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.
