The Stamp of Approval

Our adoption agency has now received all of our necessary letters of reference and we have also completed the interview at our agency...therefore we can say that we are now formally "approved"! We are doing the happy dance...however we thought we would spare you from that visual. So you may ask where do you go from here? When are you buying your airline tickets?

So here is how the process works:

1) First step is the home study. After gathering various documents (employment letters, medical reports, financial documents, our bios, criminal background checks) a social worker will come to our house to interview us. The social worker will write up an 8-10 page report, which is called the "homestudy", and consists of who we are and how we have prepared ourselves for the adoption. Average time to complete: 2-3 months

2) After the homestudy is finalized we send that and an application to CIS/INS to request approval to bring an orphan home from another country. Once we get our "CIS approval/I-171H" form we will then gather the documents listed above, including the homestudy, and several more to create our "dossier". Average time to complete: 1-3 months

3) Our Dossier will be sent to the Ethiopian Embassy and then on to Ethiopia for review. This is when our "official wait" begins to receive a referral. Average time to complete: 4-6 months

4) After we receive our referral then we wait about four months before we travel to Ethiopia. During this time our paperwork goes to court in Ethiopia. We will then be in Ethiopia for about two weeks before returning home with our beautiful child.

As you can see there are several steps along this journey. A couple days ago I discovered a quote that has now become one of my favorite quotes: "Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." -Harriet Tubman