Moving right along...

Tonight we had our orientation conference call with AGCI and went over all of the contracts and asked some questions. Everything went well, so tomorrow we will send out the signed & notarized contracts along with our 1st payment (GULP!). We have our first appointment with our homestudy agency on Thursday night. She will start the interview process with us and go over lots of paperwork. We are very excited to be moving along!! We'll let you know how Thursday goes. Thanks for checking in on us!

~Dawn & Tim

Accepted!!!

AGCI contacted us today and informed us that we've been accepted - WAHOO!!!!! So, now it's official! About 30 minutes after we heard that we were accepted from AGCI, the social worker from the homestudy agency called just to see if we had heard anything and I said "YES - just 30 minutes ago!" So I think that was God's way of letting us know that he knows how impatient we are and that he is taking care of us. She also informed me that there is a family in Appleton (1 1/2 hrs away) that is adopting from Ethiopia as well and she is meeting with them on Monday. She thought I would be glad to hear that another family would be going through this with us at the exact same time and that we live kinda close to eachother. I was really excited to hear this, so can't wait to exchange contact information with them. Next step is to wait for our orientation packet from AGCI and once we've reviewed everything we can call and set up a conference call to review everything with them. Tomorrow we will be sending in our application to our homestudy agency and should be able to start with them right away. We are very excited to be moving along!!


~Tim & Dawn

Kids say the cutest things...

Well...we're still waiting to hear if we are accepted by AGCI yet. They called on Friday and again today wanting some additional information pertaining to our fertility issues. As soon as we hear something, we will definitely let you know.
I did however want to share a conversation with you that I had with my 3 year old niece who is just the sweetest little girl. Bayli & Ava slept over this weekend and we had a great time with them as always. Tim and I were driving them home and Bayli was telling me about her new baby sister that is coming, so then the conversation turned to babies. And this is how it went...

Me: So, Bayli what would you think about Tim & I having a baby.
Bayli: OH I WOULD BE EXCITED IF YOU HAD A BABY!!!
Me: Well good, but what if the baby was brown and not white like you.
Bayli: Oh Dawny...you are so silly - you can't change their color.
Me: Yes, I know. But, what if I didn't have a baby in my tummy, but we went and got a brown baby that didn't have a mommy and daddy.
Bayli: I think that is just a PERFECT idea!! That way we can go and find them a mommy and daddy.
Me: Well, Tim and I would be the mommy and daddy for the baby.
Bayli: That would be just perfect! And I can get them a piggybank.
Me: Well, I'm glad you think it's such a great idea. What do you think about the baby being brown and not the same color as you.
Bayli: Dawny... I would love your baby even if it was blue.

At that point Tim and I were in shock that this came out of a 3 year old's mouth. She absolutely melted our hearts. She is such an amazing girl and we are so proud of her!

Application is SENT!!!

So after waiting and waiting to get all of our medical letters together to send in with our AGCI application, we decided to send it anyways. We are waiting on one more letter, which we will just forward on to them when we receive it (which should be tomorrow). We had to send it 2 day because we are being a bit impatient with getting this whole process started. We feel like its been so long since we received our application to fill out for AGCI and yet we still haven't gotten it to them (close to 2 weeks). Anyways so Dawn takes everything to work with her, has it all planned out to go to the post office right after work and send it off. Well we forgot to include the check for the application fee. Not a HUGE deal, but Dawn was not happy (believe me when I say that). So she decides to come right home, rather then do the other errands she had planned. Right when she gets home she goes right to blog stalking and came across this video that I posted below. Needless to say, her mood changed 180 degrees. I can't wait to have our child as I can only imagine more examples where you have a bad day and they do something that puts life right back into perspective.

Here's the video you have to check out (you'll need sound). This little boy was adopted a month ago and this is him trying to have a phone conversation with someone on his play phone. He's speaking Amharic (language in Ethiopia) along with a little English.

The next step right now is to start our application for the homestudy. This will take some time, but our goal is to have this done by Sunday night (4/20). We will then send that out as soon as we hear from AGCI that we have been approved, which should be early next week.

Looking forward to Friday night with the Ketelesen Girls!!!

~Tim

Why did we choose Ethiopia?

Many people have asked why we chose Ethiopia. There is a video that I think will answer that question for you. Go to the link below and click on "AGCI - Hannah's Hope Ethiopia". That is the home where our baby will come from. You might want to grab some kleenex!

http://www.allgodschildren.org/about/videos/

~Dawn

Trouble with Comments

Several of you have mentioned that you've had problems with posting comments to our blog. Tim changed the settings so that you no longer have to register before posting. So, if you use the "anonymous" button to post a comment you'll just need to make sure to type your name on the bottom otherwise we won't know who the comment is from. Hopefully that will be easier for everyone.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

P.S. Thank you Gus & Ali for the beautiful memory book!!!

Ethiopia Facts

Just thought we'd share some facts with you on Ethiopia...


~ One in ten children die before their first birthday
~ One in six children die before their fifth birthday
~ 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
~ 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
~ The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years
~ 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)
~ 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia.
~ Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
~ In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
~Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds,third year no animals)
Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.
Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002.
Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.
In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports.

Best Buds

Just had to post this picture because it's so darn cute!!!

4-7-08

Thank you to everyone for your encouraging words and support!! All of the phone calls, emails, cards, etc have meant a lot to us. We worked on the application this weekend and it is all filled out. We are waiting on some letters from both of our doctors and once we have those - it will get sent off. So, hopefully our doctors move quickly on getting the letters to us. Meantime, we've just been doing more and more research and trying to learn as much as possible. Many of you have asked about the agency that we are using, so if you care to check it out - it's http://www.allgodschildren.org/.

Brewers Opening Day was on Friday and we had lots of fun with Deanna & Fred. Very good game! Here's a picture of Tim and I on the bus to the game.

Thanks for reading...we'll be posting again soon.
~Dawn

Exciting NEWS

After much thought and prayer we have made the decision to start the adoption process. We have been discussing adoption for awhile now and have been doing quite a bit of research on agencies, countries, laws, costs, etc... We are excited about opening this new chapter in our life. We are not closing the chapter we were in but rather putting that process on hold for possibly a later point in our lives. We feel that the infertility treatments will be less stressful and emotional after we have already been blessed with a child. We knew going into Fridays doctor appointment that we were near the end of our rope with the infertility treatments. Its been a LONG, STRESSFUL, EMOTIONAL, DRAINING few years. We finally feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel. We know that the adoption process will not be easy and will have its ups and downs, but we're looking forward to the journey that lies ahead.

Through doing research we feel that doing an international adoption will be best for us. In doing so we have looked at a number of countries and they all have their own requirements and laws. We have narrowed down our choices and feel strongly about adopting an infant from Ethiopia. I'm sure your jaw just dropped but it just feels "right". We feel at peace with this decision and hope that we have support from all of our family and friends. This process will be much easier with everyone on board with us. We are at the very beginning stages but feel that we have found the agency we would like to use. There will be many forms, more forms and even more, but in the end it will be so worth it. The process could take around 12 mos. from start to finish. What we will be working on now is talking with the agency and getting the first application submitted. After that we start the home study process, which can take a couple of months.

We have started this blog/webpage to inform and update everyone as we move along this journey. So please check back frequently for updates, news, pictures and chatter. I'm sure everyone has a lot of questions, so please ask away. This page allows you to make comments to our different posts, so use the comment feature to let us know your thoughts, questions, encouraging words, or anything you wish.

We feel that we have so much love to give and can't wait to expand our family!

Tim & Dawn