Where do I start?

I am starting this blog to keep all of our family and friends up-to-date with our journey into the crazy world of international adoption. Nick and I started to look into international adoption last January. In March we took a day-long class on international adoption at BAAS (Bay Area Adoption Services). After the class we got cracking on our adoption application for BAAS and started this whole process.

How does international adoption work? In short, TONS OF PAPERWORK, TONS OF INVASIVE QUESTIONS, TONS OF WORRYING AND STRESSING OUT. Seriously, we had to have a social worker complete a home study for us, had to sign an oath in blood that we are not crazy people, had to have all sorts of medical tests and had to basically disclose every part of our lives to our adoption agency (yes, I am obsessed with straightening pillows in our house, yes Nick is obsessed with cleaning the dog hair off of our couch - these are the things adoption agencies want to know). THEN, we had to apply to an agency that actually works in Ethiopia (BAAS is our "home" agency and will do all of our follow-ups once our little guy is home), so we applied to Children's Home Society and Family Services (CHSFS) out of St. Paul, Minnesota. Once we were accepted by them we had to do MORE paperwork, fingerprints and notarizing and certifying of documents.

NOTE: Adoptions are ALL about acronyms. I think this is because acronyms are fun to write and then you can use your adoption lingo to confuse non-adopters, but mostly it's so we don't have to write the long names of our agencies/government organizations all the time.

We were "officially waiting" with CHSFS as of June 25th. BUT, the referral times for CHSFS have almost doubled since we signed up with them in April. Nick and I were worried that we wouldn't get a referral for a baby until 2010 and that seemed pretty depressing, especially to me. So, after careful thought and research, we changed our referring agency. We are now with Better Future Adoption Services (BFAS) out of Minneapolis (what's with all the adoption agencies in Minnesota)?

When we changed agencies I casually asked one of the people at BFAS if they had any waiting children. Little did I know how that question would change our lives! BFAS did have a waiting baby boy and they sent us his picture. It was really, really weird to look at a picture and think about whether or not this would be our kid. To make a long story short, we accepted the referral for this waiting baby and we are now waiting to get a court date in Ethiopia to officially become his parents!!

Our little guys' name is Jost, hence the name of the blog. That is the name we are giving him (his Ethiopian name will become his middle name). It's derived from the Dutch name "Joost" and means fair and just. Nick and I aren't Dutch, nor are we obsessed with Dutch culture (no offense to all the Dutchies out there), but we met a really cool guy in Botswana last year who had that name and it's the only boy name we could both agree on.

So, since we offically accepted the referral for Jost we've been busy buying stuff for his nursery, reading books on attachment and adoption, and trying not to go crazy waiting for a court date. The court date is important because once we pass the Ethiopian courts, we can get a birth certificate for Jost with our names on it. THEN, we can travel to get him!! We are HOPING that this will happen sometime in January.

We can't post any pictures of Jost until the adoption is finalized, but I will post other interesting things about Ethiopia and, when we are done, pictures of his room (it is looking great thanks to the artistic majestry of Christina and Lena).

That's all for now, thanks for joining us on this journey!