Happy, happy, joy, joy!

We just got this in an email from the director of our HS agency:
Your home study will be sent to the Charlotte office of the USCIS today.
FINALLY!!! PRAISE GOD!!!

Oh and we just mailed our "BIG" packet of process papers back to the agency. Once it arrives (along with the processing fee we included) we will be eligible to officially begin our dossier. I CANNOT tell you what that means to us!

On another note, we sent in a letter terminating our adoption agreement with the first placement agency. After being with the new agency only a couple of weeks we are so blessed to have moved to a smaller agency.

A lot of back and forth...

going on today. I am not sure I even remember the half of it but I was either emailing or talking to both agencies about "this and that" they both needed. The good news? It was all minor and all taken care of!

Some will. some won't...

Our placement agency caseworker has been working on checking our dossier documents, (Wow, she sure is on the ball. We really feel so much better with this agency!) and some of our docs will work and others won’t. Sure wonderful to know so soon so we can start gathering our dossier!

Dossier-legal documents gathered, notarized, certified at the state Secretary of State office (in our case in NC and FL!)and authenticated at the Ethiopian Embassy to be used to represent our adoption case in court!

Rolling right along...

Yesterday our HS was being edited by the SW at our HS agency and today the revisions are complete and a hard copy is being mailed from the SW to the HS agency main office for finalization!!!

Nothing major!!!

Our homestudy is done being reviewed! We are praising God and so blessed that there are VERY minor changes to be made such as minor typos and items such as including when the post placement reports will be done instead of just saying they will be completed. The placement agency will get it to our HS agency Monday for them to fix, along with our inter-agency agreement paperwork, which the HS agency must complete.

Our caseworker will now start reviewing several dossier documents we had already done for our last agency. We will probably have to re-do almost everything but that is just fine with us, as long as we are still moving forward to bring those baby boys home!!!

Almost Done!

Just heard form our caseworker that our HS is almost done being reviewed!

Keeping busy...

Today we received our process paperwork from the new placement agency. No surprises, it contains all the usual stuff. I am happy to at least have SOMETHING to do for this adoption as we wait for our approval.

And off it goes...

Our new, improved and finished, I might add, HS been sent to our new placement agency to begin the approval process. Our caseworker there said it should take from 7-10 days to complete. My heart is in my throat and I an=m so ready for the next 10 days to FLY by!

Finally!!!

Our new placement agency received our preliminary application and is sending out a packet of forms (process paperwork) to us in the mail today! I have never been so happy to fill out more forms, LOL! Praise God!

The big and wonderful news of the day is that our HS has been finalized! What a journey that has been. I just checked and it took 5 months to complete. No complaints here though as that was just the right amount of time for Elohim to get through to my heart with HIS promise of a double blessing!

We are moving forward!!!

After prayer and much research we are thrilled to be moving forward with a new agency!

It feels wonderful to finally have that step behind us and to have made the decision without reservation. Oh and after speaking with the new agency the wording suggested was: desire to adopt up to two related or unrelated boys from 0 to 24 months. Woo hoo!!!

Could this be the end...

of the paper trail for our homestudy? Yes, they needed yet one more document but we are now assured we are now DONE!!!

Eeny meany miney mo...

We let our sw know via email about what we feel and that we will be calling new agencies tomorrow. After some research we have 4 on the top of our list all of which made the short list last time and one the runner up.

Ok, ok, this decision will not be based on the "eeny meanie miney mo" game but it was a fun title! Questions to ask as we research are requirements on: income, parent ages, homestudy agency, number of children allow in the home presently, the age difference allowed between unrelated babies, along with questions about their facilitator and staff in country and the orphanage they work with.

Our greatest desire is to be led by the Father and be directed to the agency that would have OUR children!