A Different Road

I can't believe it has almost been a year since my last post! Our Ethiopian adoption has slowed down to an incredibly discouraging pace. If it were because no children needed homes, that would be fantastic. It is due to corruption in the system and a need for more regulation. I never could have guessed this process would take this long!

A few weeks ago, a friend called us to say that her dear friend's daughter is pregnant and wanting to find a couple to place the baby with through adoption. We were floored. After the phone call, we looked at each other and thought "Why would we not check into this further?". It immediately felt like we were abandoning the Ethiopian journey and I didn't like that part. Everything else though, screamed 'this is it'!!!!!

We met with the birth mom and her mother for lunch and immediately sensed that this was going to be a good match. We have since joined with an adoption agency that deals with this type of situation and things have been rolling along ever since.

The birth mom has the right to change her mind at any time until 10 working days after signing over her parental rights. I feel myself worrying about this but then I realize that her changing her mind to parent would hopefully be in the best interest of the baby and I just have to trust that God is in control of this whole thing.

It seems difficult to reign in the gifts and celebrations for us and the baby. I have decided to just accept them and trust that there will be a little one to fill all the adorable little clothes and swing, carriers, strollers, etc. I am so completely touched by all of the people we know who are celebrating with us!

If all goes through the way we hope, we will be throwing the biggest celebration party that will rival our wedding reception!

As for Ethiopia, we have put that process on hold and can pick back up where we left off if we so choose. I'm not sure what we will do right now, but I can tell you that my heart still longs for that little boy/girl. God has brought the country into our minds and prayers and I hope that it stays there.

Inspiration

I have been so impressed by other people's blogs! I need help in sprucing ours up a bit and making an effort to post more. If anyone has any great tips, please do share!

Friday morning, we get to drive into St. Paul and wait to do our renewed biometric fingerprints. I hope we don't have to wait as long as we did last year.

Craig and I have become friends with another couple adopting from Ethiopia and that has been a wonderful connection. Through these friends, I got to meet two lovely women from Ethiopia that are now living in the US and going to college here. They were so warm and encouraging to us. It is just great to be able to expand my horizons a bit!

Well, that is all for now. I am going to try and learn how to add some flare to this page.

Re-Fingerprinted and Updated

We got our third set of fingerprints done today. We will have 4 when all is said and done. Since it has been a year since our last sets were done locally, we had to do them again to do a background check. This is to make sure that Craig and I have not gone on any crime sprees since the last check (we have not).

We also had a conference call with our social worker to update our homestudy since that has also been over a year ago. The call took 18 minutes so it was way less than I expected. This was mainly to make sure nothing major has changed since last year ( nothing has thankfully). I feel relieved to have both done with.

Our new estimated wait time is 8-11 months for a referral from right now. Our social worker said to go with the long estimate so that we may be happy if it is less. Was hoping for a referral in 2010 but it may well be 2011 for it to come.

So, we just keep moving forward. As we like to say around our house now, we are one day closer than yesterday to meeting Baby Porter!

Spring and New Beginnings

We have just passed our one year mark of waiting at the beginning of this month. Lots of changes have been occurring in Ethiopia. It is now the most popular country to adopt from - leave it to us to jump on the bandwagon unknowingly. We will now be required to take two trips to Ethiopia instead of one. This news came as a little bit of a shock to me but I am actually looking forward to the two trips after letting go of the worry.

I have not received any updates on our wait time but if it hasn't changed, we have another 5-6 months before receiving a referral. I am bumping that back in my mind to another 8 months to play it safe.

Work on the nursery has begun! My sister is painting a mural and works on it little by little each week. It is going to be amazing! I am hoping that it will help me feel more attached to this process.

We so appreciate your prayers. I continually need patience and to remember that God's timing is perfect. Prayer for this child and their birth mother are always great. I had a dream recently that we met our child for the first time (it was a girl!) and I woke up feeling so happy. I am thankful for these little gifts from God as encouragement.

...and still waiting

Wow, it has been awhile since my last post. We are now entering our 7 month of official waiting time and I must admit that it has gone fast. There is not much to do but wait patiently and I feel like God has been giving us the patience needed. I am ready to start on the nursery but need some input from talented family members.

Good friends of ours just got their referral for a baby girl in Korea which made me think of this blog. I am very excited for them and their referral reminded me just how real this whole process is and that soon enough, we will be shouting out the same news. I'm a little envious but know that we must go through this time. Going by the current wait times, we have another 9-10 months of waiting ahead of us. That will help make the cold mid-west winter go by.

We are hoping to take a trip somewhere warm this winter as a celebration of our 10th wedding anniversary this coming year and also as a 'this may be the last chance in awhile' sort of trip. I have discovered that I am not much of a blogger so I apologize for not having many updates.

We are hosting our cooking club get-together next weekend and we picked Africa as the theme for the meals. Craig and I will attempt an Ethiopian dish along with Injera, an Ethiopian pancake-like bread that is very commonly eaten with most meals. I hope we can pull it off! Until next time...

Fingerprints

We go this week to get our fingerprints done on the national level.  I guess last time was just for the local area.  This is for immigration for the baby.  

Hard to believe but this is our last thing on our list (that I know of) besides getting some appointments to get the shots we need to travel to Africa.

So looking forward to updating this blog with our referral and photos!

Childcare 101

Craig and I attended a baby care class this past Saturday at Children's Home Society.  It was nice to be amongst other first-time parents-to-be.  I can't say that we learned anything that we hadn't heard before or that we won't figure out on our own but maybe that was an important lesson in itself.  The best part of the class was imagining myself bathing our baby or feeding them, etc.  

A friend of ours works with a man from Ethiopia who I have gotten in contact with.  We hope to make plans to meet he and his wife in the near future.  This will be such a great thing for us as he said he is very happy to tell us about his country and answer any questions.  He thinks it is great that we are adopting a baby from Ethiopia.  It has been awesome to see the support and we both appreciate the encouragement.

We just got to review our home study report and it is kind of strange to see your life wrapped up in a neat little document but our social worker had some really kind things to say about us.

Boy, does it feel good to be on the other side of the paperwork!!!!