These don’t support our adoption but they are cute bears that support another adoption. A woman in the process of adopting from El Salvador is making and selling these. Personally, I think they would make great gifts for a family in the process of adopting.

Exciting news - we are officially on the waiting list for a child referral. Our case worker just e-mailed to say that the time period right now is about 6-9 months for a child 0-12 months old and less for one up to 18 mo. So, now all that is left to do is wait.

Well, we mailed everything today. We sent in the paper work to apply for the baby’s visa. We sent in our completed dossier. We sent in about 10 different checks and money orders (because no, you don’t just write one big check - you write one big check and 9 other little checks, all made out to different government offices.) So, now we are on to the hardest part. We wait. We wait for the dossier to be approved, we wait for a child referral and we wait to travel to bring our baby home.

Pray for the waiting. I’m not good at waiting.

We have 2 pieces of paper left to complete for our dossier. One is a reference letter from a friend and the other is a letter to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Ethiopia that Kevin and I have to write, explaining our intentions to adopt an Ethiopian child. After we have those 2 documents we get everything notarized, write a huge check and send it in. Honestly, we should be done in the next week. My goal is to have it sent off before Christmas vacation starts (in 9 days).

Oh and here’s a cool twist in our adoption journey. I recently found a friend from college on facebook who is wanting to adopt a boy, from Ethiopia. She and her husband have just started the process but it’s nice to know that I am already friends with someone who will have a family that looks like ours.

We now have all of our birth certificates, marriage certificates, letters of employment, health records & our home study. I heard from the people writing our letters and they are on their way. We just need a few more pieces of paper and our dossier is ready to go. We are trying to get all of that done this week.

Ethiopia, like any other country, has several religions and holidays, but the majority celebrate Christian holidays. This is probably due to the age of the country. Ethiopia is said to be the Beginning of Civilization. Ethiopians claim the Ark of the Covenant is housed in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Many believe that Ethiopia was converted to Christianity when Phillip met the Ethiopian traveler (the traveler was an important official of the time) in the book of Acts. While others believe the overall conversion of the country happened later when a ruler was converted.

I’ve been looking into the customs and holidays of the country, trying to see which ones we could adopt into our family. For the most part, they celebrate many of the same holidays we do - Christmas, New Year’s, Easter - but the dates are slightly different because Ethiopia and most of the Western world are on different calendars. One of the holidays that they celebrate is Epiphany (which is when the Magi reached Jesus as a baby).

I think Epiphany is one of the holidays I would like to add to our family’s celebrations. Partially because it’s not a completely foreign holiday to me. It feels like a good way to bring the 2 cultures of our family together and celebrating a holiday that is already a part of our family’s beliefs.

Sorry I’ve missed a couple posts. Getting ready to leave for Kansas and then driving for 12 hours the next day doesn’t leave much time for blogging. I’ll make up for it with some riveting posts later this week.

Anyway, just a quick update, we’ve received our copy of the home study, now we are waiting for a few more documents to show up in the mail (hopefully they will be waiting for us when we get home) and then we can send in our dossier.

And HUGE thank you to the people who have donated.

One of the things that is suggested for adoptive parents to do is to wear their child/baby in a sling to help the bonding process. I am all for slings. I used one with Lexi and we both really liked it. I’ve been looking around at different slings for our new baby. I have a homemade one but it’s sort of a “cradle” sling and only good for infants. I also have a long piece of material that I can use to tie different ways but I’m not to good at the ties so I’m hoping to find one that is a little simpler to use. I’ve been looking at these two. Does anyone else have one that they would recommend? My only 2 requirements are: easy to use and can be used with toddlers.

There is lots of discussion around the cost of adoption. There are those that really dislike adoption because they feel it is like “buying” a child, there are people who just don’t know where the money goes, there are people willing to adopt but unsure of where their money is going…the list goes on and on. But one of the reasons that we chose Children’s Home Society is because they are very upfront about the cost and where the money goes. When we send in our dossier we also send in a check for $8700. That’s a large chunk of money going to something called “country fees”. But those fees help cover the cost of the care our child has been receiving for however long they are in the care center (and considering day care, on average, in MN runs about $900/month and the kids are only there 8-10 hours a day, $8700 barely begins to cover the cost of several months of round the clock care, with medical treatment if necessary.). The fees also go towards humanitarian aid projects such as these in the various countries CHSFS works with. So although I’m not thrilled with the amount, I’m not uneasy or worried about where our money is going.

Some of this is old news but it’s still worth mentioning. There have been some positive steps in showing adoption on children’s television. Yesterday I was at the Minnesota Children’s Museum and saw the Sesame Street exhibit. One of the signs mentioned Susan and Gordon’s son Miles, who on the show, was adopted domestically. I also found this blog archive of “Gina” (another main character on Sesame Street) adopted a son from Guatemala on the show’s past season.

Arthur also aired an episode featuring a Chinese adoption.

I’m a big fan of kid’s programming dealing with issues as important as adoption but one thing that I wish the shows would talk about is the birthparents. I think without meaning to, the writers portray the adoptive parents as the only people who love the adopted child…if you were six and adopted, how would that make you feel?