10/20/09 - The Stork Has Landed!!!

We are beyond excited to announce that we are the very proud and blessed parents of two beautiful little boys!

I (Amy) received the call at work Tuesday morning. Since Mike had worked the night before, he did not wake up when the phone rang at home. We had already agreed that we wanted to hear the news together, so my work graciously sent another teacher into my room so I could go home and wake Mike up! It was the longest car ride home ever but I drove the speed limit because I didn't want to get a ticket on the way home to hear referral information!!! Mike heard me come in the door and thought, "The phone rang awhile ago, and now I hear the front door opening, maybe I should get up and make sure everything is okay." After telling me this, I just smiled and said, "It's Referral Day!"

We went downstairs and called back Nicole, our Family Coordinator at our international adoption agency, - and she was on lunch!! I then called the 800 number to ask if they could search the office for her. After waiting about 5 minutes, the wonderful receptionist came back on to say she couldn't find Nicole anywhere! So we thanked her and I started cleaning the house as I knew people would be coming over that evening!!! We only had to wait about 15 minutes, the phone rang, the caller ID said America World, and we heard the wonderful words, "We have two little boys for you!"

We are not allowed to post their pictures, ages, or personal information until after they legally become ours, but I can tell you John Michael E*** and Ryan Elijah E***** are healthy and loved!

Please join us in praising God - these are the children He had chosen to entrust to us since before the beginning of time!!

NEXT STEPS:
1. Sign our referral acceptance letter and return it to our agency America World. Once they receive it, they can petition the courts in Ethiopia for a court date.
2. Approximately 3 weeks from now, we should find out when our court date will be. We are GUESSING end of December or beginning of January. A week or so after finding out our court date, we will be issued tentative travel dates.
3. Once we pass court, we would travel 2-3 weeks after to bring the boys home! 40% of families do not pass court the first time for a variety of reasons (the judge decided not to come in that day, loss of electricity, something is not in order with our paperwork or the orphanage's paperwork, a birth family relative is not able to arrive on that day, and many, many other reasons). If our first court date is not successful, our agency would work to fix whatever needs fixing, and then we would be assigned another court date. That new date could be a few days or weeks later.

While all this is going on, our home study age range is being updated from 0-3 years old to 0-6 years old. We began this process in September and right now are waiting for approval from Illinois DCFS Inter Country Coordinator. Once we have that approval, our wonderful social worker Faith will forward the information to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). USCIS will then approve it - hopefully the first time! - and the information will be forwarded to Ethiopia. Ethiopia must have the correct information before we can travel to get the boys. At this point we are not worried about the time frame for all of this, and we are praying for that feeling to continue!!

PRAISE AND PRAYER: We are beyond blessed to not only receive a referral for two healthy, handsome boys, but to have received it so much earlier than we thought we would (we were thinking February) and to have so, so, so many family members and friends just as excited as we are!!! Please pray for our boys in Ethiopia - that they would feel safe, that they would be loved, and that they would continue to be healthy and gain weight. Please pray also that the updating of our home study would be a smooth and quick process!!