8/30/01- Phil proposed
9/2/04- Found out we were pregnant with Gibson
8/30/06- Maya made her debut into the world
8/29/08- We are paper-pregnant, the wait is on!
What is it with our family and this time of year? It is wonderfully sweet. We found out today that we are officially "DTE"...sort of. The woman who is in charge of collecting the dossiers in Ethiopia is currently here, in the States. So, our dossier will be sent out once she returns there. The good news is that they will use today's date as our official date. They use these dates for the order in which referrals are given. So our wait officially begins today, even though this child has been in our hearts for a long time. The current wait time given is 5-7 months for a referral. It is hard to believe that we could see our baby's face in a few short months. Please join us as we pray for joy in the wait. It can be a hard time, but we are trusting that the Lord has the perfect timing worked out. All I can think of right now is that HE is good!!! WOOHOO :)
Friday, August 29, 2008
something about this time of year...
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
good news?
Well, we did not receive an email from our family coordinator today...which is a good thing! She said if there was a problem with our dossier that she would contact us Tuesday afternoon. I am so happy to report that we didn't hear from her. So, it looks like we will be receiving a tracking number on Friday, because our dossier will be on it's way to Ethiopia!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
out of our hands
This morning I was up bright and early to get the kids ready for our trip to Columbus. Thankfully, we made the trip with only minor glitches. After I got back into town, I headed to make the copies. I set up my little system and it went quickly. My husband was sweet enough to go take care of the money part for us. Before I left his office, we gathered around our stack o' papers, put our hands on it, and prayed. We prayed for our papers' travels, and for our precious baby. Of course, I was a blubbering mess! It was such a sweet time knowing that this leg of the race was over. After I got a little crying out, I was just overjoyed. Before I knew it, we were at the post office and I was handing it off. It is surreal. I will now be stalking my tracking number and making sure it is there by noon tomorrow! Hopefully all of our papers will be in order and we will be DTE (dossier to Ethiopia) soon! We now have a wait of approximately 5-7 months to see our baby's face!!! I get goosebumps just thinking about it.
PRAISE THE LORD!!!! We are on cloud nine :)
Phil was rushing off to a meeting so we didn't get a chance to take pictures. So I took one myself in the post office parking lot. Cheesy? Yes. Wow, and scary. You can see my puffy eyes from my happy tears through my sunglasses. Agh, I almost can't believe I'm posting it! But it's my only picture with my "paper baby"! :)
Monday, August 18, 2008
WE GOT IT!!!
That precious little I171H came in the mail today!!! Amber will be headed to downtown Columbus tomorrow to have the last stamp put on our papers. We are hoping to get everything off in the mail tomorrow. Pray for us :)
We are overjoyed!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
"to find you"
Some people have been asking about the song that I wrote about our adoption so I figured I'd post the lyrics here.
This song was written from our anxiousness during this time of waiting. For those of you who have adopted before, you know that the tension between wanting your child so badly and having to wait to meet them, almost drives you crazy at times. That's where this song came from.
To Find You
There's a mother with a burden, she carries down deep
For a child across the ocean that she's yet to meet
And though for now she's left here waiting
In her heart anticipating
With all she has she begins to sing
There's a father who is trying to walk in belief
To love the lost and lonely and the "least of these"
And though his walking has him waiting
In his heart anticipating
With all he has he begins to sing
And a light will shine on you
And we will see the same light too
And we will know it's true
That we've been waiting all this time
Just for you
Friday, August 1, 2008
Just waitin'
We are now officially only waiting on our I171H. We finally received our life insurance letter ("5 business days" turned into a couple of weeks), so we faxed our documents to be approved by our family coordinator today. That means our side of things is completely done! Our goal was August, so I am glad we squeezed it into July, it makes me feel more accomplished, ha! So now we just wait for that magical little letter to come in the mail any day now. Once it is here we take our documents to be county and state certified. We are still praying that our dossier will be sent to Ethiopia in August! The other great news that our agency put out today is that the wait times for referrals have changed. It was 7-9 months for a baby boy or girl, but the wait time for boys has gone down to 5-7 months! Since we are open to either gender, it looks like a boy could be coming our way. Obviously, God can do ANYTHING in a matter of months! But, we are excited to know that a couple months of our wait might be shaved off. I try not to count on any of these estimations though, because we always have to know that international adoption can be very unpredictable!
