to bring her home. i mean, to bring them home. i mean, to bring him home (first) er….how do i change the name of this blog?

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8.24.2011

So, here is how this adoption process has gone down in our heads and more than that how the Lord has been changing us ever so slightly over this period, to bring us exactly to where we are now.
- before we ever had our own bio kids, we had decided that one day we wanted to adopt
- had our 2 kids, and thought “now seems like a good time” domestic?….sure!
- that changed quickly into international, that moved to Ethiopia
- lets bring home a cute little baby girl!
- actually maybe 2?
- one baby and one older than cash ( cash has special needs, including autism & Sensory disorders) so since he is a wonderfully special case, placing a child older than him is a rare but perfect fit for our family
- realized that the wait for 2 related children could be years
- realized we did not want to wait years to add to our family, and maybe its not necessary to do so
-  realized, huh there are a ton of older kids waiting to go home to their forever families and we want one home with us! Once we bring him home, we will just start the process over to bring home a baby girl.

BOOM! we had some ideal plans, God just moved them around a little so that the focus was not on what made sense for us but what the perfect plan for our family is.
I sent out an email to family and friends sharing this with them and within hours received much confirmation from them, our social worker thinks this is a perfect plan and i saw how fast families in our program were receiving their referral for older children. One family waiting only about 6 weeks!

What does this mean for us? well we are getting ready to submit our dossier. Once that is done and sent off to Ethiopia (sometime by mid september) we will wait for our referral. Could be as quick as 6 weeks – 3 months. He would be home possibly 3 months after that. Once he is here we would begin the process of another adoption for a baby girl. Lots can change, as you can see by the list above, but as of right now this is what we think is right. And, I’ve got goosebumps (mixed with a tad of peace filled anxiety) just thinking about it…

xoxo

The Otts

Next Step Completed

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7.22.2011

This past week we got our final and approved Home Study back from our wonderful Social Worker, Adela. That home Study along with our I-600A application and a big fat check to the US Gov. went into the hands of the post people today. It will take approximatly 5-12 weeks to get that back. Once all that is done, then we will be able to submit our Dossier and FINALLY get on that waiting list! I can not believe that we have been at this for 6 months already, it has gone by surprisingly fast. We are certainly closing in on the “hurry up and wait phase” where we rush, rush, rush to get all this in and then….we live life until we get that phone call. I imagine when we are in that period, i will have to come up with some other clever things to update everyone with. So i plan on doing a monthly recap of our family, along with a picture, just as i would if i were preggers and giving you all belly shots.

until then i will leave you all with a recent family picture of us. We are spending 2 weeks with our wonderful family in Colorado. maybe next year there will be 2 more “littles” in this picture with us *wink wink*

xoxo
The Otts

1 + 1 = 2

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6.1.2011

Friends & Family,

I just wanted to give you all a quick update on the adoption.
This weekend we are going through our home study visits. That means that an appointed social worker (whom works with our agency) comes to us and has 4 separate meetings with us. Once she is finished she will write up a report, to be approved by the US government, to allow us to proceed with our international adoption. She is also just a wonderful tool of insight and helps us emotionally prepare for the adoption. Adela is her name, and she is truly and wonderful wonderful woman. She has a true heart for adoption and the healthy growing of family thru it. She gave us an incredible amount of information on building a transracial family, and really guided our thoughts as to what that means. How important it is for us to begin now to integrate our family with African culture and people. We have some great resources here is Austin, including an Ethiopian Culture festival that takes place in a couple weeks! There is a great Ethiopian restaurant here in town, with whom the owner, Astor, Loves to educate families on her culture. We have a lot of learning and growing to do, but this is the beginning of us pursuing our future children’s culture and making it part of our own.
Another big thing that happened this weekend with Adela, is that she pointed out some huge choices that we never thought of. See, brad and I have every intention of pursuing 2 children that are siblings. We had originally thought that we would request one much younger than Maddie rose, and then one younger than cash. Something Adela pointed out to us, is that it would not be a good idea to put a child in between cash and Maddie-rose. That, that could break up the natural bond and just not be very healthy. She said that we could either request 2 children under 2 (twins basically) or that we could request one baby and one older than cash. I have always thought that the rule of thumb is to not adopt older than your eldest child, since that would be taking away their place as the eldest. She said for the most part that is very true, but Cash is a wonderful and special exception. With Cash, he has no sense of his place in the family as regards to holding the “oldest” title. He just loves his sister and loves being a brother. Cash is 100% a follower and 0% leader (we all know that Maddie-rose is the alpha in that relationship) He loves love LOVES older kids. and when she mentioned that a lot of cash needs could be met with an older brother and in turn, cash’s unconditional giving and “vomiting” of love would be invaluable to his new “older brother”. Adela said that she has not see this opportunity many times, but that it could be a “match made in heaven”.
Brad and I feel so excited about this! we really believed it was not an option, and hearing Adela point out that not only is it an option, but an exceptional one, is really exciting for us.
So, that is where we are at. We ask that you pray with us over this choice and that it be confirmed in our hearts.
Thank you all for being in this with us
xoxo
brad & noelle
That was an email that we sent out last week to our close friends and family. And if you read in the end then you will read that we are in fact pursing 2 children that are siblings. We have thought about this from the beginning, and after our weekend with our wonderful social worker, we are excited about this decision! We are officially applying for an infant girl 0-12 months and a boy 5 years and older. Cash is in fact 5, but his developmental age is closer to 4, so a 5 year old would still feel like a big brother to him.  There is still a very long road ahead of us, and we are well aware that things can always change. But for right now we are thrilled about the possibilities in our upcoming family!
xoxo,
In waiting…and growing,
The Otts