Homestudy? check!

Well our homestudy has been approved and we are now what is called "homestudy ready!" Quite exciting- now things can really roll along :)

Again the homestudy has nothing to do w/ the actual adoption agency. It's the state okaying us. Our adoption agency reveiwed it today and said it looks great and to send it on over!

So whats next:
* Our 1st set of Immigration papers can now be mailed out and in a 2-3 months the we get a paper from the gov't Okaying us to adopt internationaly.

* We also are finished gathering our paperwork for ethiopia called the 'dossier.' We are notarizing tons of papers this week and hopefully next week I will go to the secretary of the states office- drop off the dossier- and then she 'Apostiles' those documents...basicaly she is notarizing the notaries! I think that I can get those back in a couple days. Then I make copies of the dossier and send it off to our agency. Once our agency recieves our 1st set of fee's they will send that dossier off to ethiopia and we can begin the waiting game.

What's the waiting Game?
Sova was considered an older child and was what they call a 'waiting child' so we never waited for a child refferal...every thing happened so fast!
Because my brain will not funtion properly if we take in a "talking" child  ;)  we are adopting a baby anywhere from 0-12 months. To even things out around here and to make Sova-Grace stop complaining about NOT being able to share a room w/ someone we are adopting another girl. (every gal needs a sister right?)

So once those inital fee's make it in they say the expected wait for a 'child refferal' is between 4-12 mos. I have been monitoring my agencys stats though and I have never seen a refferal take 12 months yet...our guestimate is that we would be traveling by the end of next summer?


What we are waiting for
* The 1st set of fee's is $5,700. Breathe people- yes, it's alot...and yes I know that's not what tagsales normally make  :)
So no...we dont know how that will get paid BUT we DO know this:
God told us to start this adoption...we did.
God has all the silver and gold...and He Will provide for us.
Please keep out tagsale/ adoption finances in prayer!

Also, now that we have a homestudy we can apply for adoption grants. (just when I thought the paperwork was over...these grants are almost worse!)
We are also trying to set up a matching grant fund- where whatever a donor gives toward the adoption, the company will match!
Very Cool...

So there you have it :)
Babystep #2 is checked off...and we are that much closer to holding our daughter!
 Lot's of work ahead of us but that's what keeps life exciting right?!