THE BIG NEWS....

We are happy to announce that we are adopting a baby! That's correct, Shahra is going to be a big sister. Once again, we are waiting with anticipation to welcome home an infant from Ethiopia. Over the past 2 months, we have been putting together paperwork and completing govt. documents in hopes of adopting a baby boy. We couldn't be more excited. Our families, friends, and work places have been very supportive.

We'll try to answer some of the questions you may have:

When does the baby come home:

We are waiting for a few final pieces of paperwork (our home study is being approved by Children's Home, and the dossier should be sent to Ethiopia by the end of Oct). If all goes well, we hope to be officially waiting by Nov. 1. After that, it will take 5-7 months to receive a referral. Then, 2-3 months later, we travel to Ethiopia to pick up our child. For those doing the math, that means we will probably travel late spring or during the summer of 2008.

How old will the baby be:

We are requesting an infant boy under 12 months of age at referral. This means the baby could be anywhere from 4 months to 15 months when we pick him up.

Why Ethiopia:

After the wonderful experience we had adopting Shahra, we can't imagine adopting anywhere else. We love Ethiopia--the country, the people, everything. There is a great need in Ethiopia as well and we feel called by our faith to answer this need.

Why does it take so long?

Compared to some countries and programs, Ethiopia is a relatively quick process (remind us of this in Feb when we've been waiting for several months and we're no longer this patient :) First, there are many families who want to adopt from Ethiopia. Some of the wait is simply "standing in line." The wait is also due to the fact that our adoption agency and the govt of Ethiopia want to ensure everything is in order. Everyone involved wants to be sure that the child placed for adoption was placed by choice (no one forced the birth parents to place the child). Also, the court system simply takes time to process all of the paperwork.

Why are there children available for adoption in Ethiopia?

Sadly, poverty, starvation and death lead to many orphaned children. 1 in 14 mothers die in childbirth. Many, if not most, people in Ethiopia don't have access to clean water. There is no "safety net" to ensure families are able to care for orphaned children. This is why we approach our adoption with a sense of reverence--our greatest joy is the result of another person's greatest loss. It is only because we live in an unfair, fallen world that children need to be adopted.

Once he arrives, what can you tell us about the baby's specific situation?

Out of respect to our child's story, we won't be sharing too much about the specifics that led to his adoption. We may say general things like "poverty and death are major problems in Ethiopia." However, we feel it is important to honor our child's privacy and share these details with him as he grows up.

Anything else we should know?

I'll keep you updated!! We thank you all for your love and support during this process. There will probably be long stretches of time when we don't have any news. When we do, we will let you know! As time goes on, feel free to ask us about the process. Do know however, waiting can get hard for us. It can be even harder if we receive too many questions about the wait. For example: as we waited for Shahra, Tracy actually had 5 people ask in a 10 minute time frame when we'd be traveling. It can get draining to tell people "I really don't know" We PROMISE to keep you updated. Pray for us, our family, our new baby and the baby's birth family as we enter this process.

There is a lot of special language related to adoption. We'll try to explain some terms so my future blogs make more sense:

Home study: a home study is a report made out by a social worker recommending us as adoptive parents. We expect our agency to sign off on this document in the next week or so.

Dossier: A document sent to Ethiopia (or ET as I may call it) telling govt officials about our desire to adopt. Basically, a lot of papers showing that we are able to care for a child.

Children's Home Society (CHS): Our adoption agency, or, the people who help us find our baby.

Referral: We receive information that a child is available!! This comes as a phone call from our Social worker and includes a packet of information about our child.

More info on Ethiopia and adoption:

Google is awesome, nuf said :)

Children's Home Society, our agency: http://www.chsfs.org/

Ethiopian Embassy website: http://www.ethiopianembassy.org/index.shtml

CIA Fact book: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html

Finally, here is a link that shares "positive adoption language."

http://www.adopting.org/article5.html

Thank you all for your support and love. I'll update you as we get more information. For now, pray that the rest of our paperwork goes smooth and we are able to turn our dossier in by the end of the month!

Tracy, Jeff and Shahra