How does the process work?

Well, now that all family and most friends know about our upcoming adoption a lot of people have questions. I would like to give a quick and easy summary of the stages of the adoption process. If you have further questions or would like clarification please feel free to ask!
1. Submit formal application to adoption associates (we did that)
2. Work with adoption associates social worker to complete a home study ( a total of 4 meetings and a lot of reading, which Brandon is loving:)! (we are in this process)
3. Send paperwork to USCIS (working on this)
4. Wait for government to give approval to adopt
5. Send dossier (several documents insurance, employment, criminal records etc.) to US embassy and Ethiopian embassy
6. Send documents to Ethiopia and wait for the referral of a child
7. Accept referral of child, Ethiopia sets a court date to make child legally ours and plan for travel
8. Travel to Ethiopia and pick up our beautiful baby boy!!!

This is a quick snapshot, the actual process takes about 1 year. We are praying for smooth transitions in paperwork so that we will be able to travel at the end of October or beginning of November. We have contact with several people who are also adopting from Ethiopia, unfortunately we are very aware of how things quickly change in this process!

We will do our best to keep people updated with changes and what we are working on, but right now I have to get Brandon back to reading!!!

Hope this helps,
Julie

Just the beginning...

Well, I guess all I can say is that I made a blog site. I don't know how to do this!!! Thank goodness for computer savvy teenagers that I can ask for help. Hopefully you will see this blog change drastically as I learn how to manipulate things.

Thanks for your patience!