Hope For The Abandoned" in Addis Ababa. There a 3 other orphanages that my agency looked at, but seems like the most have come out of this one. Good to see you pop your head in and say hi. Hope all is well with you.

lenore LoCascio said...

my husband, myself, and our 2 boys are also adopting from Ethiopia. It all began when i heard Melissa Faye Greene on NPR talking about her book. SHe said adoption is not the band aid to the problem, but a miracle to those children who are adopted. Good luck on your journey and welcoming you little miracles.

Lisa said...

Hi Lenore,
Thanks for your comment. I have that book too, just need to read it, while I'm in the waiting period which is just around the corner. Do you have a blog? I didn't see one with your name. Let me know if you do, it's fun to follow each other.

Shawn said...

Hi Lisa - Its Shawn from Boulder. Glad to see things are coming along well. Our homestudy was submitted last week and we should finish the dossier this week, other than getting some out of state docs certified, which hopefully won't take much longer. So we're right about the same place you guys are. Would be nice if we could all travel together!

Lisa said...

Shawn,
Well...you, Lory and myself are in exactly the same place. We should really try to travel together. I would absolutely love that. Even on the same flight would be great. Call me. I want you two and Lory and Dave to come to our house after the next class for coffee or whatever. We are at a very exciting point in this adoption journey!

Shawn said...

Unfortunately I have to miss the next training session, but let's plan for that in March. Hopefully we'll all have referrals by then!

Lisa said...

Shawn,
Meeting went well today at IAN. I'm driving my dossier stuff to Sect'y of State First thing in the morning, then picking up next day. I'm certifying my out of state docs, then next week the Home Study will be signed off on. It's all moooooOOOVing right along!