"You can consider yourselves 2ish."

Exciting news...The beginning of September we moved up to #4!  Our email for this month also stated we were still #4, but after talking to someone from Lifeline she informed me we were more considered to be "2ish" because of some situations with 2 of the families in front of us.  While she doesn't foresee us getting matched with a child before the end of the year, she said there are children in the process of officially becoming available for adoption, which is encouraging.

Hoping that things will move faster than expected in Uganda and we will be matched before the end of the year! What a great Christmas present that would be!

Regardless, still trusting God, knowing his time is perfect!

We have moved up!!!!

We are no longer #7 on the waiting list! We are not even number 6!!

We are #5!!

Yay! While we are very excited we moved up 2 spots on the list we are hoping it won't take 9 more months to move up again...but even still, thankful we are no longer 7!  

Everything expires!

Since we have been in this process so long, nearly all our paperwork expired on March 2nd!  That means we had to get physicals done, schedule a home visit, get updated reference letters, employment verification letters, financial statements, ect...  Since we did not have a current home study we had to request an extension that I overnighted on February 28th.  We now have 45 days to get everything else in order, including an updated home study.  Doing all this has brought the adoption to the forefront of my mind.  I'm thinking about boy names again, thinking about chasing around a toddler, thinking about that day when we finally bring him home!  Someday...one day...it will be true, but for now we remain another month at #7.

4 months at #7

Revised! I mistaked our waiting list time!
We are #7...again.  Our monthly update also said the time frame from being put on the waiting list to being matched with a child is now 15-18 months.  We were put on the waiting list September 2, 2011, so we are already in our 16 month!  This gets me hopeful that we will be matched soon, but at the same time trying not to get to anxious as we are still #7 on the list! Praying for patience while we wait!

"Waiting 2011...and 2012"

On our tree this Christmas hung an ornament that I made last year to hang on our tree.  Africa with a heart over Uganda.  I remember painting it with family and talking about how this time next year we will have our son home with us!  According to the adoption agency's timeline we would most likely have him and be home in Kentucky with him!  However, Uganda's policies have changed since then and they are monitoring adoptions to the U.S. more closely, which has caused there to be less adoptions this year.  We are currently #7 on the waiting list.  Thankfully we have moved up the list, just not very quickly.  Toward the beginning of the month we get an email stating what is going on in Uganda. It is usually quite wordy and long.  I usually bypass it all and scroll to the end where it says,

 

"Understanding this information, we would like to provide you with your current position on the waiting list.  Your families current position is: Number 7".

  

The past 3 months we have been #7, which is a little frustrating!  So we just wait.  We can't do anything to make it happen faster.  So our 12-18 month adoption has now been 25 months and counting.  I find peace knowing that God has the perfect son for us!  Our timing is obviously not His...I just hope we are not still waiting Christmas 2013!

 

 

  

 

#11

The last time I gave an update was in January in which we were hoping for a referral in February...unfortunately that didn't happen.  We received a call from the adoption agency, which could have very well been a referral, but instead was an update that Uganda's policies changed and the waiting list time went from 6-12 months to 12-18 months.  Bummed.  Since then we have made a big change which ended up leading us back to where we started.  So here is a brief summary of the past 6 months. We received an email stating that Uganda was going to require a Heritage Trip which meant we would be required to return with our child every 5 years until he was 18 years old.  Not only did this make me a little unsettled, but that would be a great financial commitment.  We are talking about flying to Uganda, that is not something you can go and do in a day or 2!  So we decided to switch to Ethiopia before getting the official details.  The travel to Ethiopia was 5-7 days 2 times verses Uganda's 4-6 weeks and no requirements that you had to return. Great! After switching our CIS approval to Ethiopia we found out that we would be a year and a half away from bringing home a child from Ethiopia! Oh my! In my rush to not waste a minute of time in switching countries, I was unrealistic of the time frame. Our adoption from Uganda was only 10 months away, so we were talking about an 8 month difference. We then were in limbo..for several weeks we were officially adopting from Ethiopia but were unsure if that was where we should be.  Neither of us had a a strong pulling on our heart for one or the other, we were stuck.  Last month we decided to change back to Uganda. We are ready to bring our little guy home and the thought of waiting an extra 8 months, the thought of being a year and a half away was just to long. Although the thought of being required to go to Uganda every 5 years still doesn't sit well with me, I am not going to worry about it. 5 years is a long way away and the requirements could be very different by then!

All that to say we thankfully got our spot back on the waiting list for Uganda and we are #11!  Andrew thought that was great! I was hoping to be more like around 5 or 6, but we will take it! Hopefully every month we will get an update and we will quickly move up the list!

Meanwhile I listen to this sweet song by Mandi Mapes! Check it out, it will make you smile!
http://soundcloud.com/jamesjosephaudio/04-this-love

Update

About a month ago I contacted our agency to let them know that even though we are approved to bring home 2 children under the age of 4 home from Uganda that we had decided to just bring 1 child home, hopefully under the age of 10-12 months.  Through a series of emails and phone calls we found out that currently, the youngest age they are seeing being brought home is about 15-16 months or older.  Mothers are not bringing their babies into the orphanage until they quit nursing and then are unable to feed them. This broke my heart.

With that said, we will most likely not be bringing home an infant, but a toddler.  Since we are approved for a child under 4, we will prayerfully consider any referral that falls in that category.  The agency said that February was still a very realized time frame when we could receive a referral!

We know God has the perfect addition to our family picked out.  He's in Uganda somewhere and we are here, so be praying for our little guy, whomever he may be!