Our African Love Story

I haven't updated the blog in a while because we moved to Florida a month ago as Doug trains at NAS Pensacola to become a flight surgeon. We are only here for 6 months before moving on to our final duty station as a flight surgeon. Needless to say, adopting internationally and moving 2 times in the process adds a bit of paper (and stress).

We've been working on our Dossier for the past few weeks. It's important for us to move quickly through our paperwork because we hope to have our referral before we move again at the end of May in order to avoid more time delays. What a wonderful agency Gladney is as well as Kate from KBS Dossier because they appreciate military families' unique situations through the process and they have worked so hard to accommodate our timeline. THank you Judy, Abbey, Kate and everyone else for helping us and supporting us so genuinely through our adoption.

Thank you KBS Dossier because without you, I'd be lost. Updating our homestudy with our Florida agency and working through all of the items that we had to redo for our Dossier (because we didn't do them right the first time for the Dossier) came to a head this week. It's like the 8 days of Christmas...on the 8th day of Christmas, we got...2 more sets of Fingerprints--YES, FOR THE 3rd TIME, New employee and insurance letters for Doug (unhappy hubby...not sure how its my fault??? :), more notarized letters, statements, reports and documents, One unsigned passport (who sends their passport photo without signing it? I do!), a few notarized agency licenses...one updated Florida homestudy!

Its been a tough week for adoption paperwork mostly because we thought we were almost done-never assume that. As many of you who have come before us know, its these last few things that need to be perfect to save time and hardship once everything is sent to Ethiopia. We have these last few hurdles to keep us humble, to remind us that this is a hard and long process...and that is what makes it even that much more appreciated in the end! We'll keep our heads down and continue to stay focused and determined as we know, every small step forward (and even those steps backward) get us one step closer to meeting our baby/ies!

So, this is my first blog post, ever. It's been a long time coming but I have waited for a number of reasons. First, I didn't know how to get us set up and secondly because emotionally, I was protecting Doug and myself from getting too excited. But, the good news is that our homestudy is finished and I feel Doug and I are officially on our way to becoming parents! Please continue to pray that the process progresses as well as it has so far. Our agencies have been tremendous support systems and we feel very blessed to have found Gladney and CAS and the wonderful staff at both organizations.

We will have many more hurdles to overcome on this exceptional journey. Through love and faith we will anxiously anticipate the arrival of our child(ren)!

Our families and friends have been on our journey to parenthood for quite some time now and I hope this blog will allow you all to experience the peace and joy that Doug and I have discovered. Looking back, every turn in our path to parenthood was inexplicably bringing us one step closer to our children in Ethiopia--no other time in my life has my future been more clear, my existence more meaningful and my purpose better defined.

Please pray for our birthmother(s), that they can experience a sense of hope and peace as our lives become forever united through the love of our baby(ies).

So, many more blogs to come. I just wanted to get us started.