Ethiopia Adoption: Part 1

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about.

This is going to be as simple a breakdown of the Ethiopian adoption process as I can manage. As we reach each milestone in the process, I will post more about the steps taken and explain them in more detail. But for now, here is a general outline of what we expect to happen in the next year or so.

Obviously, we had to start by choosing an agency. I think that this is very, very important to the process, and I think it deserves a post all on its own. But for now, I'll just share some of the reasons we chose our agency. They have the proper licensing, and after doing a lot of research, we trust that they are doing all they can to be certain that this adoption is giving us a child who truly needs it. They only have programs for China and Ethiopia, and have been established for over 15 years. We believe that because of this, they are very good at what they do in these two areas. They are based in Utah, which means it's a lot quicker to mail things, and they are the ones who can facilitate our homestudy. They respond very quickly to any questions we have, and are very patient with us. They obviously love what they are doing. These are a few of the reasons, and perhaps when I have time, I'll talk more about the licensing part of it, and the story of how we found them.

The next step is applying. For this particular agency, we had to fill out a lot of paperwork, mainly contracts, breakdowns of costs, basic information about us, and things of that sort. We filled all this out, signed and notarized them, and mailed them in with a check for the application fee. If you want to know how much we are paying, feel free to e-mail me or message me on facebook. I don't feel comfortable sharing that information online. But let's just say, we're on a very tight budget. ;-)

After we received the e-mail saying that we were officially accepted into the Ethiopia program, they sent us...surprise, surprise! More paperwork! This is what will initiate the next part of this process: the homestudy. The homestudy is basically our lives on paper. It is very intensive, and will most likely take anywhere from 2 - 6 months to complete. This first packet of paperwork was more contracts to sign, and background checks on us, and the homestudy fee to begin the homestudy. We sent that one in yesterday. I think that as soon as our background checks are cleared, we will be assigned a social worker, who will be making three visits with us. One of these visits must be at our home, so they can see our floor plan, and make sure that it is safe for a child. The other visits are to get to know us better, and they really want to know us! Some of the questions they have on the questionnaire we have to fill out are rather personal, but it is in the best interest of both us and our future child. The social worker will determine whether we are capable parents that can provide a loving, stable home, and they will also help us figure out what needs in a child we can and cannot handle as a family.

About a week before the homestudy is finalized, we need to start compiling our dossier. The dossier (pronounced "doss-ee-ae") is a collection of documents that we send to Ethiopia (and maybe the US government as well, I'm not sure) as part of our petition to adopt. It is HUGE. Some of the documents that will most likely be required are things like financial information, a physician's statement that we are healthy and fit to be parents, marriage and birth certificates, the completed homestudy, and the list goes on and on. If I understand correctly, many of these documents must be notarized, certified, apostilled, and authenticated. Which, to my understanding, means checked, double checked, triple checked, and quadruple checked.

This part of the process I am not quite certain of yet, so I may be wrong. But I believe after the homestudy is finalized and our dossier is compiled and quadruple checked, we send the entire dossier to the Ethiopian government, and then the waiting begins. This is the point at which many adoptive families rejoice and can say, "We are DTE!" (Dossier to Ethiopia). Unfortunately, this can also be one of the tougher parts. We will be waiting for the agency to give us a referral, which means that they have found a child for us. It will probably take anywhere from 12 to 18 months for us to get a referral for a child. It is a very long wait. The good thing is, this will give us time to save money and fundraise, because a lot of money will be due by the time we finally get that referral!

The referral is one of the most anticipated and celebrated milestones an adoptive family can have in this process. (Though possibly scary, too!) Once we get "the call", the agency will e-mail us pictures of the referred child, and any medical history and other information they have on him or her. We will have a certain amount of time to accept or reject it. Once we accept our referral, I believe more paperwork has to be done on the end of the Ethiopian court. Again, I'm not sure of the whole process, but I believe that we will be assigned a court date, and when we get that we will have permission to travel to Ethiopia for about a week. This will be a week of court appointments, probably more paperwork, and what I've seen other adoptive parents affectionately refer to as, "Meetcha Day." We will finally get to meet our child, and spend time with him/her. The agency we are using has a guest house that is right across the street from at least one of the orphanages; it looks like they take care to make sure we get to spend as much time as possible with our little one.

Here comes probably one of, if not the toughest part. Once we spend a week with our child, we have to leave them behind. It makes me sad just thinking about it, and we don't even know who it is yet! But we have to go back to the States, and wait for the government to process the rest of the paperwork that will make our child officially ours. I think this can take anywhere from 4 - 6 months. In the meantime, we will be paying for our little one to stay in a foster care home instead of the orphanage as we wait to bring them home. Finally, when all of the paperwork is processed, visa paperwork done, we will travel there again to bring our little one home.

So there it is, in a nutshell. (Yes, that was a nutshell. Pretty crazy, huh?) And that was just Part 1! A lot more happens after we bring our child home. But that will be saved for Part 2. Aren't you excited now? If you aren't sleeping?

Anyway, I will be posting updates in detail as we hit each major milestone. We would so appreciate it if you could commit to pray for us during all this. We are so excited, but we have a very long journey ahead.