Details

Now that our whole family knows the news of our new "bun in the oven" so to speak, I thought I'd post some details for anyone who may be wondering:

Our adoption placement agency: Childrens Hope International based in St. Louis (they placed approximately 16 Ethiopian children with new families last month). Their Ethiopia program presently works with three orphanages.

Our Home Study agency is located locally in Overland Park, Kansas: Adoption & Counseling Services for Families. The social worker has been in business for over twenty years.

Present status: Our exact stage is primitive at this point. We've completed almost all the paperwork for the home study, but need to redo Sorin's fingerprint card at the police station, get doctor letters for each family member, and a financial statement completed. After all those are received our social worker will visit our home so she can complete the study.

Next:
-We will take the completed home study to the local USCIS immigration office to get approval to adopt an Ethiopian child.
-Compile Dossier documents (some of which will be taken from the home study, and includes the home study).
-All our documents will be sent to the placement agency (CHI) for review and then sent to our State capitol to authenticate all the notaries.
-Then the documents are sent to Washington DC to authenticate the State's authentications.

-After that is done I'm told our dossier will sit with our agency until they receive a referral from one of their partner orphanages that matches the age and gender we are requesting. This is the long waiting stage. There is a waiting list of families, however the order is almost meaningless because each family is different (some requesting siblings, younger or older age ranges, etc). It's whatever fits and the timing. Right now, waiting time for referral is as short as 2 months to 9 months.

-When we get our referral we will see her picture, medical history and any other information they have on her.
-We accept, and then wait for a court date to receive full custody of the child.
-We travel within 2-3 months of receiving the referral.

Travel: Only one of us will travel this time, due to alleviating stress on Sky (he had such a hard time when we were in India). We haven't decided who will travel yet because we're looking for a travel companion (we don't want either of us to go alone). Anyone interested, please let us know...all travel expenses will be paid for by us, of course. The stay will be 5-7 days at the House of Hope in Addis Ababa. We will be accompanied from the airport to the guest house, and again back to the airport. At no time would we leave the guest house unaccompanied by a guide. The House of Hope is a transition home for orphans who have been placed with families and are waiting to go home.

If anyone has other questions I didn't answer here, please ask away.