So as time goes by and the adoption progresses, I’ve been getting more and more excited. It feels like a pregnancy, minus the physical uncomforts (yay!!).

And since we’re going to try and get a girl, my mind turns pink…pink ruffles, dresses, shoes, dolls, books….etc.

Oh, dolls….*sigh*

I decided to get this girl a doll. A little black dolly she can carry around and sleep with. And I’m picky…don’t want a hard-body one, or an eat-&-pee doll…just a cute soft little doll.

It’s not been easy. We don’t live anywhere near a Toys R Us, so I decided to look at Wal Mart. NONE! NO black dolls. Yes, they have Barbies, but no dolls. I decided to order a Cabbage Patch doll when the time comes. Very cute.

Last week I tried looking in the local book store for books…same problem. It’s hard to find a book centered around a black/African girl. I think I’ll have to go to a city (D.C. or Baltimore) to a big bookstore to find what I want.

I know there’s no way I can put myself in my future daughter’s shoes every day, but I’m beginning to get a taste of what our future will be like.

We got a call from our home study agency that all our paperwork made it safely…the last 2 documents needed to be sent by other people, and those ones took the longest.

So, next week we have our first appointment and phase 2 begins!! We have an office visit, just Paul & I. I’m a little nervous, but it’s more a nervous-exictement. I don’t think we have anything to worry about (hopefully!) so there’s no fear in the situation. Just ready to go!!

I don’t think we’re going to make the 2-week-mark (see previous post) but that’s ok.

Today I was thinking about names. It’s a bit of a debate in the adoption world about changing a foreign adopted child’s name…and in our case, Ethiopian names can be complex! So the thing is, do we change her name to be “American” or let her keep her name and her “heritage”?

We’ll probably do both. Heritage and background are very important to us. Even before adopting, we’re both interested in our genealogy and traditions. And we want this child to have hers. We don’t want her to grow up missing a piece of herself, we want her to feel as though both halves are fulfilled.

It depends on her age and name. If she has a more complex or hard-to-pronounce name and is very, very young (like under a year) we’ll probably change it to her middle name and give her a new first name. But if she’s older (2 yrs old) obviously we won’t want to disrupt her life more than what we’ll be doing already. We’ll probably give her an easier name for a middle name and use her first name or find a nickname.

And if she has an easy name (Amara or Desta are common) then we’ll stick with it!

So many “IF” scenarios.

I got an interesting e-mail yesterday. Our adoption agency asked how far along I was in our dossier…I told her we only need a couple more things (which I hope to get this week) and then the home study interviews.

She said great, is there a way we could finish within 2 weeks…2 WEEKS!?! It normally takes 3 months! The reason she’s asking is she’s traveling to Ethiopia and it would be easier/faster if she could take our dossier with her for authentication and acceptance.

So I forwarded the mail to our home study agency and hope to hear today. I’m expecting to read, “Less than 2 weeks? It takes 3 months, a month if we really push it. Impossible. Sorry.”

But I’m hoping I read, “Wow, that’s really tight and it’s gonna be tough, but let’s try.”

This could shave 2-4 months off our adoption and could make having a baby by Christmas a reality!

So I’m a little nervy until I get the news…expecting a no, but SOOO hoping for a yes!

Yay!!!

Tomorrow morning I’m going to the post office to mail off our paperwork for the home study. I’m so excited to be done with that! The stack of paper ended up being 2 inches thick

“On to the next!”

We decided to send for our dossier guide…the paperwork that goes to Ethiopia for the government’s approval.

Wanna see how fun it is? Surprisingly enough, it’s less than we had for the home study. We are accepting volunteers to do this for us

• letter indicating why we want to adopt (done)
• birth certificates for both parents (done)
• marriage certificate (done)
• “good conduct” clearance letters for both parents, notarized by police department
• medical report for both parents, signed and notarized by dr (done)
• 2 home study reports
• letter of employment verification (notarized by employer) (this week)
• letter from bank indicating good standing (notarized by banker)
• letter from life insurance company
• letter from health insurance, indicating policy for adoption coverage
• 3 letters of recommendation from friends/family, signed and notarized by friends/family
• obligation of adoption-reporting, notarized
• verification from United States Citizen and Immigration Services with approval to adopt
• passport photos (done)
• photocopies of passports
• power of attorney; 3 copies, signed and notarized
• copies of past 2 years tax returns (working on it today)

Yesterday, Paul and I read wonderful news.It’s spreading like wildfire through the adoption community.

“Specifically, the provisions contained in the health care bill include:

Please check out my new page, ” Fundraiser FHE Chart”….and even better, order one

(yes, I know that was shameless, but I had to!)

So tomorrow Paul & I are going to go get our FBI & state fingerprinting done.

We have to clear the background check, which won’t be any problem at all. Paul’s had so many security clearances done and they’ve checked me out, being his wife. Plus there’s nothing terribly interesting anyway

This is the last of the home study big stuff…all we have left “to do” is the dr visits. Paul has to get a couple papers signed from work (verification of employment) then we can send stuff in.

I’m glad this part is close to done…of course, then we just move on to 2 more sets of stuff like this

Other than that, nothing new.

Sooooo….we finally heard back from the adoption agency! They accepted our application…exciting and nerve-wracking.

Our home study agency is great, too…lots of paperwork, but they’ve been very gracious about all my questions

We’re almost done with the home study paperwork…we’re waiting on a doctor’s appointment and some birth certificates to come back, driving records & marriage license to come back. And we have to go to Baltimore to get some fingerprinting done. But I hope to be able to do that soon. And when that’s all in and done, we mail the paperwork back to the home study agency and then we start our dossier with the adoption agency and the visits from the home study.

Crazy but fun

So to raise money for the adoption, one of the things we’re going to do is hold a yard sale. Paul said I can sell what I want (Yay!!) so the baby boy clothes and all the baby stuff is going.

We told the agency we want a girl under 2, but are a little flexible, so I’m pretty sure we’ll get a baby that’s not quite a baby anymore

It’s going to be in May. We’re going to talk to friends to see if they have anything they want to get rid of…they can donate it to our sale. So far we have a friend donating a couch, and 2 others said they have stuff for us. This way we’re helping people get rid of things they don’t want anymore, and we’re getting help without asking for money…it’s a win-win!

It’s very exciting to see it all beginning to fall into place!