This is just crazy exciting to me! Mostly because it means that in just a matter of time we will officially become pregnant with paperwork! Paper chasing might not sound terribly exciting to you- but to us, it means "We're coming little Ethiopian one!". I know this journey truly began on the evening of March 25th when Joshua and I both shared the unexpected burden we felt on our hearts of adoption. I also know this journey took another huge step forward on May 10th when we prayerfully sent our Helms Happenings- Ethiopia Edition newsletter out letting other's know of what God was calling us to do. One God given step after another in this process has gotten us to where we are today. But I truly feel like the biggest step we'll take so far in this process is going to be when we actually turn in our official application with AGCI! There is just something about officially beginning the actual process of adoption that makes it feel all the more real! There becomes a timeline put on the process and there are checkpoints along the way that mean you're one step closer! Once that official application is turned in typically it's 9-12 months until you bring your baby home! Oh what a glorious day that will be! It could be next summer!!!! ( I just said "Ahhhh!" in excitement while typing that!)
So we are getting our booties into gear finishing up paperwork that we can already have filled out so that when the day comes and the money is in the bank... we hand it over! We already have all the grant applications printed out from the three different organizations we want to apply with (I'll have to share with you about these organizations in another post, they're just awesome!). We have them partially filled out, but they can't be turned in until our home study is complete, which is one of the first things on the to do list once we get this ball rolling. We have a good chunk of the home study application and paperwork filled out, it's jammed packed of time consuming questions that we're knocking out one at a time. The funny thing is, here we are trying to stay ahead of the game and have this stuff all filled out and we're going to turn it all in just for them to hand us back another stack of paperwork to fill out! It's kind of like laundry... never ending! But I don't care... bring it on! (o;
Anyway, I just wanted to share that I'm excited about our next step in this journey and I hope it's sooner than later! I love that God is only revealing one step at a time in this process and that there is still so much unknown in the story He is writing- because I know He knows how this all plays out!
Hi Hilary,
ReplyDeleteWe are another AGCI family and reading your post I realized you are where we were a few months ago. We finished our home study and then worked on our dossier. The part of the dossier that took the longest was the FBI fingerprinting and background check. We had heard that from another family so we started our FBI check while we were still doing our home study and before we actually officially started the dossier. Good thing we did because it took a long time and we ended up having our entire dossier finished and just waiting for the FBI check. I thought I would share this in case you want to get that send in early. Feel free to email me at jedandamanda@yahoo if you have any questions!
Ahhh, thanks so much for the advice Amanda! Note taken and we'll so look into getting this taken care of soon! Good call! I'd love to follow your adoption story as well... I'll email ya!
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