One month down

The 20th is our one month mark of waiting for the girls. It has went by fast, so lets hope the next months until we receive our referral goes just as fast. I think caring for Levi has helped tremendously as he keeps me busy and my m ind off the girls. I can't wait to have them home with us. My only regret is that Jerry possibly will not get the experience of seeing their birth country if he cannot get leave when we are allowed to travel to bring them home. But we will make up for it when he comes home. I will try to keep up the blog, but since there is not much happening until referral it might be a little hard. I guess I could post all the cute things that we have found and people give us for the girls. We will probably need to buy clothes when we find out how old they are and what size, if we don't have the right sizes already. We could possible get twins too so then we will definitely need more because I always wanted to have twins to dress them alike.

Week 2

This is week 2 into the wait for our girls. Some of the posts on the Ethiopia boards that I have been reading have been very disturbing to me lately. I tend to take things to heart and they bother me way more than they should. Makes me wonder sometimes if this is really going to happen or not. Jerry says not to panic it will happen when the time is right. I thought this time around that it wouldn't be so crazy and I wouldn't worry so much, but that isn't the case. I don't obsess about it to the extent that I did before, but it is always still there in the back of my mind. I want so much to be mom to these babies. But it has only been 2 weeks so I will calm down and wait my turn for now.

We have our I171H!!

And it only took 1 month to get it. I was totally surprised to get it int he mail today! I wasn't expecting it at all. One step closer to the girls! Now we just have to wait along with the other families for referrals, which could take up to 9 months or so. We will see what happens over the next few months. Stay tuned.

Our documents are in Ethiopia

Our documents made it to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Friday the 20th. Now they will be translated and we are on the waiting list for our babies. Hope it doesn't drag on forever like China did. I am getting more excited as each day passes. One step closer to bringing them home. At least we have other things to keep my mind occupied like my little man Levi, he keeps us on our toes most days. I had forgotten how much it took to keep up with a toddler in the house, and his leg is in a cast!! Wait and see what it will be like when he gets his prosthetic foot. I will never be able to sit down again.

And we're off!!!!

Or should I say our Dossier is off to Ethiopia!!!!! I just got the e-mail today. We are officially waiting for our referral for our girls. I can't tell you how excited we are to be on this journey again. At this time the wait for a healthy infany girl with our agency is about 6 to 9 months. Let's hope it's closer to 6! After that we wait for our court date (agency rep. goes for us)and then if we pass we travel about 2 months after. We are hoping to bring the little ones home early next year. I will probably be going by myself or taking one of the older kids with me.

Very exciting times in the Maxwell house. Stay tuned for more news as we get further into the wait.

Sandi

One step closer

We are one step closer to our daughter(s). We sent off the paperwork to the United States Immigration last Friday and received our receipt today in the mail. They got it on the 23rd so it will be about 60 days until we receive our I171H approval for the kids. After that we can send our dossier in to get certified and then authenticated. After that it goes to Ethiopia. We were told we should receive our referral about 6 to 9 months after that time. I hope it's closer to 6 than 9. And then we have to wait for a court date and pass. After that it will be travel time. So it is looking more and more like next year before we can bring the kids home. I really wanted to bring them home the end of this year so I would have the time to stay home with them a little longer before having to return to work.

I will post more later.

PS I need some help coming up with Mylie's middle name. We had originally chose Jaide but we are going to name our second daughter Jaidyn Emmory. So I have been trying to come up with a middle name for Mylie. We are trying to adopt an infant girl and a toddler about 18 mo to 2 years. Wish us luck.

The Application is in the mail

Just a brief note to say that I have officially signed with our agency. It is Hope Adoption out of Missouri. We chose them for several reasons, but the main one being that I liked the fact that she called me back at about 6:30pm on the same day that I left the message. She seems like such a great lady and I can't wait to get everything together to bring our little princess home. I was told that the wait time from Dossier in country to referral for a young girl under 1 year was 6 to 9 months at this point with thier agency. So if we are able to get our Dossier in by April, and all goes well we should have her home by January next year maybe sooner. We are so lucky to be able to bring these children into our lives and are truely blessed. I couldn't ask for a better son and I am sure it will be the same with our daughter. I am excited to journey down this road again to bring her home. Levi has been such a joy to have around, he makes me laugh everyday.