Sunday, September 27, 2015

Announcement and Status


If you’ve seen me lately, you might be questioning the status of our adoption. The reason for those of you who aren’t seeing us regularly is that we are expecting a baby in February! We are so excited for this new addition and anxious for his or her arrival!

That being said, our summer has brought a rollercoaster of adoption news and any given month, our plan may have changed.  We are still passionately pursuing international adoption from Ethiopia, so much so, we have two concurrent adoptions going!  It is too hard to break down that decision but I am pleased we took a few months to make our decision after our current agency, Adoption Associates (AAI), announced their sad news in May.  AAI’s Ethiopia program is still open and they are cautiously optimistic. The future is still very uncertain for their program which is why we decided to continue there, but also start the process with another agency.  Since we have the paperwork done with AAI and fees paid, it doesn’t hurt us to stay on their wait list to see if it will result in a referral.  In addition, as of September 1, we began another adoption from Ethiopia through America World Adoption Agency (we’ll refer to them as AWAA or America World, not to be confused with AAI).  Both agencies have approved us to have two adoptions going at once and AWAA in particular doesn’t let our pregnancy affect our progress in their program. 

How many kids could you be adding to your family you ask? We don’t know! We’re willing to let God work that out as well as the timing of potentially 2 adoptions with biological children mixed in there. AWAA is a large agency and has hundreds of families on their wait list. At the current pace adoptions are being completed in Ethiopia, they estimate the wait time will be 5-7 years. That is why we are starting this process now, knowing it may take that long.

Currently what we’re doing is just kind of sitting with AAI-playing the waiting game (still) and now trying to complete our dossier for AWAA.  We really want to get this paperwork done for AWAA before the end of October which will be tough but keeps us constantly working at it.

We hope that is the least confusing way to explain what’s going on in our adoption world right now!  Thank you so much for your thoughts, inquiries, and prayers for us these last few months. We are sticking with it but realize we have a long road ahead of us. With God all things are possible, that includes our adoption!  J We are putting our trust in Him who knows how He will build our family in the coming years.