All's quiet

We have been in a trough of activity since the crest of the dossier debacle. We heard from Adoption Ave, and in their estimation the dossier will be in DC for 10 days--then on to Ethiopia. Our exercise of patience continues.

We continue with readying our house for our new arrival. We are close to deciding on the crib set and the wall color for the nursery. The crib and changer still awaits assembly--seems better to do that after we paint.

After this, I imagine we will be focused on clips and clasps, elevating and removing items as we baby proof the house.

The Room

Here is my first try at a possible layout for the baby's room...(the small images are linked to larger files)

All's Well Cried the Town Crier

Dr. Baila from Adoption Avenues emailed he received the corrected paperwork for the I-171H and it is on it way to DC for authentication. WOOT!

In other news, the baby furniture arrived yesterday. So that tasks lies before me...a good task for the hands to quiet the mind.

We've got trouble right here in River City

We are using Adoption Avenues to handle our dossier during the authentication rounds in DC. We were unaware that we needed to send a copy of the I-171H instead of the original. Of course, the copy needs the "True Copy" statement notarized, certified, and authenticated.

Luckily, we still have time to react. In talking with Dr. Baila @ Adoption Aves I learned the dossier would have made the rounds in DC without trouble, but once it reached Ethiopia "we would have much bigger problems than this"--his words.

I wish this would have happened yesterday. Then, we would have a little more time to get this resolved this week instead of spilling over into the next. But I could not ask for anyone better to deal with than Dr. Baila. He handled this quickly and efficiently.

New books from Grandma

My mom was in last night, passing through from Ohio on her way home. She came bearing gifts for our little one.

Off to the Sweet Shores of Africa: And Other Talking Drum Rhymes

A Very Clever Crocodile

A Very Friendly Firefly

The first book on the list is written by Uzo Unobagha and it very much holds to African drum and speech patterns. I would recommend this book to anyone. The last two are two nifty pop-up books that are, well, nifty.

A really good weekend

Following the Lucky Friday the 13th, we had a full weekend of post-dossier shopping to do. The first thing that was bought was a 200 oz. bottle of Dreft. Such a small thing, but very cool nonetheless. But, even better than that, we went crib and baby furniture shopping. Wow! I was astounded at all the choices.

Here are the items we bought:

Crib



Combo

I stand in Defiance of Friday the 13th

The passports were waiting for us when we arrived home from work!!

WOOT Cubed!

Yet another good thing

Passports were mailed to us Priority Post on 7/11!!!

WOOT WOOT!

Another good news update

WOW...the good news just keeps on coming today!

We heard from our agent that our dossier checks out and it is now on its way to Adoption Avenues. IFS has teamed with Adoption Ave to handle the Authentication in DC, the US State Dept. and the Ethiopian Consulate. Everything seems to be drawing into a tighter focus, now. I am giddy with anticipation.

If this were Candyland, if feels as though we just drew move ahead 15 spaces card.

Tomorrow is our first trip to the baby outfitters--furniture, fabric, and colors are all ripe for the chosing.

Passport Update

I just called Ben Chandler's office to see if they could offer any help to expedite our passports since all our documentation has unexpectedly preceded the arrival of our passports. The good news is the person who handles the passport issues was as nice and as helpful as she could be. We should now receive those sometime next week or the week after instead of being in limbo until late August or after.

WOOT!

The song

Here's the song I wrote about earlier

Waiting game

We heard from our agent (Chris) and he has the dossier in hand, and will be checking it over so we are anxious to hear his feedback. The feeling of this process being totally out our hands is a new and weird one. Patience is usually one of my strongest suits, at least I have been told many times that is the case, but I find myself struggling with "eagerness." I take solace in the fact that each day that steps over the next into tomorrow is one day closed to our little girl being in our arms.

A strange song experience happened the other day at work. I was just sitting at my desk, deep into my work, the music from my headphones quietly behind me in the middle distance when a Paul Simon song crept into my ear, demanding to be heard. "Father & Daughter," I had never heard it before Monday. All I can say is that I am glad I'm in allergy season so if anyone asked why my eyes were watering, I had an easy out.

This song killed me. Sophia seemed so far away, but so much in my heart. I will have to post the lyrics soon.

Take care, all

Good article

Interesting read

We are done!!!!

Amy and I sent off our dossier Saturday morning. It should be in our agent's hand by 3:00 CT this afternoon. I can only begin to describe the relief, satisfaction, and sheer happiness with sending this off...and the breath-holding anxiety that comes with waiting to hear it has been received on the other end.

The next step is a big one: once the dossier is looked over and all is determined to be in order--we get THE REFERRAL!!! We now look to that with hopeful anticipation.

Acceptance

God bless you little one and your new family!