I-600A Approved!

Today in the mail, we recieved approval of our I600A. This basically gives us permission to bring our son into the U.S and make him a citizen! Since I have last posted, we have moved from #10 on the waiting list to #7. At this pase, we will be recieving a referral in 3 or 4 more months!! I am giving it no more than 5 months, just a guess. Did I already mention that we decided to name him Ari Kingsley O'Day?

On The Waiting List!

What a wonderful day today. We are officially on the waiting list at International Adoption Net. We are at # 10 for an infant boy. I couldn't be happier! Now if only the list would move. No one at our agency has accepted a referral since November 9th. Every time someone does, they post it on the website. I am wondering if the lack of movement means that a bunch of referrals will all come at once. All I know is, James and I are walking on air right now. Did I already mention that the name we have agreed on so far is Ari? Ari Kingsley O'Day. <3

Home Study!

Yay! We finally had our in-home visit and by this time next week, we should be on the waiting list for our baby boy (fingers crossed). I am so exicited, I can hardly sleep. When I do sleep, I dream of picking up the baby. Unfortunately, all of the dreams are bad. The baby has the head of a grown man, an unhuman face, is the complete wrong age and/or sex ect. ect.

Right now, James and I are trying to tackle applications to 9 different grants. It is incredibly intimidating and for the first time since this process started, I feel overwhelmed. This sunday we are dedicating the entire day after church to nothing but grants and junk food. Without grants, we are in big big trouble financially. Again, we have complete faith in Him.

We did hear some good news through a contact at church. Apparantly, there is an adoption committee that is organizing ways for the families there to raise money for their adoptions. So far, they are taking donations to go to LifeSong that will be disbursed in the form of grants and interest free loans. Also, there will be a garage sale in May where 100% of the proceeds will go to the adopting families. I am so excited about this. Hopefully more and more people will want to adopt. I just read that in 2009, there was a 27% decrease in international adoptions from 2008. What a shame. I also heard that Obama will be taking away the tax credit in an effort to help with the debt of the U.S. Another shame.

Coming right along

We sent our dossier last week and this week we are sending out our I-600A form. This is a form that must be filed before your child can come into the United States. Once this form is approved, you can apply under the I-600 to have your child be considered a member of the family. The cost for this form and fingerprinting that is required was $830.00.

As of right now, our paper work for the home study has been done for weeks and still no phone call to schedule our in home visit. It seems silly that we cannot even schedule a date. I find myself growing very impatient. I am sure that this is all part of Gods perfect timing though.

We mailed our dossier today! We decided that no matter what the out of pocket cost is, it is well worth it. God will make it work for us. Our home study is very very close to being done. We will hopefully be scheduling our in home visit this week and it takes two weeks after the visit to write the report. As soon as that report is written, we will be put on the waiting list! I am so full of anticipation and curiosity. I think that our son is born already. I wonder what he is doing right now. I wish he could know that we are coming for him.

Bad news

Today was kind of a sad day for us. We have our dossier ready to send to International Adoption Net and now we might not be sending it at all. We were hoping and praying that a letter to the pastor of our church might be an outlet to relieve some of this heavy financial strain. Today, we approached the pastor to talk about his thoughts on the matter and were sorely disappointed with the outcome. We are now relying entirely on grants to assist us. Unfortunately, grants are hard to come by. So many grants are asking that you do a fundraiser for your adoption or are reserved for those who are adopting older children, special needs children, or sibling groups. Fundraising is almost a guaranteed failure due to lack of support and the fact that almost everyone we know is struggling with their own financial issues.
I don't know what to do right now. The only thing that feels right is to sit down and pray for something good to happen here.

Things are still going pretty smoothly. Today I called our agency, International Adoption Net, to get a few last minute questions answered while I prepare to send out our dossier. They informed me that there are only 7 people on the waiting list right now and the last family got their referral in 5 weeks! Wow! That is incredibly fast. I am hoping and praying that our home study gets completed by this time next month so that we can send our dossier out. I am also in need of extra prayers that our pastor will call with good news about support from the church. I am starting to stress out about the bills that are rolling in. As soon as the home study is complete, we can start applying for grants!





I am getting more and more excited as time goes on. I have been trying so hard not to buy things for the new baby. The only thing stopping me is the fact that his age upon arrival is unknown. I would hate to buy a bunch of clothes that he has already outgrown. I found a great shop at Etsy.com that is almost impossible to resist:


http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30891418

The seller makes them for several different places. I am definitely buying one as soon as we get our referral.

Some really good news came this past weekend. My older sister Audra may be going with us to Africa! She is not entirely approving of this adoption because I still have some schooling left and James and I have only been married for two years, however, she is still excited to be a part of this process with us. I would absolutely love for her to be there when we first meet our son.

Well, thats all for now.