It's been some time since my last post, but honestly there hasn't been much to report. About three weeks ago the adoption agency sent us an email and informed us that we moved up to 5th on the list. While we were so excited to move up another spot on the list, I didn't blog about it because at the end of the day, we were still waiting, and waiting.......and waiting......Remember when I said the waiting wasn't so bad? Well, that idea didn't last too long. We've been dying to hear something at this point, and the adoption and even the adoption process have just felt so far away. The adoption agency did inform us that even though we were 5th on the list, that we can always jump ahead of someone if the referral that came in didn't meet the request of those ahead of us. Basically, that means, that if the four families ahead of us expressed that they wanted a gender specific child, or siblings, or an older child, and a referral came in and matched with us ahead of those families, we would get the referral. While I am unsure of what the four families on the list in front of us requested, I do know that on Monday November the 4th, we received a referral for a beautiful 4 month old boy! When we received the phone call we were truly speechless and beyond excited! We are mailing our formal acceptance letter back to the adoption agency today to once again get the ball rolling on the next step of this process. When we started with A Love Beyond Borders back in February they gave us an estimated time frame of 2 to 6 months for a referral, once the dossier was submitted. We submitted the dossier in May and have now received our referral in November. Kudos to them for being able to give an estimated time frame, and come through with it. They have told us since the beginning that estimating time frames with adoptions can be difficult as things can change at the drop of a hat, but they came through for our family, and we are all on cloud 9 at the moment. From here, my understanding is that once we submit our formal acceptance papers, we still have a 4 to 7 month wait time to travel to Ethiopia for our court date. In the mean time, there are a number of things that we will be doing here, such as filling out paperwork, applying for visas to travel, getting shots, etc. We are crossing our fingers that our court date will be closer to the four month wait instead of the seven month wait, but just like waiting for the referral, it's out of our hands. For anyone who is going through this process and currently waiting for that referral, know that your time will come, and when it does come, it will make the time you've waited seem so insignificant.
Check back soon, as we hope to have much more information to pass along.
Check back soon, as we hope to have much more information to pass along.