Paperwork, paperwork

Not too much has happened since my last post. We are still in the process of our home study. We have LOTS of training to do. We need 10 hours of Hague Training for international adoption & 24 hours of Ohio Adoption Training. It is all online but it is hard to do in between work & Jack! We still have a LOT to do for our home study & need to get moving quicker if we want to have everything submitted to Ethiopia by the end of the year, which is my goal! We are waiting on our OH & FBI Background Checks to get to our home study agency. Need our fire inspection, find all of our financial paperwork, & a few other miscellaneous things. Only once EVERY piece of paper is received by our home study agency will they schedule our interviews. After that is done we will hopefully be approved. Once we receive a completed home study we have to start working on our dossier. Our dossier is all of the paperwork that is required by Ethiopia. We will need to submit our home study to US Immigration to be cleared & can take up to 90 days although has been averaging 5 weeks.

I am just SO ready to get all of this paperwork done & start WAITING for our referral. We have NO idea how long the waiting could be. Since we are adopting a “special needs” infant it is hard to judge the timeline. A healthy referral is taking about 12 months right now. I would expect our referral will be before that as the special needs list is only about 10 people vs 60 for a healthy child. I think most of the families on the special needs list are open to a child 0-4 years old so it is possible once we are on the list, that those behind us could get a referral first because we are requesting 0-6 months. My hope is to have them home by their 1^st birthday but God knows what is going to happen.

Also in the mean time we need to raise A LOT of money! I have never been a beggar but we do need a lot of help! I KNOW God will provide the funds whether through donations, fundraisers or grants! I am considering a yard sale in a few weeks if we can get donations to sell. We gave most of our stuff away when we moved so we don't have much to sell. I am also hoping to have a spaghetti fundraiser dinner in October. Anyone that wishes to make donations can do so in several ways. See the fundraising page. Tax deductible donations are now available.

Please be in prayer for our adoption journey! Pray for finances, patience, guidance & especially for our child on the other side of the world!

Medical Report Praise

Just a quick update on this past week.  Teddy (our dog) got his immunizations.  I had my doctor's appointment on Monday & got a good medical report & signed form for home study.  The dossier required form had several tests that need to be ran that I was not aware of.  Have to go back to Dr in next week or 2 to have testing done for HIV, TB, etc.  I know I don't have them but Dr can't sign off official negative report without the tests.  Thankfully the form we need for home study is done & the dossier form will not be needed for a few months. 

That is not the good news.  The big concern has been with Jeremy's medical report.  He was born with a heart defect that was corrected as a young child.  He leads a perfectly normal life now but our agency couldn't guarantee we would be accepted yet until they saw how our home study addressed the issue.  He went to Cardiologist for annual testing on Tuesday & yesterday for Dr appt.  They gave him a clean report!  Praise the LORD!  He still has to wait for them to mail him his medical forms & our agency needed a letter from the Cardiologist advising his condition won't affect his day to day life, he has a normal life expectancy & won't affect his ability to care for a child.  He still has to go to his family Dr at the end of this month to fill out the rest of this form & also get the HIV, etc testing but that is not a concern as he is otherwise healthy.  Just continuing to pray that our home study give approval medically & our agency is happy with this.  So still need prayers but also need to give thanks to God for taking this big weight off our shoulders.

Also since our last report I found out some more information that is going to delay us some!  We had our OH & FBI fingerprints done Aug 1 & 8.  I believe they told me it would take 4-6 weeks to get the results back.  Someone else told me it takes 11-12 weeks.  I am really hoping that they are wrong as that would put us back to Oct 18 before all of our paperwork is in & our home study won't even begin scheduling interviews until every piece of paper is in.  I also found out that we now have to have immigration approval before our dossier can be sent off to Ethiopia.  This used to be something that was done AFTER it was sent off but is changing Sept 1.  This can take up to 90 days to receive although right now many are getting back in 5 weeks.  I knew there would be many ups & downs with this process but actually going through it is much worse!  Just pray for my patience through all of this.  I know our child is out there some where (or in someone's belly) & I just need to know that God has a perfect plan & I need to WAIT for him to reveal his perfect plan!  But that is SOOO hard & need your prayers too! 

Thanks & continue to stay tuned as we go through this roller coaster we call international adoption!!!

Answered Prayer for Timing!

A lot has happened since my last update!  We have started on our home study & are doing paperwork, appointments, more & more paperwork! I have gotten my background checks ordered, ordered my passport, requested child abuse clearances, etc. We have lots more to do with our home study before they will start the interviews. They have to have every piece of required paperwork before they will schedule anything. Once the interviews are done that will complete our home study & they will either approve or deny our home study. Of course praying for approval!!!

Today I got an answer to prayers! Jeremy had his doctor's appointment scheduled for the middle of October. Medical letters are required as part of paperwork before interviews can begin. Of course that is a ways away & was going to hold up the process by about 6 weeks! I got a hold of his doctor today & they just opened a new adult cardiology clinic & were scheduling earlier appointments. I was able to get everything in next week!!!! If everything goes as planned we should have all of the paperwork ready by early September & be able to schedule our interviews. They couldn't tell me the timeline for interviews. I am hoping those are done quickly after. Once we have an approved home study we can officially start with our adoption agency, West Sands, (if they accept us) & can start working on our paperwork for Ethiopia. I'm really hoping that everything can be done & sent out to Ethiopia by the end of the year! Once our paperwork is sent out to Ethiopia we begin the WAITING game for a referral. Because we're adopting a child with a special need, it's hard to tell how long we will wait. It could be a few months or a year for a referral. Of course hoping for earlier! God knows who our child is already & when they will be given to us! (I just need patience to wait for him)

Of course with this good news it means that we will need to raise money sooner! We will need at least $6,000 by the middle of September to be able to start on our paperwork for Ethiopia! That seems like an enormous amount of money!!! And it is, but God can & will provide!

Please continue to pray for our family & our child(ren) across the world! Pray that God will provide the finances in the right time & that he will give us patience to wait on him! If you or anyone you know feels called to donate to our adoption, please check out our fundraising page for details. Thanks!!!

Lucy Lane's Gotcha Day Video

This is a very popular "Gotcha Day" video.  Definitely worth checking out.  It will help you really see what this is all about!  I saw this about a month ago but wanted to share it with everyone.

Donations

Just wanted to let you know how you can make financial donations to our adoption.  Donations can be made in a few different ways.  If you see us on a regular basis you can donate by cash or check.  If you wish to mail us a check, send me an email for our address, terribeth07@earthlink.net.  If you do not see us or if it is just more convenient, you can donate via paypal.  I added a Donate Button on our homepage that will direct you to paypal or you can send it direct to our account at lance9704@earthlink.net.


Thank you so much!!!  Every little bit helps!

Puzzle is in!!!

We received our puzzle fast!  This will soon be in 252 separate pieces & hopefully we will be able to put it back together quickly.  If you have the financial means to do so, please prayerfully consider sponsoring a piece of the puzzle for $20 each.  That's like skipping 1 dinner out or 1 movie night!  We need at least $6,000 in the next 2-3 months to move on to the next phase of the adoption process to bring home our precious child!

New Fundraiser!

Check out our fundraiser page to see our new puzzle fundraiser!  We created & purchased a 252 piece puzzle & are asking people to sponsor pieces of the puzzle for $20 each to raise funds for our payments that will be due in a few months of $6000+!  We can't start applying for grants until our home study is complete so we will need at least $6000 to continue on our journey to bring home our baby!  If you sponsor a puzzle piece we will write your name on the back to forever remember how YOU helped save the life of our child & bring them to their forever home.  Please pray for God to make it clear to you if you can afford to sponsor 1 or more puzzle pieces.  That's like skipping 1 dinner out this month!  Is that something you think you can do?  Just send me a message or email me!

Thanks!!!