Small Snag

We hit a very tiny paperwork hang-up with our dossier. After reviewing everything, AGCI found that our local sheriffs office had notarized our clearance on a date previous to the letter being written. I called the sheriffs office and of course was told "that is impossible." It should be impossible but it wasn't. Luckily they realized their mistake and were helpful about getting me new papers. We will be stopping by to pick up new clearances tomorrow to send to AGCI. Once the new clearances are in, our paperwork will be forwarded on to D.C. because everything else was perfect!!

Buh Bye!

On Friday afternoon we sent the dossier (massive stack of paperwork which is a culmination of everything anyone could possibly want to know about us) to AGCI. Christy should receive it this morning and check to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. Once everything is approved then it will be off to Washington D.C. for the couple week journey of authentication. Once authenticated, it will be sent back to AGCI. Then AGCI will send our completed, authenticated dossier to Almaz, our facilitator in Ethiopia. She will have it translated into Amharic. Once we accept a referral, Almaz will take our completed, authenticated, translated dossier to the courts on our behalf. Crazy to think that soon there will be people in Ethiopia who know just about every detail of our lives. So, good bye dossier. Although you were a burden I remain positive that you will surely be worth it all in the end!

Nesting

Today I got off of work early and somehow found myself wandering around Target. Actually, it was more like spending 45 minutes walking very slowly down every single baby aisle. I didn't buy anything and had no intention to do so. Not knowing the age or size of our baby has made it incredibly easy to not shop. Every time I see something cute I can logically talk myself out of buying it because if I did I might just be creating a really large return pile for myself. We actually haven't purchased anything. I just wanted to be around baby stuff. I have been looking for bedding because I am feeling like I need to get my act together and start turning the now guest room into a nursery but I can't find anything I like. The more I look the more I realize I am just not a classical Pooh person. Brian called me a Pooh-hater today and I'm not, I swear, it's just not me. I found some things that I think I kinda like in the catalog at Target. They are from JJ Cole and are a touch more modern rather than really baby/nursery feel. If they weren't $200 I might be more willing to settle on these that I like rather than holding out for something I love. I would like to try and find them in person though to see if I do end up "loving" one of the sets. Luckily Brian doesn't laugh too much at my antics. A while back he said "it's not weird Autumn, you're just nesting. At least I think that's what they call it."

I am also acting a touch like a hormonal pregnant lady, but the emotional adopting lady counterpart. I chopped off my hair. Approximately 7 inches. I walked into the salon, looked at my hair dresser and said, "I want Mom hair." She was laughing, I wasn't. I don't know exactly why I did it. My hair has never been this short, at least not since elementary school. I was hoping it would make me look older so I might ward off some of those "you are too young to be a Mom" comments. I don't think it worked. Also I was starting to think about maintenance. When would I have time to do my hair with a baby? Babies love to pull my long hair and I just didn't want to deal with that every day. Maybe it was a control thing. So many things in life right now are so out of my control so I made a controlled big decision. Enough psychoanalyzing myself. I have no idea. At least it wasn't one of those hair traumas where you cry for 3 days later.

Here is a picture of my "Mom hair." Brian and I went to a 30th birthday disco party. There are a lot of qualities we have that will make us good parents. Although looking hot in our groovy disco duds isn't one of them - it's certainly a bonus!

Thoughts from Brian

After enjoying the nearly 3 months now of Autumn's posts I figured it's about time for me to share about how the adoption process has gone and how excited I am to know how close we are to bringing our son home. It's hard to imagine that just before Christmas Autumn and I shared with our families our intentions to adopt and here we are now about to be placed on the wait list to some day very soon meet our son who we've been praying many months for! I've been known to be a bit more emotional than Autumn and going through the adoption process is no different in bringing that out in me. It makes my eyes swell up with tears and my heart beat faster thinking about someday very soon having our first child in my arms. Autumn, to her credit, (along with the diligent work of our adoption agency and social workers) has made it her goal to make sure all the tedious paperwork has been completed accurately and quickly. I really think she's out to set a record for shortest paperwork phase. I don't know if it's anything special to say someone's "good at paperwork" but when it comes to paperwork, Autumn's the best.

Now that all the paperwork, or most of it, that we must complete is finished it's time to wait. . .

Not something either of us is good at, but one thing we've learned even at this stage of the process and that many adoptive parents learn, is to be patient. Patience will be important for us once we're on the wait list and see our names start at the bottom and move to the top as we anxiously await the referral of our child. To know what he'll look like, how old he is, how healthy he is are questions we have already discussed and are questions we so eagerly await to be answered. We know now that much like our decision to adopt in the first place everything is in God's hands. I pray daily for our child wherever he is, however he is, for his family, for their health, and that someday soon he'll come home safely with us.

Adoptive Parenting 300

Tonight was our third parenting class. We focused on grief and loss. It was very interesting to hear a couple of "worst case" scenarios both at infancy and adolesence. Intersting, scary, intimidating... I think the biggest lesson I took away from tonight is it won't be perfect. The transition for our child is huge. The transition for us is huge. Everyone involved is placed in unfamiliar roles so there will absolutely be bumps in the road, we just need to be as prepared as possible to work through those frustrating and trying times.

We are finding that we have fun discussing our adoption process with other in process adoptive parents at our class. It's so nice to be able to share ideas and learn from one another, compare notes about our process, etc. I really wanted to find a support group of families who have adopted from Ethiopia here in San Diego that we could join. Apparently, there aren't any. When I asked Michelle (Adoption Alliance Program Director) about this her reply was, "No there aren't but you should start one." I actually laughed out loud. How intimidating. I wanted to join a group to learn from other people cause I'll admit there are so many things about parenting, adoption, transracial families, and Ethiopia that I don't know. Since there are three of us in the class who are adopting from Ethiopia we wrote down e-mails and I am going to disperse the information. Disclaimer: this does not mean that I have any idea how to organize a support group nor am I starting anything official, I'm just a good e-mailer :) Hopefully we can continue to get together, learn from one anothers experiences, and share in the ups and downs of adoption.

Home Study Approved!

Wow! Just when I think things can't get any faster our home study gets approved after the changes were just submitted last night. Have I told anyone how awesome Lori, our social worker or Michelle, our program director at Adoption Alliance are? They are so FAST!

We will receive our notarized copies of the home study tomorrow (Thursday) night at class. We can then send off our DOSSIER to AGCI on Friday. On Tuesday morning the 8th (walk-ins are only accepted on Tuesdays) Brian and I will go downtown and hand in our home study to immigration. The way the San Diego office does this is different than others. We turned in our I-600-A application in person back in February. I was then given that same day our fingerprint appointments for a week later. So they have had the completed application and fingerprints for a long time. We have 1 year after our fingerprint appointment to turn in our completed home study. There is a good chance that we will be handed our approval when we turn in the home study on Tuesday but there is also a possibility that it will be mailed to us a week later. Either way - we are so close to the WAIT LIST!! We can't wait to be a NUMBER ON THE LIST!

Home Study

Martha reviewed our homestudy and asked for a few more things to be added. Lori submitted those changes last night so hopefully by the end of the week we will have notarized copies of our homestudy in our hands.