Amazed...Anticipating...Anxiously Awaiting

For two years, we have been working and waiting for our children in Ethiopia - children we do not know, have never seen but to whom we know the Lord will lead us.  The first of three big days in international adoption are "referral day", the day the anxiously waiting family finally receives a phone call and email with the details and pictures of the child they have been matched with.  The second big day is the "pass court day" when the parents travel to (in our case) Ethiopia,and appear before the courts to formally and officially adopt their child.  Most families pass court on the first go-round, but sometimes more information is needed on the child to be adopted before the adoption can be granted.  The third and last day, often the most exciting and emotional, is the "Gotcha day!!"  On this day, the family has passed medical, received their child's Visa, and may now bring their child home from Ethiopia.   

On Friday I spoke with our case worker at the adoption agency about different financial concerns I had as well as questioned her about referrals given during Ethiopia's rainy season (Aug. 8-late Sept) when the adoption courts are closed.  She informed me that referrals are still received, approved, and given to families during that time but a Court Date cannot be made until after the courts reopen near the end of September.  So, once again concerned about the money, I replied, Okay, well that gives us a month or two before we will receive a referral to raise the money we need to accept it.  To my shock and delight she replied tentatively.. or a few days. (!?!?)  What?!?!  So after a little prodding on my part, she told me that the agency was about to receive more referrals to give out but she couldn't say anything officially to me until the children's files had been approved and released for referral.  But...she said...I will be calling you on Monday!  She did tell me that she didn't want to say too much and get my hopes up, but that it looked very much like a referral was coming our way.  

So, in true Lauren fashion,  I absolutely got my hopes up.  Come on, seriously, what did she expect! We have taken some drastic measures to be able to find the almost $14,000 we need to accept the referral, but by the grace of our most loving Father in Heaven, we were able to manage to gather all but about $500 of the total sum needed.  We also had some wonderful friends and family who were able to help us by contributing to our adoption fund.  I am so humbled and amazed by the goodness of God and the wisdom in his timing.  He has blessed us beyond measure to be able to build our eternal family through adoption.  We are so deeply grateful for our wonderful friends and family who have loved and supported us throughout the wait.  We still have a long journey ahead of us, but we have faith that the Lord will continue to help us bring our children home.  

Long story short?  Stay tuned...we might have some great news to share tomorrow!!  ...But don't get your hopes up!  :o)   

We're Number 1!! We're Number 1!!

Wahooo!!  After more than 19 months of waiting, we are FINALLY #1 in line!!  Well, at least we are first in line for a sibling group or twins, and first for a boy in our age range.  We are, however, fourth in line for a girl.  Isn't that amazing?  We could potentially receive a referral for a child or a sibling group in the next month or two!!  We are so thrilled, but we also have a lot of work to do.

If we receive a referral for twins or siblings, we will be required to wire the agency $13,860 in order to accept the referral and start the process to appear before the Ethiopian courts to formally adopt our children.  Here's the thing...our total adoption expenses will be over $35,000 and we can't do it alone.  I know our Father in Heaven will help us bring our children home, but we need your help too.  

See the link at the right to 100 Good Wishes...it links to our page where family, friends, and other well-wishers can send our children a good wish and make a small donation via Paypal to help us bring them home.  We are also applying for adoption grants and squeezing our budget to continue to put in as much of our own money as possible.  Thank You in advance for your loving support of our family and our children. 

If you are interested in the breakdown of adoption costs, there is a new tab at the top of our blog entitled Adoption Expenses, which will show you the first page of the financial agreement we signed with our adoption agency. 

One GIANT leap of faith

Matthew and I have always been filled with the desire to build our family through the gift of adoption.  In February 2010 we began investigating the process of adopting domestically and internationally...costs, time frames, process, etc.  We decided we would pursue international adoption in the beautiful country of Ethiopia!

We have now officially been in the process with our agency, Children's House International, for two years.  For the last 19 months we have been awaiting a referral.  A referral is a packet of information on a child that meets your adoption specifications for the child you would like to adopt.  A few days ago we increased our age range...yesterday we made a HUGE change. (In my opinion anyway).  After conferencing as a couple - via Skype messaging mind you - and after prayer and fasting we decided to change our child preferences to be as follows:

A girl OR boy between the ages of newborn and 2 1/2 years old, can be HIV+ and can also have minor correctable defects.  We are also approved and happy to accept a sibling boy or girl up to the age of 4.

What is so big about that you may very well wonder.  Well, we have been expecting to adopt a baby girl from Ethiopia for the past two years ...and perhaps we still will, but we felt like we needed to open ourselves up a little bit to allow the Lord to help us find the child intended for our family.  I must say, I am still very excited about this change even though it was a difficult one to make.  A referral could be right around the corner!!  Which of course means <gulp> we need to have at least $9500 ready in order to accept the referral, or more than that if we receive a referral for siblings.  I know God can work miracles, and we are about to need a big one.  

Just Keep On Moving

The process of adoption is filled with many unexpected road blocks for every family choosing to embark on the journey.  We, however, seem to enjoy taking the adoption "road" under perpetual construction with seemingly endless road closures and detour signs hindering the path.  

Did you know that each time you move, a home study update is required?  Yes indeed, it is true, and each home study update costs another big chunk 'o change out of the already withered wallet.  We FINALLY got our second home study update completed and approved today!!  (We have moved twice since our original home study was completed.)  So wonderful!  Except that just today we decided to shift the age range of our child up to 30 months instead of 18 months.  Alas, the home study update is now under way again.  

The good news is...we DID change our approved age range for a child to "newborn to 30 months (2 1/2 years)"!  Yay!!  We are waiting on a referral for a little girl in that range and many, many families just like us want a little girl too.  As a result, the wait can be veeeeerrry looooonng.  (We have been waiting 19 months.)  But as I said, we are excited about the change that we decided to make after careful consideration and prayer.  We know our Father in Heaven has His plan and timeline mapped out for us and our daughter.  Each day we are continually reminding ourselves that all will be well as we continue in faith.

Balance In All Things

I must apologize for my long absence and complete lack of updates over the past 1 1/2 months. My focus has been on supporting my husband in Ranger School, caring for our busy boys, and getting myself and my son ready for school to start. I know the importance of maintaining balance in all areas of my life and I admit, I have done far from that!

We have officially been on the waiting list for almost 2 months now and we have not as of yet heard anything. Our agency case worker, Patty, estimated our wait to receive a referral for a child could be anywhere from 3 to 9 months. While that sounds like a reasonable amount of time, it feels like years to me! We have been working on our adoption since January 2010 so we have already been over 1 1/2 years in the process. That being said, I firmly believe that God will bring us to our precious daughter when the time is right. He guided us to search for her in Ethiopia and now we must wait with faith and patience.

In the mean time, we must endeavor to raise the remaining money we need to fund our adoption to bring our daughter home! Remember, it costs almost $30,000 and we are $12,000 short. Hopefully by now most of our friends and family know, I am running in the Rock 'n' Roll Savannah marathon in November. As uncomfortable as it is for me to do this, I am asking friends and family to pledge a set dollar amount (or cents - whatever you can afford in this fantastic economy) for every mile that I complete of the marathon.

As a little incentive, for every $20 that you pledge and eventually donate when I dominate the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, I will enter your name into the raffle for a brand new pair of Vibram Five Finger Bikilas! The only question now is... can I pledge money and enter myself to win the shoes?? No? Are you sure?? ... Oh shucks, those are some awesome shoes! Guess you had better make a pledge if you want a shot at them for yourself!

Men's Shirts and a View of Amharic

This is a picture of the receipt we received from the Embassy of Ethiopia. I just thought it was neat because it has both English and Amharic - the most commonly used language in Ethiopia.

I made this shirt for my brother, Austin.

This shirt belongs to Matt. He preferred the white over the gold spray. The shirts I have access to for men are either white, gray, or black with either white, gold, or blue spray. I realize there isn't a huge demand for men's shirts but I thought I would post these in the event that someone wants one. Just let me know! Thanks again to all those who have shown us support by purchasing one of our adoption t-shirts.

Dossier Authentication: Step 3 of 4

Here I am, standing at the FedEx counter paying $68.43 for our original dossier and associated checks and money order to arrive at the Assistant Stork in Virginia by Saturday. I know that sounds crazy. Why would I pay to have it arrive at a business on a Saturday, you ask? Well, I spoke to Steve Morrison who runs the business with his wife and he informed me that if they receive it Saturday they will take it first thing Monday morning to the U.S. Department of State for authentication. He said they usually get it completed and returned the next day. Meaning, our completely authenticated dossier will be on its way to Children's House International by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.

Step 4: Children's House International sends the original authenticated dossier along with two notarized copies and one regular copy off to the Embassy of Ethiopia for final authentication and translation. Then we wait. And wait. And probably wait some more.

So....we will be waiting for what is called a "referral". We have to wait for all of the families ahead of us who have the same age and sex specifications for a child to receive a referral first. For example, our specifications are for a baby girl age range newborn to 18 months of age. She can also have a sibling boy or girl up to age 3 1/2. If a child like that enters the orphanage, then we receive a referral for her/them. A lot more happens once we receive and accept a referral but I will wait to get into that part.

As we wait for a referral, we hope to proceed with fundraising so that we can afford to accept a referral for two children. (Remember with two children, it is an additional $8000 - $9000). Total costs for one child range from approximately $29,000 - $32,000. While we have gone into this adoption planned and prepared, we just don't have that much money laying around. Also, as I noted in a previous post, the costs have risen since we started in January of 2010.

Keep a watch out, I will be doing more posts on our progress as well as some interesting posts about Ethiopia and its people.

Document Authenticated Step 2 - Done!

Wahoo!!! We received the Affidavit of Dossier and Power of Attorney back in the mail today!! They have officially been authenticated by the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. It was definitely worth the cost of having them shipped FedEx next day.

NOW...for Document Authentication Step 3 of the 4 steps. I need to take all of the dossier documents (about 35), make three copies, have each page of two of the sets notarized (about 70 pages), and send them off in two different directions. One original dossier (I have two originals) will be sent to the Assistant Stork in Virgina who will take them to the U.S. Secretary of State to be Authenticated for a nominal fee of $80 plus the U.S. fee of $16. Not bad, not bad at all. Two notarized copies of the dossier and one normal copy are also mailed to our international adoption agency who holds them until they receive the authenticated dossier back from the Assistant Stork.

Step 4...The final step!! Once all of the documents are received by Children's House International, they ship it off to the Embassy of Ethiopia with our $189.60 money order to be authenticed by them. Then we play the waiting game until we receive a referral for children matching our profile. Oh what a happy day that will be! We are getting so close now it is starting to feel real again. We started this process in January 2010 and at times it has felt as if we would never see the end of the tunnel. At last, we see a glimmer of light!

Fundraising T-Shirts!! Pre-Order now!

Hello, Hello Everyone! First, I apologize that it has been so long since my last post. Matthew and I had a very busy weekend but I am back now and I have some excellent news. The fundraiser t-shirts are here and they look amazing (in my not-so-humble opinion). I asked a friend to help me make these and so far they have turned out great. I am only posting pictures of one color tonight because it is after midnight and I don't have time to take pictures of all the other colors.

The T-shirts are 100% cotton Slub Scoop-Neck Tees from Aeropostale. We have used fabric paint to spray on an outline of Africa with a cute heart where Ethiopia lies. If you are interested, please let me know your color preference and size so that I know how many to buy and make up. Again, more t-shirt colors will be posted tomorrow. They are $20 each and if they require shipping (which most will for family), the shipping is $4. More to come on how I am going to take payments and also a sizing chart. Thank you and please, take a moment to let me know what you think or if you have any ideas for improvements or more ideas for fundraising!

**Variations do occur because they are all hand-painted.

Fund Raising

Just a note up front...this topic is very embarrasing for me because I don't like asking people for help, especially with something I feel like we should be able to do on our own. As I said in a previous post, we did pay off our debt and save up just over $10,000 for the adoption. Unfortunately, adoption costs for Ethiopia are around $27,000. We took out a loan to cover the rest (hopefully my husband doesn't mind me sharing this...) but I am starting to think it will be more feasible to try and raise the funds so we can pay off the loan. I hate debt!

Now, I realize it may seem like I am a walking contradiction considering we just bought a house. So I am going to lay out the details in order to bring more clarity to our financial situation. I am a veteran, so I qualify for the VA home loan which means we don't make a down payment, don't pay mortgage insurance, and we aren't paying closing costs. So basically, we are using the Basic Housing Allowance alotted to us by the Army to go towards a home instead of rent. Look at it this way...instead of paying $52,800 in rent over the next four years, we will be putting it towards our first home. That's right! We finally bought our first home after 7 years of marriage. Hooray!

Anyway, the point of this post is to let my family and friends know that we are going to start doing some fundraising to help get rid of our adoption debt. I need some help with ideas though...like I said, I get embarrassed by asking for help and I am not very good at thinking up effective fundraising ideas. I have researched what some other adopting families have done and mostly I have seen adoption t-shirt sales. What do you think...is that a good idea?? The picture above shows fabric outlines of Africa with the heart over the country of Ethiopia. I was thinking about using a cute stitch to sew then onto t-shirts or shoulder bags or something. I also thought about making a template to spray paint Africa onto shirts or allowing the boys to use fabric paint and paint Africa on. At the very least I need to make shirts for myself and my fam. Gotta represent!

Below is a breakdown of our adoption expenses as it was given to us by our agency:

Home Study - $1500

Home Study Update - $800

Application Fee - $600

CHI Agency Fees - $7000

Ethiopia Program Fee - $9000

Post Adoption Report - $500

Adoption Education - $120

USCIS Filing Fee/Fingerprints - $860

Passports - $194

Ethiopia Visas - $130

Document Authentication - $250

Round-trip Airfare (2 Adults, 2 trips) - $7200

Child's one-way Airfare - approx. $800

In-country transportation costs - $420

Medical for Child's visa - $80

1st Trip in Country (guide, food, lodging) - $800-2700

2nd Trip in Country (guide, food, lodging) - $1350-2700

Child's US Visa - $400

Okay, so I was waaayyyyy off. The low-end of those numbers is a grand total of $32,000. The high end is $35,250. We are looking to adopt one child but if she has a sibling we have also been approved for a second child. If we do end up adopting two children, our total expenses will be approximately $39,280 - $42,530. Annnnnnd, that is why I have decided to try and do some fundraising. Have any good ideas?? PLEASE!! Send them my way!

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

If we were to count from the time we starting researching an adoption agency, we have been working on the adoption for 16 months already and we still don't have our dossier submitted. Initially, I was so optimistic and even thought we would have our precious child by now. In hindsight, my naive optimism makes me laugh. I suppose the average internationally adopting family would be waiting for a referral or court date by now; however, we have experienced many setbacks due to our involvement in the U.S. Army. At first it was Lauren's deployment that was keeping us from being able to move forward. Then we finally got the home study approved and we moved so that Matt could complete his Army training at Ft. Benning, GA. Of course, we had to then complete a home study update and resubmit it to USCIS - the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Now we are hastily trying to finish compiling all of the required documents for the dossier which will be sent to Ethiopia. However, we are moving again in September to Ft. Stewart, GA which will be Matt's permanent duty station. At which point, we will be having a home study update conducted once again. Two steps forward, one step back.

Adoption is not for the faint of heart - nor is it meant to be done alone. As the old saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child". Matt is frequently gone for his Army training which means Lauren basically flies this mission solo. Speaking of which, it is tiring to try and phrase everything as "we", "Matt", and/or "Lauren", so I am just going to come out and say it: "I" am writing this blog to represent our whole family regardless of whether or not I remember to say "we". So, I am Lauren...just in case that last little bit was confusing. 8-)

Anyway, the point I was trying to get to is that I can't do this alone anymore. I frequently seek the help of my Heavenly Father, especially when we pray as a family, but I need help from my family and friends now. This process is so emotionally, physically, and financially exhausting and I have finally realized that I need to reach out to the people who love me for help and support. For those who don't know me really well, I can be a very stubborn and independent person and I'm not big on accepting help. I am going to be making updates to this blog frequently so that my family and friends know what is going on and perhaps can help me with words of encouragement, ideas for coping with stress, parenting techniques, housekeeping tips, etc.

In a few weeks Matt will begin Ranger School which means we won't see or hear from him for at least two months. We are trying really hard to get all of our documents gathered before that time so that we can submit our dossier before he leaves. I must say, I am learning how to be more self-reliant and proactive. I purchased a house the last time Matt was gone on a Field Training Exercise! Okay, back to the dossier. So, we don't have much left to gather. The first thing to do when Matt gets back from the field on Thursday will be to go get yet another police background check. We are also STILL waiting on the Army to deliver the long-awaited Letter of Employment Verification. After that, we will have three copies of each document below notarized:

Parent letter to Ethiopia
I-171H Approval from USCIS to bring an orphan into the country
State Police Clearances
Family Photo sheet
Letter of Employment Verification
2008, 2009, and 2010 Tax Returns
Adoptive Parent Form
Matt's Passport

That may look like a lot, but we have already gathered and notarized a lot of the required documents. The very last two we will have notarized will be:

Power of Attorney
Affidavit of Dossier

Once we have all of that done and we are ready to submit our dossier, we will also submit the third installment of $3000.