An Update

This may be the last adoption update you'll get for awhile. Two weeks ago today we got our I-171H in the mail. It was a Thursday, and the mail came a bit early that day (around 2:30), so we took off on a race to the capital to the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office, which closes at 4:30, to get the paper officially "sealed". Friday we mailed it off to "The Assistant Stork". This brilliant adoptive mom started a business in which she hand delivers dossiers to the Dept. of State and the various embassies and takes care of all of the paperwork that needs to be done before the dossier can be sent to the agency. From there our papers were sent back to our agency. Yesterday I got an e-mail telling us that on Tuesday the papers were officially sent off to Ethiopia. I can't quite describe how that makes me feel. I am somewhat in awe at what those papers are going to do. I am also extremely thankful that there is nothing at all that I can do about the process at this point; it's entirely and obviously in God's hands, which feels wonderful. I know in my heart that it's been in His hands all along, but during the 6 months that we were working on all of that paperwork it was hard not to feel pressure that we were in control and had to make this happen.

So now we wait. According to the e-mail we got yesterday, there are 12 families ahead of us on the waiting list who are waiting for children in a similar age range to us, and who are either requesting boys or open to either gender (the majority of families adopting request girls, so that's a longer list!) I have no idea of how that will translate in terms of time. Our agency says that it will likely be between 2 and 12 months. I'm glad pregnancy isn't like that; can you imagine being told you'd likely deliver sometime in the next 2 to 12 months?! We are at peace about it, however, and are resting in knowing that God already has the picture of our complete family, and will work it out in His time.

Meanwhile, this blog will continue now with (possibly annoying) posts about our family happenings. But as soon as anything happens on adoption front we'll let you know.