12/07/09 homestudy buddy

We've heard that adoption is a hurry-up-and-wait process. If that's true, we are definitely in the "hurry up" part! Our first contact with our social worker was Friday, December 4. We met with her 2 days later and have 2 more meetings on the calendar, so by Monday, December 21 we will be done with that part of the homestudy. Then there will be about 2-3 weeks of writing for both us and the social worker, after which we will be completely DONE with the homestudy!

We will then have a few more steps to take to make our dossier complete and authenticated, but it's possible that we will be ready for a referral as early as February. For those of you unfamiliar with adoption-speak, that means we find out who our child is -- name, gender, pictures, biographical information, etc. There is usually about a 4-6 month wait between accepting a referral and traveling to pick up the child, so we are still shooting for late summer or early fall for our travel. This could all change of course, as there are many unpredictable elements in the process of international adoption... but still... we're excited!

[By the way, I titled the post "homestudy buddy" because I love love love our social worker! She is so helpful and encouraging -- one of those people who you meet and feel like you've known forever. And she brought me incredible authentic Ethiopian coffee. I love her.]

P.S. Our agency director, Joy Casey, is currently in Ethiopia visiting the orphanages... she will probably hug & kiss our child on this trip without even knowing it -- crazy! If you want to read the reports she is sending back, check out the YWAM Ethiopia blog.