Sunday, July 25, 2010

Nothing super exciting, but an update nonetheless :)

Hi Everyone!!  Just wanted to leave a quick note about what's going on with us and the adoption process.  We are waiting for our home study to be finalized, which should hopefully be any time now.  We have both completed our 8-hour online training, which is a requirement for the process, and have a long list of suggested books and articles to keep up busy!  Our social worker has given us quite a list of names of other families who are currently in the adoption process or have completed adoptions through Ethiopia, so our resource bank keeps growing, thank you Lord!!!  All of the people that have reached out to us have been amazing!!
In addition to our own process, we are also getting involved with the Adoption and Orphan Care Ministry at our church which I am really excited about.

That's all I have for now.....more to come :)

Monday, July 12, 2010

Our first baby gift!!!!

Yay!!  We had an awesome time with my parents, my sister and her husband, and my nieces this weekend at Double JJ and we received our first baby gift!!!  My parents got us an adoption baby book!  The book allows us to track both pre- and post-adoption information and all the milestones in between.  Such a cool book to have, I am so excited to start filling it in!!!! :)

Monday, July 5, 2010

Update on the home study

We are just about finished with the home study.  We had our fourth and final meeting with Ann last Tuesday.  Now, Ann uses all the information from our visits and our formal application to write up a report to send to immigrations and Ethiopia.  Ethiopia will then use the home study as the primary tool to match us with our child.

The next step, which we will take in the next few weeks, is to finalize the home study and begin filling out all the immigrations paperwork.  In addition, we are currently completing a training series that is required for all intercountry adoption families by the Hague Organization which regulates most intercountry adoptions.

It feels more and more real every day and we are so excited to keep moving with the process!  Hopefully, we will have more information soon!!

Laura and Kevin