Merry Christmas!!!!

I just wanted to wish everyone out there a very Merry Christmas. We began our festivities this morning by singing happy birthday to Jesus and then opening some gifts, playing baseball in the street, watching the kids ride their bikes, visiting with Uncle LJ, and just enjoying hanging out as a family. My awesome husband got me the most awesome necklace shaped of Africa from junkposse and I just can't stop looking at it. It is just my style and has special meaning to me. We are also styling our really cool simply love T-shirts from mycrazyadoption. Oh yeah, how could I forget..... one of the families in our age category got a referral, bumping us up to #7 for a toddler boy. YIPPEE!!!! Anyways, I have lots to do so bye for now..... and as our little guy likes to say, Happy Christmas!!!!!

prayers

I have been thinking the last couple of days on where our son might be. There are 6 families picking their 8 children up to go home this week from the transition home. Also, one of the orphanages our agency works with had their license renewed which is now allowing those families to pass court and wait for an embassy appointment (2nd & last trip to Ethiopia). I am excited about the movement and these children joining their forever families. Friday's are referral days and we have now gone 1 month without a family receiving a referral. From my understanding, the transition home was full and therefor, they were unable to bring in new children to be referred. With these 8 children leaving and many of the remaining children being able to pass court, I am hoping to see some more families receive their referrals soon. We have not been DTE for long, so we probably have a few months before we would get ours, but am hopeful for all the families in the process of being able to move forward. This week, as usual, I viewed the adoption from my perspective, but also thought about it from our little boy's perspective. I lifted up many prayers and will continue to do so for our son and all the other children that are experiencing change and loss, without realizing that they have a family waiting for them already. I was wondering where our son is, if he is with his biological parents and if so, have they made the decision to place him up for adoption. How are they handling the decision, are they sick from some disease that would be manageable in the states or can they not afford to feed and care for our son. My heart breaks for them and the sadness they must be facing. I long to thank them for their gift and just give them a hug because of their hurt. Then I think some more about our son and all the loss he will face. How much sadness has he had to endure? He will have to go through loss of parents, loss of a home and caregivers at the orphanage, and loss again when he leaves the transition home and caregivers there. These are all necessary steps in God's perfect plan for us to be united into the family God intended, but I just want to hold him while he is scared, hungry, not feeling well, sad, etc.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Despite most people's rush to pass Thanksgiving in order to rush into Christmas preparations, I love this holiday. I love making delicious food, spending time with family, eating the delicious food, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade, and mostly stopping to reflect on all of the wonderful things God has blessed me with. It is so easy to loose sight of all the great things we have in our lives when we are immersed in a world of wanting more and more. I very often fall short, but I am striving to "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
(1 Thessalonians 5:18) I won't list all that I am thankful for, but I will mention one thing. I couldn't help but check fedex this morning to see if our dossier has moved any more. I am happy to announce that not only has it moved, but it is ready for pick up at the final destination, Addis Ababa Ethiopia. I am very thankful for this. By for now.

Anna

Tracking our dossier

We have had such a fun time tracking our dossier to Ethiopia. So far it has traveled from Virginia to Tennessee to Paris and is now in Dubais, AE. We are so close.

Drum Roll Please

We are DTE today, Nov. 19, 2010. I get such a kick that God brings us such joy in the little things. This very important date follows a line of other important dates for our family. Nov.16 is our 2nd child's birthday, Nov.17 is our 1st child's birthday, Nov.18 is Brian's mom's birthday, and now today is a hugely significant date in bringing our 3rd child home. We received an email from our family coordinator congratulating us on all our hard work. We also were given a fedex tracking to track our package all the way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I decided to let any of you who are interested follow it as well (796471317492). We are now on a waiting list for a referral. We have one more great thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Now I get to put a date under our name. YIPPEE!!!

Anna Baker
11-19-2010 DTE

Miami Man Triathlon

What an exciting weekend. It started off great with us finally receiving our 171H, the last form needed for our dossier. We made a quick trip to Fedex to send it to AWAA, and then headed down to Miami for Brian's big race. There were a few bumps in the road along the way, but everything turned out great. J missed school on Friday because she was throwing up all night and morning. This was sad because they were announcing the spelling bee participants at chapel and she was very excited about this. We did get a phone call from her teacher later in the day to congratulate miss J for earning one of the three spots in her class to represent the school in the annual spelling bee. Go J! We are so proud of her and how hard she worked on this. We decided at the last minute to brave the 5 hour car trip to Miami. Although she was not feeling well all weekend, she did have fun hanging out with grandpa, grandmommie and G.G. She even enjoyed some birthday cake and presents! On Sunday, the kids hung out with the grandparents while BrIan's brother, Lowell, and I cheered Brian on in his 1st half ironman distance triathlon. He did so well. This was his favorite race ever and did awesome. All of his hard work definitely paid off. He hoped to finish in 5 1/2 hours, but did way better, finishing in 4:58:41. He had a blast, even high-fiving people during the run. What a goof. Well, I need to go plan for the kids birthdays this week, but have included some pictures from the race. Enjoy!

It's here It's here It's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The mailman saw Brain and I walking toward him and he grinned as he shouted out to us "It's Here!!!!!" WooHoo I am sooooo excited. Off to Fed ex we go. Ahhhhh. What a relief. We have completed our dossier. 171H and all. Yippee Yippee Yippee!!!!

Immigration Officer

Yesterday I received an email from our immigration officer stating that she had been out sick and just got back to the office. She also was very apologetic and told me that she would process it right away. Today, she called me and apologized again for the amount of time it had taken and told me that she had just processed our 171H and it was sent to us in today's mail. WoooHooo. She was very nice. Anyways, I asked her if it was ok to resume stalking the mailman and she laughed and said absolutely. And so the stalking begins.....again.

Not Today

Arggggg. We are still waiting for the 171H. I was sure it would be to us no later than Monday, and now it is Tuesday and still not in the mail today. As my husband so nicely put it, everything will happen in God's timing and so there is no use in stressing over when it will come. I truly want everything to happen according to God's perfect plan, but I am having a very hard time accepting that God's timing doesn't use the same calculations I have been using to tell us when things will happen. I am learning a good lesson in patience and trust. God has a child already chosen for us. It is by His timing alone that we will be matched with this child at the right time. Now if only I could internalize this and not be upset when things don't go my way. In the mean time, I look forward to checking the mail tomorrow and for the Ethiopia conference call. This will be our 1st conference call while in the Ethiopia program and I hope to learn lots.

conversation with USCIS officer

I spoke with our very nice USCIS officer yesterday and she said that she would be getting to our file yesterday or today and then mailing us our I 171H. This means we will be sending AWAA our dossier this Monday. YIPPEE!!!!!!

The List

Ok, so those of you who know me, know that I tend to be obsessive about things. Ok, so that's an understatement. Well, I have come across a spreadsheet from our agency that lists the families who are DTE (dossier to Ethiopia), when they were DTE, and the age and gender of the children they are requesting. Each family is given a number associated with their place in line for either an infant boy, infant girl, twins, siblings, toddler boy, etc. We are not DTE yet, but expect to be in 2 weeks. Also, I am not pretending to know everything, but I have been following lots of blogs and don't know of any other family requesting a toddler boy that would be DTE before us. With this being said, there were only 8 families on the list for a toddler boy. I am assuming we would be #9. Today #1 on the list got their referral, leaving only 7 families before us. I am very optimistic that we will have a referral sooner rather than later. I'm hoping within a couple of months. The other thing I am excited about is that only 2 of these families are requesting a child over 24 months. We have requested a boy 12-30 months, but have been approved up 36 months. So..... we should be #3 in line for a boy between 25-36 months. To get even more detailed, the families on the upper part of our range are now #1 +#5. If #1 got a referral for a younger boy, that would make us #2 in line for a 2-3yr old. Ok, I'm done. Do you see what I mean about those obsessive tendencies? I might be a little excited over here.

Driving

Today I spent driving to Tallahassee to get two papers from our dossier authenticated at the Secretary of State office. I left the house at 7am and arrived at 11:30am. I spent 5 minutes from the time I parked to the time I got back in the car with my 2 papers, and then treated myself to a quick lunch and headed back home. I arrived home at 4:30, miraculously without a speeding ticket, and within 30 minutes received a call from the home study director saying our final home study is in the mail and will be to us by tomorrow afternoon. Yippee!!!! My hopes are that it gets to us before the fed ex office closes so that I can immediately overnight it to our immigration officer. With our two papers authenticated, we will be able to send our dossier to AWAA the second we get our 171 H from USCIS. Now I know there are couriers that could have saved me a day of driving, but I am cheap and I am scared to death of something happening to these very important papers (like my son spilling water all over the opened dossier folder. Thank goodness for page protectors. Whew.) Anyways, staying on subject, I also realize how important every day is in this process. One of the things I am pretty certain of is that our son has been born. I could have mailed these docs, but it would have taken more time. Each day that is lost in the process, is a day that we are not home with our son, a day our son is without the love of a mom and dad, and another day that our son is living in poverty, fighting for survival. My love for my son and anxiousness to hold him is what made me so happy to spend 9 hrs. driving for 2 very special pieces of paper. So long for now. Going to take a short nap before heading to church.

Hugely Exciting News!!!!!!

The Lord is moving mountains today!!!!! At the end of last week, I had left a message for our USCIS (Immigration Services) officer to see how we should handle the switch from Rwanda to Ethiopia. When we initially submitted our I 600a form, we were still with the Rwanda program and thus submitted our application and home study for Rwanda. When we switched programs, we kept our biometrics appointment as though we were still with Rwanda even though we had switched. We were hoping this would pay off and save us the time waiting for another fingerprint appointment, possibly setting us back a month or two. It payed off. Friday, I spoke with our social worker telling her our urgency for submitting an amended home study. At that point I had not been able to reach anyone at USCIS and feared our paperwork would be processed incorrectly, causing us some problems. Today, our VERY nice officer, who insisted I call her by her first name, told me that there are only 7 people ahead of us and that she would take care of us. Not only do we not need to submit any more fees, but she told us not even to submit a new I600a. All we have to do is Fedex her an amended home study and she would have our 171H (approval) to us in a week. A WEEK!!!!!! I thought that would take at least one month. How incredibly exciting. As I sat there jumping up and down screaming and not knowing what to do with myself, I decided to email the Home Study agency to pass along the good news. The lady in charge immediately emailed me back saying she would do the amended home study for us and call us tonight to finish up. It sounds like we will have the revised home study in a few days and the 171H a week later. I just can't believe how close we are. Oh yea, after I read the email from the home study director, our accountant called to tell us he was finished with the employment verification letter (one of our last papers to collect). GOD IS SOOOO GOOD! I think I will drive to the capitol Monday morning to get our papers authenticated and thus ready to send to the agency in our COMPLETED Dossier once the 171H comes in. Bye for now....I think I'll jump up an down some more and send some more Hallelujah's to the Lord.

progress

This morning, we had our USCIS fingerprint appointment. It was a bit emotional (in a good way) and such a pleasant experience. This appointment date had been assigned to us when we were chasing after our child we thought was in Rwanda. I was happy, in an effort to save time, to be able to keep our original appointment to use for Ethiopia. Last week I got in touch with a very nice lady who informed me that we could keep our appointment and submit a new I 600A without having to pay any more money to them. They also gave me a different address to send the form to, which it sounded like would take less time. WooHoo!!!! Not only did this step bring us closer to our son, but the people in the office were so nice and seemed genuinely interested in our adoption. How cool. Honestly, I thought they would all be very impersonal. Our paper chase is coming along nicely and I'm hoping that our dossier will be complete by the time we get our USCIS approval. Bye for now.

It is devastating to me how many of God's children are scattered throughout the world, many who will never know what it will mean to be loved by a mom and dad. I understand that not everyone is called to adopt, but I am tired of people thinking that adoption is 2nd best to biological children. I can only think that that thought comes from the self centered who think their genes are better than others. Since all children out there are from the Lord, I'm pretty sure He would disagree. It breaks my heart to think that any of God's children would have to live like this.

Brian's Post

All,

We made our best run at it, and God has closed the door to Rwanda to us for good. He answered our prayers and was very clear that this is not where we are supposed to be. I would be lying if I said this didn't hurt a lot, but I am thanking him for answering our prayers and telling us now instead of after we were fully committed to Rwanda. Psalm 27:1, 13, 14 has been an encouragement to me now. Indeed, who shall I fear? I will mourn, but I cannot and will not despair. We'll be strong, take courage, and wait for the LORD. Thank you for your prayers and support. I'll let you know more when I am able.

His, -Brian

God's Plan

Brian and I have decided to take the ultimate journey with our documents to see what exactly God's plans are for us. We had finally come to terms with Rwanda's closing and were awfully close to making the switch to Ethiopia. Last night, I was checking a family's blog who is going through the same journey. Here I discovered something that would make me crazy all over again. They posted that a couple of families were going to turn in their dossier without the USCIS approval (I 171-H form). This is the document we were missing and the reason we initially thought we had no chance of getting our dossier in before Rwanda closed on Aug.31. Is it possible for us to do the same thing? Well, we will soon find out. We wrote a long email to our family coordinator asking lots of questions about this and I will be calling her first thing in the morning. If we do not have the support of the adoption agency on this impulsive move, we will end our journey to Rwanda and immediately transfer to the Ethiopia program. The last thing we need is to finish this adoption without an agency. If we get the go ahead, then we pursue. Brian is on his way to Tallahassee this evening so that he will be at the secretary of state first thing in the morning. Here he will authenticate all of our documents. I will drop the kids at school and drive to Orlando to get 3 simple papers I need from our social worker (a copy of their license, non-profit agreement, and the post placement agreement). After we both get our paperwork, we will fly independently to DC and meet up. Their we will need to get to the state office between 7-10 am to get our dossier certified AGAIN, make copies of everything and turn it in at the Rwandan Embassy in DC. The Rwandan govt. recently stated that dossiers will be accepted by any Rwandan embassy before the deadline, not only in Rwanda. We were told, not from the agency, that we could send in the missing document to Rwanda later. The final variable is that we don't exactly know when the deadline is, and since it is the weekend, we have no way of knowing until tomm. The wording was a bit confusing and many of us are confused whether we have until the 30th or the 31st. The 31st is possible, the 30th is most definitely not. The good news is that we will know God's plan for us by the end of tomm. (I HOPE). The bad news is I am a nervous wreck and a tad moody =). Good night for now. Off to check flights to DC.

comforting verses

I came across these verses this morning and found great comfort in these. It is amazing how God directs you to the verses you need most at various times.

2 Corinthians 12:10 (NIV)
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecution, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Romans 5: 3-4 (NIV)
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

By the way, Thank you so much Stephanie for the songs you sent me. I really enjoyed them. It is so nice to have the support of others going through the same hardships.

Halt in Rwandan Adoptions

WOW! What an emotional roller coaster we have been through in the last 24 hrs. Yesterday, in car line, I was checking email and was pleased to see an email from our family coordinator. As I read the 1st line, my jaw dropped. I felt like I was punched in the stomach. With adoption, things are always changing and anything can happen. She was emailing us to let us know that Rwanda has decided to pursue being a hague country and thus will not be accepting any more dossiers as of August 31 (5 days). No one knows how long they will be closed. It could be 1 month or many years. That is the stinky part. I do know they are bombarded with dossiers now and some have been waiting 11-12 months. I think this, in the long run will be great for the orphans, it just stinks for those of us so close to the cut off. That brings us to "To Wait or Not To Wait." We are doing lots of praying about our next step and of course lots of research. We are coming to peace with a decision, but won't disclose until we know 100 % what we are doing. Brian and I hugely dislike change. For now, the tears have stopped and my brain is working on overdrive.

1st day of school!!!

Here are a few pictures of the kids first day of school. Mom is one happy camper. STRUCTURE IS GOOD!!!!!!!

Rwanda's Presidential Election

Rwanda's Presidential Election is coming up on August 9. Posted below is a link to an article that shared an interesting perspective on the election. My prayer is for the safety of the country during this time.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6741LR20100805

Progress

I finally feel like I am in control of the paper chase. Yes, God is in control over everything, but until a day ago I felt like I was going about the process blindly and with little progress being made. Over the weekend, with the kids away at their grandparents house, I was able to quietly and intently go over all the paperwork and truly understand what is left to do. To my surprise, I am almost through with the paper chase. Can I get an Amen! This truly has been a grueling paper pregnancy and to my happiness, I have just been given an epidural. Another Amen please. The homestudy document will be finalized by the end of the week and submitted with the I-600. We will then wait for our issued fingerprint appointment and our USCIS (paper approval by the USA to adopt internationally and needed to bring our new son into the USA.) All of our paperwork for the dossier has been collected or on its way to us in the mail and most everything has been notorized. Once we get the USCIS in the mail we will be able to take all of our notorized paperwork to the Secretary of the State in Tallahassee to be authenticated. Once this is done we will have our medical redone and our dossier will be complete and ready for AWAA to review. Once AWAA receives our dossier, our paper chase will be done. They send it to the Rwandan Embassy in the USA, then to Rwanda (I think 1 month), we will wait approximately 9 months for a referral and a couple weeks later traveling to Rwanda to get our son. I know this might sound like a lot, but it really isn't. Most of this is waiting. The current trend to get the USCIS from the I-600 is 2 mths. Assuming God's timing is following the trend, we will be traveling to get our son (1-2.5 years old) in July/ August 2011.

2nd homestudy

I am sitting here this morning recounting the interview I had with the social worker and am not too happy. The very first thing she asks me to do is describe Brian. No problem. He's nice, generous, always putting others first, hard working, and the list goes on. Then she asks me to describe myself. I don't know why, maybe it was because it was after 8pm and my brain had already shut down for the night, but I couldn't think of anything. I often think about how great Brian is, but I guess I never have given much thought to who I am. After about 10 seconds of twirling my fingers I came up with it. "I guess I'm introverted." Wow. Brilliant Anna. Of course now I think of all the things I should have said...Christian, trustworthy, dependable, nice, down to earth, responsible, etc. I guess the important thing is that when it counts, I'm introverted. Oh brother. After this, I was asked to describe my childhood and my family. Finally, I was asked what my greatest source of frustration is. I giggled. "Do I have to answer this?" yes. "Well, I guess that would be my children." She laughed. So that concludes home study 2 and 3 and #4 will be on Monday. This should be our last one. Here's to hoping I am able to redeem myself a little. The good news - I have not been told I need therapy. Todays goal will be ordering certified copies of birth certificates and marriage certificate.

1st homestudy

We survived! We had our 1st homestudy today and it went really well. Our social worker was really nice. We were asked about our motivation to adopt, how we came to choose Rwanda, why international, discussed risks with adoption and how we would handle them, developmental delays, attachment disorders, what our expectations are, how much our children understand about the process and what their thoughts are, etc. The one question that surprised me the most was what our thoughts are on our son's birth parents and if we'd be willing to let him track them down one day. While both Brian and I would be happy for our son to one day explore where he came from and search for his birth parents, I feel sad that he most likely will have no success. It is illegal in Rwanda to place your child up for adoption, so there will most likely be no information on them. I too would have liked to meet the mom and give her a hug. What a huge gift she is giving to us and I could only imagine how hard that would have been to walk away from her child. It is also likely that she may not be living. The other thing that I found interesting about that question was that I had previously given thought to our son's birth mother, but had never given any thought to his father. hmmm. I wonder if this is a mom to mom thing. I would definitely welcome any information on his birth father, but am much more focused on his birth mom. oh well. All in all the process took about 2 hrs and ended with a tour of the house. As ridiculous as this sounds, I was more nervous about the cleanliness of the house than I was about the interrogations. I've got to admit, I was a little bummed when she didn't look in the pantry or laundry room that I scrubbed from top to bottom. Oh well, I am glad to have a clean house, at least for the time being.

Happy Mother's Day!

What a great weekend this was. Between my birthday and mother's day, I feel completely pampered. Today started with J and her Sunday school class singing a mother's day song and Our God is an Awesome God for the congregation. They were so cute. I was refreshed by the sermon about being a godly mother and not necessarily the kind of mother defined as "good" by the world. Even though I daily strive to be a godly mother, I feel convicted to make some tweaks to my attitude and patience level with my children. After church we met my mother-in-law, great mother-in-law and brother-in-law for a mother's day brunch at a local museum. We had a great time. Lastly, I made copies of the paperwork we are sending the social worker needed to begin our home studies. I have felt a bit discouraged lately by the lack of progress in the adoption and how much time things seem to be taking. With everything taking longer now than when we 1st started, I have been feeling more distant from our waiting child. As I was putting the documents in the envelope it got me to thinking about this child who I long for. I came across this great article on another blog. It describes this ladies trip to the Home of Hope orphanage in Kigali, Rwanda where our son will come from. My heart just aches for these children and I hope that more people will feel led to explore the idea of adoption. While we wait and wait and wait, I rest assured that the good Lord has control over all.

http://lifeofathousandhills.blogspot.com/2010/04/annuncia.html

lots of paper work

We are finally seeing the end to our first stack of paperwork. When we first started the adoption process, it was taking about 11mths from start to finish. Now it is taking close to 2yrs. While I am at peace with God's timing, I have been stressed that it is taking me so long to get through the paperwork needed to start the home study. Yesterday Brian finished his autobiography, we sent our background checks out to DCF and FDLE, visited our police dept. to get a criminal clearance from them, completed our blood work and drug screening, and got our financial statement done. It was nice to add this to all of the other paperwork we had done. The only thing pending now is J's, Brian's and my physical exam and a stack of papers that need to get notarized. All this should be done by the middle of next week and sent off to our social worker for review. When they receive our documents, we will start our homestudy process.

St. Anthony's Triathlon

Ok, so I know this has nothing to do with the adoption, but I just can't help myself. I am so proud of my husband and how dedicated he is to his race training. It really paid off for him. He finished 50th out of 218 in his division and qualified for the olympic distance national championship race in Tuscalusa, Alabama. Woo Hoo! His time was 2:31:33, which was a 1:33 slower than he was hoping, but the winds were something like 20mph and he had a stomach virus.

Welcome to our blog!

I have created this blog to track our exciting adoption journey to Rwanda. Although we are early in the process, we have been amazed at the Lord's direction and guidance thus far. Stay tuned for updates on the adoption, prayer requests, family pictures, and posts on my swinging emotions throughout the process. Also, I apologize now for my lack of creativity with this blog. I am not artistic and am still learning about this blog stuff. HAVE AN AWESOME DAY!