Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Adoption: seminars, paperwork, notary...

After spending the day in Eugene on Friday, we woke up and checked out of our room at 7:30 and headed off for a 10:00 adoption seminar in Banks. The seminar is called "Introduction to International Adoption" and it fulfilled some of our required educational credits.

The class was covered a lot of really basic adoption stuff, but we did learn quite a bit anyhow from the things that the instructors (Krista, Tami, and Ryan) told us about the orphanage and about Ethiopia.

One cool thing that we learned in some of the discussion, was that we would probably have some free time during our trip to Ethiopia and could even go a few days early to see some sights. How cool would that be? They also let us know that the people there are very accommodating and would help us get used to spending time with our children gradually if necessary. That would allow the children to sleep through the night in their own beds if we felt like they were being pushed to far by all the changes. They said it could help us on the plane ride home.

We also learned that our orphanage takes in children from mostly rural areas. This is unique because most that are located in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia's capital) take in children from the city only.

When we got home we were both tired. That is, until we saw that our Home Study packet and Dossier packet had arrived in the mail. I couldn't help but go through it. It is loaded with questions and forms to be filled out, signed, and notarized. We could probably work on it every night this week and not finish.

We're very, very excited to think that the stuff that we've only been hearing about for the past 18 months is real. And it's happening to us!

No comments:

Post a Comment