Our new Blog

Hello Everyone!

Thank you for taking the time check out our new Adoption Blog!  Jana and I are excited to announce that we have begun the adoption process and will be adopting a baby boy or girl from Ethiopia!

Some have already heard this great news but we thought that by creating this blog we would better be able to keep you all updated with our journey through this long but in the end rewarding process.  In addition, we hope this will become a way for our family and friends to better understand why and how we came to this decision to adopt and why we feel this is the perfect decision and right path for our family.  When we finally came to this decision to adopt, it was only after we considered not only how this would effect our lives, but also that of Callie's and our families and friends.  In the end, the decision was easy, and we look forward to sharing the process with everyone through this blog!

How does the Adoption Process work and where are we at?
There is more to adoption than wanting a child and getting one.  There are hours of paper work needing to be filled out, interviews and home studies needing completion, and basically everything short of a stool sample is collected and analyzed before a couple is even put on a waiting list where, depending on which type of adoption you are doing, you can wait months or years before receiving your child.  Once we decided on an international adoption and specifically to pursue one through Ethiopia (see the "why Ethiopia" toolbar), we were able to complete all the paper work needed by the United States government as well as the Ethiopian government in record time ( 1 month to the day------from what we hear this process can take up to 6 months but Jana is....well....Jana).  Right now we are waiting for our paperwork to make its way from Washington D.C back to our adoption agency in Utah, then it will immediately be sent to Ethiopia where we will be placed on a waiting list and begin the waiting process.  Having our paperwork being authenticated for the past few weeks has been our first taste of this "waiting game," and we can already tell that having no control over the process during this time will be our biggest challenge.  Once our paperwork reaches Ethiopia, we will be put on the waiting list for a child.

We have requested to adopt a healthy boy or girl between the ages of 0-12 months.  With these specifications, we can expect our wait time for a referral once we are placed on the list to be about 9 months.  Once we receive our referral (basically we are offered an available child) and we accept that referral, we will wait for a court date in Ethiopia, and this takes several weeks.  Jana and I will travel to Ethiopia to have a hearing before the Ethiopian government.  After that, we are officially the child's parents in Ethiopia but will have to return home without our child.  Our case will then be processed by the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia, and this can take several weeks to months, as the U.S. Embassy needs to ensure that the child was truly abandoned or relinquished by his or her birth parents.  After the U.S. Embassy is satisfied and clears our case, we will be able to travel back to Ethiopia for a hearing at the U.S. Embassy and to bring our child home!  Once our plane touches down in the U.S., our child will be a U.S. Citizen.

If this sounds like a long and overwhelming process to you--trust us; it does to us as well!! We have joined a Facebook adoption page for support and information sharing, and we have been reading books on adoption and Ethiopian culture and history to continue to prepare for this new addition. We are so happy to have the support of friends and family and hope that you all will continue to check into our blog for continued updates.

We know that this news can come as a shock to some that haven't even considered the idea of adoption, and more specifically, have never known anyone that has been through it.  We expect that there will be many with questions and welcome any that you all have.  Trust me, it took months to fully understand what deciding to adopt meant for us, and even longer to understand what it would mean to adopt internationally and become a multi-cultural family.  We are fully committed to this decision and hope to have the support of everyone in our lives.

Eric, Jana, and Callie