Paper Preggers!

Our adoption agency affectionately calls all the paperwork that must be completed as part of the adoption process our "paper pregnancy" because it is laborious. It is tedious, exact, time consuming, and frustrating... Good thing God prepared me for this by having me be an auditor for 5 years! ;-)  Note: most adoption agencies refer to the paper part as "the paper chase."

No really, at first I must admit that I felt overwhelmed with the lists of documents we need to collect and obstacles to complete.  But as my very wise parents always told me when I was overwhelmed with all my make-up homework or piles of stuff messing my bedroom, just take it one step at a time - or as my wise hubby says "the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time!"

So, Monday I spent the afternoon getting my head around what needed to be done and going to the library to print applications for our birth certificates and social security cards and making copies of our passports.  After talking with my neighbor I realized it may be more effective to go the social security office, and today I spent an hour or so at the SS office waiting with my number - 95R - it was 82R (R for reissue) when I walked in. I quickly learned that there were several different "number lines." R for reissue and M or N got you a pass into the actual office behind closed doors, must be for some more personal issue. As I am a chatty and friendly person, I got to talking with the people around me who all did not share with me why they were at the SS office, but were intruiged that I was there to reissue our cards as part of an adoption process.  And when one couple saw I had an iPhone they requested directions to their next errand for the day and I happily obliged. I always like those random interactions with strangers, somehw they always remind me that we are all God's creation!

Once I arrived home I worked on writting both of our autobiograpies.  I know by definition and autobiography should be written by the person it's about, but this is not our first time writing them so I stole parts from his other autobiographies and pieced it together to fit this agencies questions.  We have other autobiographies from starting paperwork with another agency and deciding not to persue an adoption through them.

Much more to continue...

Dossier Packet Received

Our Family Coordinator, Christina, emailed us with our dossier information. We perused the 18 documents and honestly were a bit overwhelmed!  We will take it one step at a time, and luckily one of the documents puts everything in steps! :)

Home Study Packet Received

We received our home study packet this evening in an email from the NC Director of Social Services for AWAA. We have perused the 13 attached documents, but have been instructed to wait for our family coordinator to contact us this week to assist with getting our heads around it all!

Agreement

We signed and mailed the AWAA Agreement, Ethiopia Disclaimer, Client Grievance Procedure, and Client’s Rights and Responsibilities along with our first installment of the program fee.  Once Sara receives and processes it, we will be given a family coordinator and social worker.

We're In!

AWAA called tonight and said we are accepted into the Ethiopian Program!  We will be signing an agency agreement and making the first installment of the program fee this week.  We will be given a family coordinator who will work with us through the completion of our dossier (paperwork for international adoption) and a social worker who will complete our home study (interviews, home visit, etc.).  We are so excited!!

Dr's Note Received!

After a week of phone calls back and forth between my doctor's office and the adoption agency, the agency received the doctor's note!  Sara called me this afternoon to say she has the note, our application looks great, and she has put it on her director's desk for her sign off.  The director won't be in the office until Monday, so we will be waiting patiently over the weekend for our phone call Monday to say that we're officially accepted into the program!

Dr's Note Continued...

Jason and I had been anxiously awaiting notification that we were accepted into the program, so we called Sara to see what the status was.  Sara said she had not received the note from my doctor yet. I immediately called my doctors office to see what the hold up was and the nurse said she would have the doctor complete the note by Monday. We'll keep you posted!

Dr's Note

I spoke with the nurse at my doctor's office and they are going to fax over the letter I requested. I emailed Sara at AWAA to let her know that the letter was on it's way!

...To my surprise, she emailed me right back with a thank you for letting her know... I am guessing this is just the beginning of a great professional relationship with this agency! What a prompt response! Although I am not that surprised, as this agency is highly recommended and known for their caring hearts and family feel.

AWAA Contact

We received an email from AWAA's Intake Coordinator, Sara, requesting some clarification about my congenital heart disease and our child request. After giving her some background on my health, she said she would like a letter from my cardiologist briefly describing my condition, treatment, future health, and fitness to adopt. She also discussed our child request with me and said that at this time the agency does not place two unrelated children together unless there is 5 years between them in age and that it is rare to have siblings available both under the age of 4. She suggested we write our request to be two siblings under the age of 4 or a single child under the age of 1.

Sara said other then those two items our application looked great!

I called my cardiologist directly after talking with Sara and left a message with his office for his email address or for someone to call me back.

Application In!

After over a year of consideration, prayer, and discussion we finally decided to dive into the deep end of life and start a journey to grow our family. We have submitted our application to American World Adoption Agency (AWAA) along with a recent picture of us and the application fee. We will hear within 10 days whether or not we will be accepted to the Ethiopian Adoption Program. We have requested a sibling group with children between the ages of 0 and 2 or a single child between ages 0 and 1. We emailed or immediate family and those we listed as references on the application to share our wonderful news! Please pray we are granted acceptance into this program.