The wait has begun

Monica spoke with Christy Penney, our adoption case manager, a few minutes ago. We mailed our dossier to AGCI two weeks ago but were missing one document that needed to be state certified. That arrived at AGCI's office today. We're now officially done with our dossier and on the waiting list! Christy called and gave us our official wait list numbers. We are #28 on the girl list and #14 on the boy list. That's great and all but here's where it gets exciting, scary, crazy, etc....Christy told us that there are only three families ahead of us waiting for a toddler girl and only ONE family ahead of us for a toddler boy! C-R-A-Z-I-N-E-S-S!

After we receive and accept a referral it will be approximately 3-5 months until we travel to pick up our child. Our case will go through the Ethiopian courts before we travel.

Laundry Room = Serious Progress

The laundry room project has been moving along nicely the past few weeks. Last week dad and I got the hardwood floor installed. I used various leftovers from Stoney Acres Hardwood Flooring and mixed together the wood species and finish colors. Before I installed it in the laundry room, I laid the boards out in the basement so I could get the mix how I wanted it. They even had a leftover transition piece I could use to go from the hardwood to the linoleum.





This week the cabinets and countertop were installed. As you can see from the pictures, we're still missing a few doors and some hardware but that part is almost done. Don Miller built the cabinets.



The cabinets over the washer and dryer area (they're still in the basement - not looking forward to hauling those up).



The mudroom locker thing I designed for Don to build. I still need to get the coat hooks installed.



Now we're waiting for the plumber to come out and hook up the sink and we'll be functional. Oh and the electrician (me) needs to wrap up a few things too. Did I mention we still have to haul the washer and dryer up from the basement?

What's happening with our adoption?

We're just waiting on the notarized copy of our home study report. The home study report is done, but the agency needs to get it notarized by an Indiana notary. Since they're located in Louisville, KY that makes it a bit harder. I guess they had it notarized once and then realized that something was done incorrectly. Anyway, we should get it sometime in the next week.

Once we get the notarized home study report, we'll compile that with all the other documents we've assembled that make up our Dossier. We have everything else we need for the Dossier. The report is the last piece. Once we turn in our Dossier to All God's Children, we'll be put on the waiting list for a referral and given our first set of numbers (i.e. our spot in line for a child). We'll get a number for the boy list and a number for the girl list. Some families are on both lists and some are just on one of them. Within the lists, the parameters for each family (age of the child they are open to) may be slightly different. Based on what I've read, I think a lot of families are looking in the 0 - 12 month range. The stated time for the wait list is 6 - 8 months. Because we're open to a child between Brennan and Sawyer in age, our time on the wait list may be shorter, but it might not be.

I'll update once we get the Dossier turned in.

In other news - I got one coat of paint on the walls in the laundry room. Progress!

Laundry Room - Drywall

Remember a long, long time ago I was working on a laundry room project? Well, I'm finally back at it. I've been blaming adoption related activities on my lack of production, but most of the paper chasing is out of the way for now so I've started to pay more attention to the laundry room again.

A few weeks ago I started making a push to get the wiring done so I could get the drywall up. I was able to do that and on Saturday, October 11, I finished the drywall hanging. The following week the drywall finisher was able to get everything done. As of last Friday (10/17), it's ready for a coat of primer, and it's still waiting for that coat. The cabinet man was out last Monday to take final measurements for the cabinets. We're going with white cabinets and trim in the room.

Here are a few pictures since my last update.


Generally when I'm working on the laundry room Brennan wants to be right there working with me.


Brennan had a great time nailing these screws and nails into the drywall.


Brennan also provided a little art work along the way. While I've got this picture here, note the two cold water lines (the blue ones) side-by-side in the bottom left of the picture. I have to give my mother in-law some credit here. I believe it was her idea to run a hard water line to the laundry room for watering plants. So, our laundry sink will have an extra spigot for hard water. The current system generally involves me filling a water jug out in the garage. Good idea Vi!


Poor Sawyer was stuck in captivity.


Here's what the area looks like where the closet used to be. I put new drywall up on the walls in that area because the walls inside the closet had been textured.


Here's a shot looking into the laundry room.


And here's a shot from inside the room looking over to the entrance.

In case you didn't know...

Apparently God wants McCain to win this election and His reputation is on the line, at least according to one Rev. Arnold Conrad. Check it out. Wow! I realize there are extremists on both sides of this election. I think it's unfortunate that Christians get so caught up in this thing to the point that they make statements like Rev. Conrad just did. I'm not going to expand anymore on his statements other than to say I strongly disagree with him and think it is embarrassing to hear another Christian make statements like this.

A note of clarification for those who would read this and make false assumptions about what I'm trying to say in this post. I'm in NO WAY saying that I think it is embarrassing for a Christian to support McCain. I have never stated that. Don't just read the text. Follow the link and see how this man was praying. The manner in which he was praying regarding the election is what I found embarrassing as a Christian, not the person he is supporting.

Home Study Interviews

We had our home study interviews last Thursday and Friday. They went really well. Our social worker, Rhonda, was great. She was very easy to talk to. We had our individual interviews on Thursday and then a joint interview on Friday. During the individual interview, I went ahead and confessed that talking about my feelings and emotions wasn't exactly my strong suit. She seemed to get a kick out of that. She would tell me when we were done with questions about feelings for awhile. There was a finance piece in the interviews that I was all over!

A few minutes after Rhonda got to our house on Thursday, Brennan asked her if she wanted to see his room. Brennan proceeded to give her a tour of the whole house, basement included. It was pretty funny. Later she asked Brennan a few questions to see what he thought about us adopting. One of the question she asked him was how he would feel if his new brother or sister got into all his stuff. Brennan sort of chuckled while answering and said something to the effect of "oh that's ok, Sawyer already does that". It was pretty hilarious.

Hopefully in another 3-4 weeks we'll have our homestudy finalized and be ready to submit our dossier to AGCI and officially be on the waiting list.

We have an appointment at 8:00 AM this Tuesday in Hammond, IN to be fingerprinted for the Dept of Homeland Security. It has something to do with us getting pre-approved to bring an adopted child into the country. I think that's the last criminal/background check we have to get through.

Overdue Adoption Update

Fortunately, the delay in posting an update on our adoption process does not mean there was a delay in getting things done on our to-do list. One thing that should be sufficiently clear at the end of this process is that we are not criminals. We've submitted several different criminal background checks for the home study and dossier (local & national). We had to go over to South Bend to be fingerprinted at an Indiana State Police post. Hopefully soon the USCIS (Dept of Homeland Security) will be sending us an appointment to go somewhere else and be fingerprinted.

Home Study - We have submitted everything on our list for the home study agency, and our social worker called us today to schedule our home study interviews (09/18 & 09/19). She's going to interview us and JB & Carla on those days. Once we get through the interviews, I believe the agency will be able to get our home study written up. When that is done it will go into our dossier.

Dossier - The only significant item we have left to complete for the dossier (besides the written home study report) is our Statement of Reason to Adopt letter. It's partially written but we need to finish that up. Otherwise we just need to take a few pictures of our house and ourselves to include.

We also have a ten hour online educational thing to get through and a big workbook to fill out. We're 1/10 of the way through the online stuff and about 1/2 way through the workbook.

So, I think things are in pretty good shape. Once we submit our completed dossier, we'll be on the waiting list for a referral.