Let the wait begin.

December 18, 2009, we are officially waiting!

What a great Christmas present. I think December must be my lucky baby month. So far I've found out that all of my children are coming during the month of December. Tess & Oliver, December 22, 2004. Davis Lee, December 27, 2005. And now this new little one December 18, 2009. Though T&O are no longer with us physically, December 22 still goes down as one of the happiest moments of my life.

We're going to try to stay busy to pass the time while we await our referral. Currently the average wait is 7.5 months and then an additional 4-6 months to pass court and travel to Ethiopia. Maybe next December we will again have great news to share!

Letter in hand.

Just when I was getting down with the waiting, we received word from both Natalie and USCIS that our case has been approved and the letter was on the way. Two days later the letter arrived woooohoo!
We had a kids event for Wee See on Saturday morning so right after we dashed over to the closest bank to get our letter notarized so we could send to KBS. They are preparing the paperwork for our dossier. Everything signed and dropped off at fedex for Monday delivery. We arrived home and... BUMMER. In the haste of doing everything QUICKLY I didn't ask the notary when his commission expired. ugh. Dec 29, 2009. That will not do. So repeat steps 1 & 2 on Monday morning.
I would be lying if I didn't expect to be getting a response from both Kate and our Glandey social worker Natalie of "Congratulations! You are officially waiting!" From the sounds of it, we have approx. two more weeks before that happens. I need to stop reading other blogs adoption timelines as none of them seem to apply to OUR adoption timeline.
I am trusting that the Universe will bring us the child we are supposed to have at the moment he/she is supposed to come.
Until then I will watch and read and delight in all the other families that have been receiving their referrals and passing court and making plans for an Ethiopian Christmas IN Ethiopia. How cool is that! There are two families waiting to hear about their court dates TODAY. I'm keeping all my crossables crossed that good news is on the way.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

I know the waiting has only just begun....but the wait for our letter from immigration is about to drive me crazy. It's been seven weeks since our fingerprint appointment. Hopefully (fingers crossed) it's in the mail and on the way to us, um, like, now.

We are back home from our week in Texas for Thanksgiving. We have SO MUCH to be thankful for...our list is quite long, and that in itself is something to be thankful for! Davis had a blast playing with all of "her people" and sealed her love for Oreo cookies. Something we do not have at home but both sets of grandparents seem to have in endless supply. She was in heaven. I thought her head would explode when she found out about dipping them in milk. ha!

We have been talking about her little brother or sister that is coming and honestly I have thought that it's gone over her head. But apparently not. It's funny how she has incorporated Africa into all of her imaginary games and stories. At school the week before we left they were talking about airplanes and she announced that she was going on an airplane to Africa to pick up her baby. And now at night she says, "I love you all the way to the moon and back, to Texas and back to Brooklyn and to Africa and back." She loves me far.

ok, so, now back to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiting. sigh.

Paper Trail

We just received that final draft of our home study. We're so close now.
Hopefully by the end of this week our home study will be sent to CIS and **fingers crossed** processed quickly. I've read from timelines on other adoption blogs that CIS approval can take as little as one month and as long as three. We are obviously hoping for one month. I am anxious for our dossier to go to Ethiopia and for us to be officially on the waitlist. From that point we'll have a better idea of when we should expect a referral. We are almost at the end of the paper trail, yay!

Do you see what I see?

Where have we been you ask? Everywhere and nowhere is the answer to that question.
Rolyn finally launched his 'top secret project' with 3 parties, in 3 states, in 7 days.
It was fun and exhausting and we definitely called it a success. Now on to the biz of sellin' DVDs.
You can SEE it here. Oh, and buy it too! ;)

We are [this] close to wrapping up all of the paperwork on our end! yay! We had a bit of a lag in there due to the business of launching Wee See, but it's all good. Our home study was the day we returned from the Wee See US tour and went well. The social worker and I had spoken several times on the phone before and I was not worried or nervous in the slightest.

I just mailed off two big envelopes of paperwork to Gladney and KBS Dossier. All that is left is: a letter from the bank, a letter from the therapist we worked with after losing Tess & Oliver and our homestudy to be certified. Then that paperwork will go to CIS (immigration) and once they accept it we have to be fingerprinted one more time and then, then we'll officially be on the wait list! yippppeeeee! I suspect we're still a few months off and according to the Gladney conference call yesterday it seems like the wait for a referral is around 6-8 months. Not sure how I will feel once we are officially waiting, but so far the hardest part has been finding a notary in NYC that starts work before 11 a.m. I'm seriosuly considering changing professions.

Ready.

Rolyn left for work earlier than me this morning. He saw this on the train and sent it to me from his phone. A sign at 8am. Made me a little teary. We're ready. Yes. We are.

p.s. even though I have a year to pack my bags, those of you that really know me will laugh at even the thought of me packing anything until less than 12 hours before the plane leaves NYC. Not saying it's right, that's just how I roll.

This just in...

Rolyn and I are very excited to announce we are growing our family. For many reasons we have decided to do this through international adoption. We are currently in the midst of stacks of paperwork and revealing every aspect of our lives, like exactly how much we spend on groceries and underwear. Just kidding, sort of. The local notary is our new BFF and we’ve learned the best technique to get a perfect fingerprint.

This process will take approximately one year before we will travel to Ethiopia to meet and bring home Davis' baby brother or sister. As we get closer to having our paperwork complete we will have a better idea of time frames, though nothing in the world of international adoption is set in stone and can change while we are in process.

I’m sure all of you have a million questions for us so we’ll be writing up a list of faq’s with answers soon. Stay tuned. You can subscribe to the RSS feed to the left and you will be notified of updates here, or just stop by to see what’s new.

This is going to be a long but VERY exciting journey and we are thrilled to have all of you in our lives to share our experience.