Adoption Update

It seems like the last leg of the process is really dragging out! Last month we had completed our homestudy and after reviewing it our case worker forwarded it to our placing agency for approval. Let me explain that this is just a formality as we had already been preapproved months ago..but it's all part of the process. So, we waited. And waited and waited. Finally after over 2 weeks I began to call. By 3 weeks I was concerned and decided to call the placing agency. Our contact there had not seen our homestudy. So I called our case worker Julie and left a message stating my new information. Upon getting the message she called them, and me, and explained that she had in fact sent it weeks before. For whatever reason the homestudy was sent or delivered (still not sure) to the wrong desk. Apparently it was in limbo, but finally landed in the right hands and was approved the same day. So now that the homestudy has been 'officially' approved we can move forward on all of our notarized documents. I have been working on these and have a few left to complete. Our placing agency will review them before we send them for authentication (there are many steps for each document..let's just say they are well traveled!) and once they are authenticated they will be bundled and our dossier will be created and then sent to Ethiopia. Once the Ethiopian embassy receives and approves them THEN we will be put on the waiting list. Back in May when we first started the time to complete an Ethiopian adoption was 1 year, including the homestudy time. That is to say that adoptive parents could expect to BRING HOME a baby in 12 months time..beginning to end. Now it is running 1 year from the time you get on a the waiting list just to get a referral. Then there is another 2-4 months of waiting before travel. Our dream of bringing home our little guy in 2010 is beginning to fade. However, this international adoption process is a funny thing. Things change so fast. It's hard to predict what will happen for us. We just continue to pray that not one extra day is lost in our time with our son. We know God has laid it upon our hearts to pursue this avenue and so we look forward to the day we meet our next child He has in store for our family.