Let the paperchase begin :)

It's official. We have started the paperchase for our Little Man. Our social worker came over today to update our homestudy. One of these times, just maybe I could get through the homestudy update without tears...Guess we will find out at the next update.

So what is next? I am going to begin gathering dossier documents. CHSFS won't review our application until the first week of November so the plan is to have everything mailed into them prior to that so when we hit the magic date all paperwork is in. If I can pull it off on my end and all things fall into place on the receiving end, we hope to be officially waiting again by the end of November for our Little Man aged 0-18 months.

WOW! Could we maybe bring home a toddler? Yes we could or it could be an infant we are open. The only thing we know for sure is that our Little Man will be younger than Kiya. We are super excited and ready to just get the paperwork in and focus on our little girl. Little Man will be always in our hearts and we will wait for him with more patience (hopefully) as we are more prepared for all that the wait means.

Current quoted wait times are 12-18 months for a referral with 3-5 months post referral for travel. We are expecting to wait much closer to the 18 month plus mark for a referral and are hopeful the post referral wait stays about the same. So we are planning for at least a 2 year process but more likely 2 1/2 years to maybe even 3 years. Kiya will likely be over 3 years old when our Little Man joins the family.

As we have learned things change all the time in international adoption, we are just hopeful for a smooth process without a lot of unnecessary delays. We will wait and pray as long as we need to for our son. It will all happen when it is supposed to. We just pray that Ethiopian adoptions stay stable and ethical and that we will be blessed with a little boy who shares the cultural background of our daughter.