Snail Mail

Well....we still don't have the state certified copy of Wes's birth certificate. I would imagine it will be here in the next day or so and if not, it is lost. This is causing me a great deal of stress!!!! Where is it??? If I have to reorder his birth certificate and then send it off again.....Ohh lets not go there. Let pray it comes tomorrow.

Paper Work

After our garage sale on Saturday we came home to find the one piece of paper we needed for our dossier sitting in the mail box!!!!! Today my mom and I drove downtown to the Secretary of state office and had every thing state certified. I only had one problem....Wes was born in Wyoming and his birth certificate needed to be state certified there...duh! I overnighted it to Wyoming and should have it back by the end of the week and then our dosser will be in its way to Washington DC. I was a bit frustrated but we had a nice lunch and did some shopping. Ahh... food and shopping total stress relief! This is too easy.

Garage Sale

Over the weekend We had a yard sale to raise some money for the ever growing cost of this adoption. It was hard work but so much fun. I had lots of help from friends and family to help pull it together. My good friends daughter made a big sign that said that all proceeds would go to an international adoption. The shoppers all commented and wished us luck. Thanks to all who participated in this day!!!

Our Dossier

We have gathered every piece of paper work for our new dossier except one paper. We are waiting for our I171H to come in the mail. Once we receive that we have to get every paper notarized. Then we will take the day off work and head down town to the Secretary's of State office and get our dossier state certified. Once that is completed (its a whole day process) it will be in the mail to our agency and then on to Washington DC for one more stamp of approval. From there our dossier will go to Ethiopia!!! We hope all of this will be completed in the next month. Our agency is telling us that from the time our dossier hit Ethiopia to the time we travel is approximately 5-8 months. Of course after the last few experiences that we have had we have a hard time believing that. Lets pray its true! We are requesting a boy or girl age 0-15 months at the time of referral.

Why Ethiopia?

I can't explain how we decided on Ethiopia because in the past neither of us ever considered to do an adoption from there. It was just not in our hearts. Then one morning I woke up and Ethiopia was the first thought that entered my head. From that moment on it never left. Next was to convince Wes and how on earth was I going to do that. Well, as you can see that did not much if any convincing. We have looked into so many countries Russia, India, Kazakhstan but it was Ethiopia that was placed in our hearts.

Nepal announced on Monday that their Prime Minister has stepped down. This has caused even more problems with the adoption process in Nepal. It is expected that adoptions will not start moving for at least a few more months if not longer. Once we heard this, we were certain we made the right choice.

The Beginning

Our journey in adoption began over two years ago. Our first destination was Vietnam. After four months completing the paperwork and eight months of waiting for a referral their doors to adoption were closed. We were very frustrated and upset and we quickly decided to move on to another country.


Our next destination was Nepal. We accepted the referral of a twelve month old baby girl instantly. However we were told the wait could be very long before we could bring her home because at the time Nepal was closed to new adoptions. They were predicitng that they would open any month. Never the less we instantly fell in love. We named our little one Paige Srijana and we waited as patiently as possible. Stress and anxiety became a part of our daily lives as we waited to the green light to send our official paper work to start the process to bring her home. When they finally reopened in January of 2009 all of the laws and regulations had changed and it became imposable for us to adopt her. We were devastated at the loss of our little girl but we have realized that we must move on. This truly has been the longest stork ride ever!! We have researched every option through our agency and we have chosen yet another country. So here we go again!!

Our next destination.................... ETHIOPIA!