Waiting for Her

We are thrilled to share that we are officially waiting for our little girl! Our dossier (official paperwork for the Ethiopian government) was accepted in late March and we are on the very loooooooooooong road of waiting for her. The estimated wait for our referral (match with our child) is 12-18 months+...so we're not expecting to meet our baby girl until late next year at the earliest. We are adopting from Ethiopia again, using Children's Home Society and Family Services again.

We are very very excited to grow our family, but know that the wait is going to be long, so we're coping by continuing our very full lives with our boys. It is MUCH easier to wait with children in tow, than it was when we were childless. When we adopted Ashen in 2007, our wait was just 4.5 months from dossier to our referral of Ashen and it felt painfully slow, compared to 18+ months now. Quite a difference! That is due to the increased popularity of our agency (350 families waiting for a referral right now!), an increase in the number of agencies operating in Southern Ethiopia (where the orphanage CHSFS is in partnership is located), and hopefully more family preservation activities occurring, allowing more children to stay with their families. We believe adoption should be the very last resort. Giving families the opportunity to keep and care for their children is the BEST scenario, so we shall not complain about the wait*.

Thanks for being on this exciting journey with us.

*I say that now, but I suppose when I'm absolutely pulling my hair out and the wait timeline keeps extending, I may succomb to whimpering a little.