Dossier in Ethiopia

I just got an email stating our dossier arrived in Ethiopia on Wednesday! It will now start the translation process.

Dossier to Ethiopia

Our dossier left the US for Ethiopia on Friday, October 17! I still haven't heard from USCIS about rescheduling our fingerprint appt. The waitlists are really increasing: there are now 8 people waiting for boys and 13 waiting for girls! We are still #8.

#8

Well, we are now #8 on the waiting list...one step closer to our little Issa. Unfortunately it was not due to a referral. One of the families decided they needed to put their adoption on hold because of the economy.

Sweet Baby Issa

Well, today has been exciting and frustrating. I got word last night that many people with my agency thought yesterday several referrals would come out (meaning several parents would see pictures of their children for the 1st time). But the agency had a power outage, so it closed yesterday. Then the thought was that SURELY today we would see some excitement. This afternoon I got an email from the agency, but it was not about referrals. It did say that our dossier was sent to Washington, DC today to be authenticated by the Ethiopian embassy, so that's cool. Maybe referrals tomorrow... Since I feel let down with no referrals to report today, I'll post some other exciting news from a couple weeks ago. :)

September 28, 2008
I loved the name Isa before we even decided to adopt from Ethiopia. I had talked about that name as a possibility for our second daughter after Kendall. After we decided to adopt from Ethiopia, Justin said he would like our daughter to have an African name. I liked that idea as well. After about a week of looking at Ethiopian/African names, today I saw for the first time that Issa (pronounced ee-SAH like Isa) is Swahili for “God is our salvation.” HOW PERFECT! Justin loves it too. We can’t wait to meet our darling daughter. Oh yes, I guess we’ve decided on a little girl.

USCIS & Timing until our daughter

A couple updates...

We got our fingerprint invitations from USCIS today, but they were scheduled for a time when we'll be out of town. So we'll have to reschedule, and I don't know how that will affect timing.

Now, as far as our wait for our little girl. Today I emailed with the wonderful woman from our agency. I was talking with her about the age of our baby when we get the referral. Right now we are listed for a baby girl under 12 months. If we want to decrease the age, this would increase the wait time. If we leave the age as is (which I think we're leaning towards, even though it kills me to think of missing over a year of her life), it is thought it will probably be 5-6 months until our referral and 3-4 months until we go to pick her up. So I am thinking maybe 10 months until we hold our little girl (August 2009) - a little longer than a pregnancy. We pray for her every night at dinner. It is touching to think each day that this might be the day my daughter is being born into the world. I pray for her and her birth parents. Tonight Dylan asked if I have his sisters in my tummy. I explained that we are adopting them and how Daddy and I will go on an airplane to pick them up. He said he thought his sister would be bigger than him. Then he said "she will be my friend." Justin and I melted.

My Womb has Expanded!

Yesterday I heard from our agency that there was one date issue on the homestudy, but other than that the dossier was complete. I was so happy to find out today that we will not have to redo the homestudy, sooooooo.........dossier is complete AND we are officially #9 on the waitlist for our baby girl. Now my womb is also in Ethiopia!