75 Little Steps...

John here...
I decided to make a timeline of every conceivable step along the way to help me quantify this process. So much information was thrown our way on Friday and not in chronological order, I needed to do the guy thing and organize and evaluate each step, so I can reasonably track our process. Simple task, eh? Going through the reams of instruction that we have accumulated to date, I have identified a mere 75 steps (4 of which we have complete) that will get us home with our new baby! I then scientifically estimated the time it would take for each step. I color-coded the steps to identify steps that can be completed simultaneously (Blue and aqua), interviews (peach), things we have no control of the time (green), and arrival back home baby in tow-the ultimate goal (Gold). If I'm right, we will be coming home with little schnickelbritches on Wednesday, October 22nd (about 6:26 PM). Using our timeline, hopefully Amanda and I can identify places where we can expedite the process and hopefully finish this process a little earlier. My system is darn-near fool-proof.

We have been informed that the Ethiopian courts shut down from mid-August until the first week of October. If we are lucky we may be able to get a referral early enough that the court date can occur before this summer break. I think we may be running up against it, though. My scientific timeline gives us a referral on Thursday, July 31 (about 11:43 AM).

Anyway, Amanda and I can knock out 11 steps tonight. Away we go!

Orientation!

John and I just returned from Children's Hope Agency in Overland Park, Kansas. We had our orientation today with Jill. She is the Ethiopian Program Coordinator. We are officially starting our home study. Nikki will be our social worker..she will be making a visit to our home sometime soon to check us and our home out...not to mention everything that has happened in our past!


We have so many things to get together to complete what they call our dossier. Its basically a collection of documents that will be sent to Ethiopia. We are hoping to move through this stage pretty quickly....we have already started ordering copies of our birth certificates and marriage license.

All for now!

Starting the journey.......

Its time......we have decided to adopt!! After a lot of research about international adoption, we submitted our application to Childrens Hope International. We have asked to be considered for the Ethiopian adoption program.

So, as of December 28th, our application was mailed. Yesterday we were notified that we have our application has been accpeted and we are ready to roll!

Next step is to complete our home study and all that paperwork...........

Stay tuned!