Paperwork? What paperwork?!

I sit in my living room, thinking "now what do we have to get accomplished tonight?" Disbelief creeps in, because I realize. We are so close to being done with the paperwork I can taste it!! We have no more workbooks to do, no more online courses to take.....no more questions to answer(for now). We are waiting on just one more thing, our medical appointments(which are scheduled NEXT MONTH!!) and that will wrap up our home study documents! Whew!! This has been a challenging couple months, life has been whirling on around us and it's hard to concentrate on anything else but PAPERWORK! The great thing is that our agency requires most of same documents for our home study as is required for our Dossier, so we really wont have much more to do after the home study is done. *insert happy dance here!*

Sometimes we get so caught up in all there is to do with the adoption, all the paperwork, notarizing about a billion documents, this, that , and the other.....it's easy to lose sight of why we are adopting. I love to tell our story. I love to tell people that we are answering God's call and that it was HE who planned this for us. We are merely sheep in Jesus's pasture, He is our Shepherd. We will follow Him to the ends of the earth. So to answer this call, to say YES to Jesus, is nothing short of awesome. Most who know our struggles with infertility only assume that adopting a child is second best, the next best thing. We were asked when we started this process about our infertility and miscarriage history, whether we had come to terms with it. We wholeheartedly answered, YES we have. THIS is our plan. God has chosen our child for us already, we already love our child, even though he/she probably hasn't even been conceived yet! It's an amazing feeling. We are getting SO much support from people, whether it be our best friends and family, to the random folks that just so happen to ask us questions that somehow tie into our adoption story. It. is. AMAZING!

So, I am trying to post about once a week on our progress....just to keep everyone in the loop. Some weeks there wont be much to report, other than "waiting, waiting..." Thank you ALL for your prayers and support!

I see the light!

Well, I was feeling pretty good about our progress in our homestudy paperwork this week. We are nearing the end, just waiting on a few things that we have no control over. Have a large packet to mail off next week, and I thought I'd get a bit of a break just in time to get Jaden's birthday party in order.....Then we talked to our caseworker today. "you're doing great with your homestudy paperwork, are you ready to start working on the Dossier paperwork now?"  *sigh* Oh, well.....I expect that we should have everything done, including our Dossier submitted to Ethiopia by the end of May. Then we wait...and wait....and, well, you get it. As of right now, the wait time from Dossier submitted to Ethiopia to referral of a child(baby) is 17-18 months.
It's been hard to balance all this paperwork and required education with our everyday life! We are going to take some time for a family day tomorrow, heading to Seattle to try us some Ethiopian food(part of our "homework"). Excited!!
Hope you all have a GREAT weekend!!! Again, thank you for your prayers! :)
P.S. 3 lonely followers.... ;)

2 months "pregnant"

We started our adoption process 2 months ago exactly today. So, I guess that means we are 2 months "pregnant" :) I saw a cute T -shirt that says "So far, no morning sickness....but the paper cuts are terrible!" Not to mention the writer's cramps!
We are about halfway through our paperwork. It's hard trying to balance the paperwork with life. I feel like I am back in college!
I am feeling the Enemy's presence lately. That can only mean that God is doing great things, right? The Enemy is feeling the pressure and has to get his two cents in as well. More than I hate the enemy itself, I hate that I find myself succumbing to his lies. Bahhh!!!!! Sorry, dude.....no room for you at our house, nor in our lives!! We are GOD's children!!
Thank you, our faithful followers!! Feel free to share our story with your friends and families....The more people praying for us and our child, the better!!
Happy Weekend to all!!