We got our USCIS approval today, so that’s a big load off.

A few weeks after we sent in our form, I got a letter back from them saying our dossier was not complete and needed to be re-done. I was freakin’ out!! So stressed. I called our home study guy and told him what was going on, faxed him the letter and he mailed the revised copy the next day to us. Unfortunately, the mail seemed slower than normal and it took a week to get it. Then, of course, we had to make a copy for ourselves and send the original to USCIS and hope it was good enough. Finally, after 3 weeks of stressing out over it, we got the approval.

Now I will mail a copy to our adoption agency and then we continue to wait for our referral.

She promptly wrote back (as she always does…love her!) and said the wait time is about 2 months! Then another couple months to the first travel dates and another 2 to the final/pick up date.

Of course, all this is approximate and subject to change…either sooner (if we’re lucky) or later (if there’s delays). It’s the end of July now; so her dates are September for referral, November for the first travel (when we meet her) and January for the second travel (to pick her up).

Exciting news

But for now, I’ve got back-to-school shopping and getting ready within the next few weeks, then soccer right after that for Gab & Pierce. And there’s always the church stuff to keep me busy. I’m definitely looking forward to the referral and meeting her, but I think when people look too far ahead, they rush or miss what’s going on now. And for now, I have a busy 2-year-old, a soon-to-be Kindergartner, and a 2nd-year-middle-schooler! I’m sure the time will fly by, as it always does when I blink.

In 2 weeks, it should be in Ethiopia!!!

YAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

This basically means in 2 weeks, the official “wait” will begin. Wow…

Anyway, it was a good book. Upbeat, positive yet keeping a real perspective. I recommend it to anyone that knows us

This one is a little more up-beat and half as thick as the first one. So I’m sure I’ll get through it faster. So far it’s very good, like the other. It has the same theme of how important it is to establish a connection and remember to allow the child to have their past instead of expecting them to “start fresh” which is a common error when people adopt. (that was a long sentence!)

All in all, it’s exciting to learn more.

Oh….a glitch in the previous paperwork…I about had a nervous breakdown! My agency emailed me last week and said 2 of the dossier papers needed to be redone.  *sigh* One is done and taken care of and hopefully I can pull my honey away from work long enough to get the other one done.  Soooo tired of paperwork….

But since there’s not much more we can do for the adoption right now, I decided to get a book with actual pages/chapters in it to read. It’s called Parenting the Internationally Adopted Child.

This book discusses the challenges that come with an IAC (internationally adopted child), such as dealing with their background (loss, grief & confusion) and ways to help the child cope and connect to their new family.

Some of the stories of the children are so scary and so, so sad. One was of a 2-year-old boy. He and his newborn baby brother went to live with their grandparents. Shortly after this, the grandmother died. The grandfather began to drink so heavily, he was incapable of parenting the boys. So this toddler fed and took care of himself and baby brother for about a year, until they were taken away. Can you imagine a 3-year-old taking care of a 1-year-old??? I look at Dean, who just turned 2 and it just seems impossible. But those survival skills kicked in for the boy and he did what he had to.

One of the biggest initial challenges we’re going to face is for the child to trust us and rely on us for care. It may sound simple enough, but when a child has learned to trust, and the caretaker was removed, time and again, the child just doesn’t know who’s going to be taken away and doesn’t emotionally settle in.

So, family/friends reading this….when the time comes, please don’t think we’re being snobbish when we don’t let you help with the child or encourage her to go to you. We’re just trying to build a connection, trying to let her know we’re the parents. Then it’ll go from there. AND, I encourage anyone who knows a family with an IAC to read the book.

Yesterday, we got the completed report back and we passed Yay!!

So we mailed off our I-600a, which is a petition to adopt an orphan. That goes to USCIS and takes from 5 weeks-3 months to be approved.

We also mailed our dossier to our adoption agency, where it will get authenticated, which will take 2-3 weeks.

Then, when that’s all done, it all goes to the Ethiopian government to be approved and then we wait for a referral of a child.

Basically, we’ve done all that we can and need to do and now it’s just a waiting game!

The other thing was the yard sale…we got rained out the first weekend, but now I’m glad we did. We ended up with a couple friends (they get together every year and have a big one) at one house.  This sale was seriously huge! I forgot the exact number of tables, but I think it was in the 40′s range…yes, 40-something tables loaded with all kinds of stuff.

On day one (Friday), at 3pm, we got pounded with a very fast-moving storm. When we first heard thunder, we started tarping and moving the tables closer together. By the time we were done, we were soaked.  Dripping. And it was windy so we had to find rocks and paving stones to put on the tarps because they kept blowing away. It was crazy.

Day 2 started out cloudy and threatening, but turned out really nice. We closed up about 3pm, took down the tables, and took them back to church (where we borrowed them from). I got home at 5:30. LONG day.

But all in all, it was good. We made a couple hundred more than I thought we’d get. In a couple months I’m going to hold a smaller one at our house just to get rid of the last of our stuff and make just a little more. Every little bit is necessary.

So what’s next??

*the I-600a (with a few documents including the home study report) needs to go to the USCIS—there’s a 5-week to 3-month wait on that

*the dossier needs to be sent to our Agency (including the I-600a acceptance paper) to get authenticated

*the dossier will then be sent to Ethiopia

*if Ethiopia accepts us, we then wait for a referral….they will find a child for us and send us a picture

*after acceptance of referral (after we say “yes” to the child) they set a date for us to go out there…we visit the child and start the adoption paperwork….then we come home for a few weeks and one of us will go back to Ethiopia to pick her up and bring her home!

Yesterday I was getting dinner ready and heard a BOOM and the house shook just a bit. I thought it was a branch falling on the roof or something heavy falling upstairs. But it came from a non-specific area so I couldn’t put my finger on it. I briefly looked out the window and the thought crossed my mind, “I wonder if something at work blew up.” But the thought came and went since I didn’t see a mushroom cloud or smoke.

A little while later, Gab (who was at her grandparent’s house) called, but the phones weren’t working well. I called her back and they had heard the boom as well, so I knew it wasn’t a tree.

After a little while later, Paul called and said he was ok. I thought, “Ok, good to know…why are you telling me though?”  He told me there had been an explosion but he was ok and wanted me to call his parents and tell them.

Two and a half hours later he was finally able to come home. His work had blocked off the road outgoing to talk to people and make sure everyone was accounted for. I’m glad they were so careful; safety really is a big deal there. Paul (and others of course) have certain shoes they have to wear in certain buildings.

Paul told me that the buildings are designed to blow up a certain way to reduce the risk of people getting killed and injured should one do just that. There was no one in the building at the time (it was close to 5pm). There were 2 minor injuries…one was flown to the hospital, the other went in an ambulance, but both were released.

Quite a few friends called me to ask if Paul was ok; it’s good to know if something would have happened to him, I wouldn’t have been alone. And next time there’s a boom, I’ll probably be a little more paranoid.