Goodbye House....

Five years ago, we made the decision to build our "dream house". We spent two years designing it, the next year building it and for the past two years we've lived there. Despite all of the work that we put into the house and the sacrifices that we made to build it, it has never felt like home to us. And, after visiting Africa, our dreams have changed. God has directed us to allocate our time and our finances into things that are a lot more valuable than a house. So, on Saturday, we said goodbye to our old house and hello to our new home!

Vote

There has been a heated debate among family & friends as to whether our child will be a boy or a girl. Right now, the votes are evenly split. What do you think?? We added a little survey in the toolbar, so give us your opinion.

First Toy

Since we don't know if Baby Williams will be a boy or a girl, we have refrained from shopping. However, my mom just couldn't help herself. We went to visit my parents this weekend, and my mom gave us our first Baby Toy! Its the cutest little caterpillar and each section of his body is a different activity.




Notice I took the picture of the toy on the floor, as I'm sure that's where most baby toys end up!


Thanks, Mom!

Letters

As most of you know, we have been frantically gathering documents for our Dossier for the past several weeks. After a while its easy to start looking at each piece of information as just another check mark off our "to-do list", but three of the documents that we received this week are very special to us.

As part of the Dossier, we have to submit three Letters of Reference from non-family members. We asked some of our closest friends to write these for us, and they returned them this week. WOW -- it was such a humbling feeling to read the words that our friends wrote explaining why we would make good parents to an Ethiopian child!! We are so blessed to have these friends in our lives. Sharon, Bill, Kate, Larry & Kathy -- We love you dearly and we could never thank you enough for helping us bring our little one home!

The Process

Now that the news of our adoption is starting to settle in with family and friends, we've been getting A LOT of "process" questions. So, we thought we would get everyone up to speed on how this whole Ethiopian Adoption process works:

Step #1: PAPERWORK....lots and lots and LOTS of paperwork. We have to compile a packet of documents called our Dossier. This is, essentially, our life on paper. The documents include: Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, a Home Study, Copies of Passports, Tax Return Documents, Medical Records, Police Clearance, USCIS approval....you get the picture. There are a little over thirty documents total (some are easier to obtain than others). All documents have to be signed, notarized, and translated and then they're off to Ethiopia!

Step #2: REFERRAL. About 4 - 6 months after we submit the dossier to Ethiopia, we will get officially "matched" with a child. This is an exciting time, because we will not only get any medical and background information that is available for our child, but we will also get our first pictures! At this time, we will know if we'll have a boy or a girl and we'll know the age of the child. Let the shopping begin!!

Step #3: COURT. About 2 months after we accept the Referral for our child, the Ethiopian courts will hear our case and officially make a judgement on whether or not they will approve our petition to adopt them. Once we pass court, the child is legally ours!!

Step #4: GOTCHA DAY!! About 6 weeks after we pass court, we get to pick up Baby Williams!

Baby Book

We're determined to make this child the best Baby Book in the history of all baby books! We don't want to miss a single moment of this process because we want to be able to show them how much they were loved every day that we waited for them to come home.

So, even the seemingly smallest events turn into a fill fledged photo shoot.

That's right, we even photographed each other filling out the FTIA application. If you think that's crazy....we also had a stranger take our picture mailing our application at the Post Office. And, I know I'm starting to transition to Mama Mode because I don't even care if you all think that's strange. Like I said, I want our child to have what every other child has -- and that includes a Baby Book. So, look the other way if you must, but I'm going to continue snapping away!!

Our Agency

We're typically an easy-going, laid-back kind of couple, but when it came to choosing an agency to help us bring our little one home, we scoured the Internet for everything ever written about Ethiopian adoption agencies! This is such a big decision. Its no different than choosing what doctor you trust to deliver your child -- this agency will be our partner in this exciting, overwhelming and sometimes uncertain process.

There are hundreds of agencies out there, and we wanted to make sure we were choosing an agency that was: #1 Ethical, #2 Experienced, #3 Engaged. After tons of research, we narrowed our search down to two, had meetings with both agencies, and then contacted families who had adopted from Ethiopia with those agencies. That last step...contacting the families....made our decision VERY easy. We selected F.T.I.A. (Families thru International Adoption), and we know without a doubt that this was the best decision we could have made. We are only a month into this process, and it has already proven to be the best decision. Thank you to all of those FTIA families who pointed us in the right direction. We're happy to be a part of the FTIA family!

Did I mention that FTIA's world headquarters are in Evansville? Who knew that we had a world-class, top-notch, best-of-the-best adoption agency right in our own town?!?!?