One Year on the Waitlist

Today, March 19, 2013, marks exactly ONE year that our family has been on the waitlist for our 2nd daughter. When we got on the waitlist, we started at #139. Admittedly it was high, but not as high as we thought. Some months there was rapid movement. And more recently, in the last 2 to 3 months, movement has been very slow.

I'm not one to post our waitlist number every month. I just don't feel a need to. Honestly, half the time I can't remember it anyway....you'll find that out if we're face to face and you ask :-) But the other reason is that life in the Mancini household has just been very busy for the past year - maybe THAT'S why I can't remember :-) And we're expecting this next year of waiting to be equally busy. We've got a lot of positive changes getting ready to happen for our family and we're very excited about it.

Right now we are #87 on the waitlist. We won't get our new number until the end of the month. If you're curious about how we've progressed or want to keep current on our new numbers, check out our timeline.

We are thanking God for movement every month because we know that He is divinely ordering the meeting of our 2nd baby girl :-)

Happy Correction!

Last week I posted about our July waitlist number. Talk about being excited with the amount of movement! Usually what we do after we receive our number for the month is we post it on our adoption agency's listserv. Every month an unofficial waitlist is generated from all of our numbers and that's how we all know where we stand, who's close to getting a referral, etc. 

Well it turned out that our family and another family were given the same waitlist number (109), which isn't possible; one number per family. So I sent an e-mail to our Case Manager and as it turned out, she gave us the wrong number. The Mancini Family is NOT 109 on the waitlist. Our waitlist number is actually.....

                      

Blogging Again!

Well......it has been exactly 3 months since I last posted anything. That's right! For those family and friends who have been waiting on me to put something up here.......the time has come!

This summer turned out to be WAY more busy than I had ever anticipated. Trips got planned at the last minute, day trips got planned while we were on other trips. It has truly been exhausting. But oh-so-much fun! I'm actually still recovering from it all.

And the best way to start the blogging up again would be to do something that I haven't done since we were waiting for Eva.....post our new waitlist number. 

We started out on the list at #139 in mid March. We knew that we would be in the 100s. Not quite sure where though. Of course, we were pleased with where we started. We know the wait will be a long one. That may be the one thing that we've prepared ourselves for the most. But all the more reason to totally spoil and love on our sweet Eva before Baby B comes along.

Each month there has been movement. More movement than we had ever anticipated. And this month was no exception. Last night as I was scrolling through my e-mail, I saw that I had an e-mail from AGCI that said 'Monthly Update'. I couldn't believe it. You see, for the past couple of months we (all the AGCI families) have been receiving our numbers later than scheduled. I thought this would be another one of those months. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I opened the e-mail and saw that our new waitlist number is .....

You read it correctly....1-0-9!! John and I are beside ourselves about this number. I mean, who jumps 30 spots in just 4 short months?!? We may still be in the 100s, but we are SO CLOSE to being under 100 that it makes me a little giddy just thinking about it. God is so good and we are so grateful for these small steps. We are also so very happy for all the families ahead of us because it means that they are getting referred precious little ones that they will get to bring home very soon!

Surprise in the Mail!

This past Thursday started out as a bit of a stressful day. As always though, what Satan meant for evil, God managed to turn it around for the good. And by the end of the day when I finally went out to get the mail, this was part of the stack:

We just had our fingerprints taken at U.S. CIS on the 20th. Is this really what I think it is?

It sure is! This is our FDL - Favorable Determination Letter. These results get sent directly to the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia. Basically it says that our Fingerprints came back okay and we are cleared to go through with our international (Ethiopian) adoption.

And these are are the parameters we requested that we have been approved for:

One female child between 0 and 2 years old.

This was the very last piece of documentation that our Agency needs for our file. As soon as I send them a copy of this letter, the next batch of paperwork won't be until we get our referral. I can only imagine what the next 2 years will hold for us!

Fingerprinting is Done!

Today is not only the first day of spring, but today is also the day that John & I went to get our fingerprints taken at U.S. C.I.S. Our appointment was at 2:00 and we actually got there around 1:15. Even though we were WAY early, I didn't think they would be able to fingerprint us so quickly, but they did! Everything went so smoothly, and by 2:00, we were walking out the front door. The fingerprint results will be sent directly to the U.S Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The U.S. CIS then sends us a letter called a Favorable Determination Letter (FDL) stating that we have been approved to adopt a child from Ethiopia. This means that the U.S. and Ethiopia recognize us and approve us to be adoptive parents.

However, everything has an expiration date and the FDL is no different. It is only good for 15 months. At that point, the letter will expire and we will have to go through the process of getting our fingerprints taken again. This is highly likely as we know already that we will be on the waitlist for about 2 years.

But for now, we're excited. Gorgeous day. Fiingerprints done. We are on our way!

Waitlist....we've arrived!

Our adoption agency received our dossier on the morning of Friday, March 16th. Our case manager looked over everything and found one document that needed to be corrected before we could be added to the waitlist.

Saturday afternoon, after Eva was picked up by her Godparents, our first order of business was to get our newly corrected document signed, notarized and shipped out via FedEx! AGCI got the package first thing this morning (their time) and by the afternoon (our time) we had our waitlist number.

You ready????????????

Our new waitlist number for Baby "B" is.......................

We are excited about this number. We really did think it was going to be higher, and are looking forward to every month when, hopefully, that number will go down. So get ready, it's gonna be a bumpy ride J

Just a bit of Adoption information

**This is a very long post and was written mainly for my family & friends who

aren't familiar with the adoption process**

I've been wanting to write this blog post for a while now, but not quite sure how to go about it. Even though this is our 2nd adoption, I'm realizing that this process is not that well known. I find that when I tell people that we're collecting documents for our homestudy and dossier, they don't really know what that means in the totality of it all. So I wanted to break down the "not knowing" part of the adoption process.

Understand that this information pertains to our particular adoption agency and our particular program, Ethiopia. I do not speak for any other agency or program, domestic or international. I just have knowledge on what we specifically went through.

The very first thing we did was to fill out a mini application, concerning what country we were interested in, gender, age, etc. Even though we had just completed an adoption with the country of Ethiopia, we still had to be sure that we fulfilled their specific age, health requirements.

Once that portion was approved, our contracts were sent. They were signed and notarized as well as some other complimentary paperwork. During that same time, we also had to complete some online adoption education courses. 

After officially being in contract again, we received our Home Study & Dossier Binders. This was the beginning of the collection of documents. The very first thing in this binder was an ODJFS (Ohio Dept. Job & Family Services) application. This was so the state of Ohio would recognize us as adoptive parents.

While that was being processed we had our federal and state criminal checks done. Then we sent out our reference forms to various family and friends for them to fill out and return directly to the adoption agency. There were a total of 8 forms that were sent out and 7 were returned. Thank God we only needed 6 :-)

We also had to complete our personal profiles....... pages of information about ourselves, our family, our marriage. Very in depth. Those were the 4 main things that were completed with extreme time sensitivity.

Here is a list of all the other documents that we had to collect:
- Safety audit                                            - Fire inspection
- Adult & child medical (physical) forms       - Financial worksheet
- Bank letter statement                              - Proof of life, auto, & health insurance
- Employment & income verfication            - Vet letter concerning our dogs
- Photos of our family                                - John's military paperwork
- Eva's finalization adoption paperwork
- Photocopies of: birth & marriage certificates (divorce decree), tax returns, drivers licenses, ss cards
- Additional adoption forms and policy statements

All of these documents had to be turned in, some notarized, and approved before a social worker could even make an appointment to visit our home. That's why when the home study visit gets scheduled, it's a big deal. A corner has been turned :-)

As soon as we received our home study report, we were able to send in our application to the U.S CIS (Citizenship & Immigration Services). This application packet included a cover letter, the formal application (I-600A), photocopies of our birth, marriage certificates (divorce decree), home study report and letter to Homeland security.

Once that was mailed out, we had to wait for verification of receipt and then notification of our fingerprint appointment. The catch this time around was that we were not allowed to send in our dossier until we received our fingerprint appointment notification.

This time around I also worked on collecting documents for the dossier at the same time that I was collecting documents for the home study. The home study report is included in the dossier. The dossier is kind of like a portfolio that is sent to the Ethiopian government that is used to process and approve our adoption. And because it's sent to Ethiopia, the dossier is translated once it's been approved.

Included in our dossier was:
- Our home study report                                - Original birth certificates
- Original marriage certificate                        - Local criminal checks*
- Employment verification letters*                  - Letters of Recommendation*
- Power of attorney*                                      - Photocopies of current passport photos*
- Application letter to Ethiopian goverment*    - Photos of our family & home
- Financial statement*                                    - New passport photos
- Post-Adoption Commitment letter*               - Medical forms *
- Copy of USCIS fingerprint appointment*

*All of these documents have to be signed & notarized.

Once all the required documents are obtained, we will send them to our adoption agency's headquarters. Then everything will be looked over. If anything is wrong, it will have to be corrected. Once the dossier is approved, we will officially be on the waitlist.

As I mentioned earlier, the waitlist this time is going to be extremely long, roughly 2 years. We knew that going in and are at peace with that. We know that it just gives us more time to spend and love on Eva.

I find that the majority of questions that we field are if we know our child, seen a picture of her, if we get to choose her, etc. The important thing to remember about the waitlist portion of our adoption is that as long as we are on the waitlist, we know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about our child. In fact, our child might not even be born yet, which is highly likely as well. We will not know anything about our specific daughter until we are called with a REFERRAL. In order for that happen, we have to get all the way to being #1 on the waitlist.

When we do receive our referral, we do NOT get to choose our child from a bunch of pictures, like in a line up. Our adoption agency takes a lot of time in thought and prayer to make sure that every child is placed into the best family for that particular child. All of our information and paperwork is taken into very careful consideration before we are called with a referral.

We are very excited about this next adoption. Eva is already learning that she's going to be a big sister. We pray for our unknown Ethiopian daughter everyday. We are so appreciative of your kind thoughts and prayers during this whole process. Thank you so much for all of your love and support.

Dossier is on its way!

Today has been both an extremely frustrating and absolutely exhilirating day!


It started at 7:30 this morning. I called our doctor's office this morning to find out if I could take our medical forms in to be signed by our doctor and notarized by their in-house notary. Many of you probably remember my frustration that I've had with this form from reading my previous BLOG POST. An appointment time was set for later on in the afternoon and I was ecstatic. But as quickly as I became excited, it quickly faded. All of a sudden the form in question became the focus of the conversation: What kind of form is it? What does it say? What is the doctor signing his name to?


The medical form basically states that we do not suffer from pulmonary TB or any other (mental) disease or infection that would prevent us from raising a child.


I was immediately questioned as to when we had our last TB test, who performed it, etc. I was then transferred to another nurse in the office and had to leave a voicemail for her explaining the whole situation. Frustrated and annoyed does not even begin to explain how I was feeling. John was already at work, so I called him up ranting and raving in anger. Thank God for him because he was able to calm me down and get that vein to stop popping out of my forehead.

I decided that the answer to my rage was to do some retail therapy. I am not a person who usually solves my problems that way, but today was an absolute exception! I got Eva and myself ready and off to shopping we went J

We had a really fun time together buying birthday and baby shower gifts. Coincidentally (NOT) we started heading for home at around the same time that we were supposed to be at the doctor's office. Earlier in the afternoon, I had actually told the receptionist not to expect  me because I had not heard from the nurse yet. We were on the road for about 10 minutes when the nurse from the doctor's office called. She apologized profusely for all the confusion and said that the doctor could sign the forms.....and he could do it "Now", so off we went to the doctor's office.

We got there a little after 2 o'clock and just 10 minutes later I had the "magical" medical forms in hand!

This was the ABSOLUTE last form that was needed to send out our dossier. I immediately went home and made the necessary copies for the dossier.

When we got to the FedEx store, a little after 4 o'clock, the sign on the door said that the last FedEx pickup was at 4:00! Oh no!! As I'm explaning this all to Eva, the guy at the store says that the sign is just a suggestion, that the truck had not showed up yet for the last pickup. Praise God....I can breathe again J

By 4:25 pm, the package was sealed up and headed for Portland, Oregon. I was able to get a picture with Eva & me holding the precious dossier right before it got put on the FedEx truck. You see, as we were getting our picture taken, the Last FedEx truck of the day arrived.

So unbelievably excited! Only God could make a day that Satan tried to crush and turn it into something entirely amazing. Now all we have to do is wait for it be approved and get our waitlist number J

Fingerprint Time

Well....almost.

Let's go back just a little bit. Back on February 13th, we were able to put our I-600A Application in the mail via Express Mail to the Dept of Homeland Security/U.S. CIS (Citizenship & Immigration).  We were so excited to be able to do it so soon because the one thing we were waiting on was our approved home study report.

Then on February 21st, we received our receipt in the mail saying that they received it and were proccesing our application. I thought for sure that we were going to be waiting well into March to receive notice on our fingerprint appointment with U.S. CIS.

So this morning was just a regular day retrieving mail at the mailbox when I see this:

Could it be? A fingerprint notice? No. Maybe something's wrong and we didn't sign something or have everything that was required. Please note that I consider myself to be way organized and very efficient when it comes to paperwork. It's my thing.....it's what I do. So all of this internal dialogue was just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo because this is what was inside our envelopes:

Can you read that?

It says March 20th. Just 3 weeks away!!

This is very significant and very important. Aftern we go to have these fingerprints taken, the results will be sent directly to the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The fingerprint results will be valid for 15 months. This means that internationally our background check will be cleared and we'll be approved to adopt a child from Ethiopia.

It would be ideal if I could say that this paperwork was the only thing we were waiting on before we could send in our dossier. However, this time around, it's just not the case. If you remember from my waiting blog post, I mentioned that we were still waiting on our doctor's office in-house notary to receive her stamp kit. Well, that hasn't changed. So even though there are still pieces of paperwork that have to get notarized, passport photos that have to be taken, and our Power of Attorney form that has to be county & state certified (because we live in Ohio), they are still all things that take no more than an hour or two to complete. We are also waiting on two of the most important documents that are needed for the dossier: our letters of recommendation. I'm so glad that we asked who we asked and that they are diligent in getting those completed and notarized for us.

Now, having said all that, here is how I know that God is in control: Even if all of the paperwork were sitting right in front of me, waiting to be picked up by UPS or FedEx or whatever, the fact remains that we are just a few dollars short of our dossier fee. And in the end, even if the dossier is sent in without the fee, it won't be looked at until the money is in hand. So I know there's no reason for me to get all anxiety-ridden at this point because God is not ready for us to turn in our dossier, even if I am! J

To those of who who prayed for us to have a quick turnaround time with U.S CIS and the paperwork, thank you so much. Your prayers were heard and we are very grateful. Please continue to pray that all of our paperwork continues to move steadily forward and that by the time we have our full dossier fee, our medical forms will be notarized. J Thank you!

Waiting......waiting

This 2nd adoption process has proved and is still proving, to be a lesson in patience......waiting.


When we started saving our money for this adoption, we quickly saved up enough for our home study visit. Thinking that we could get a headstart on gathering our documents, as soon as we had the funds, we sent them in. Little did we know that their rules had changed and there were other fees that had to be paid all in a lump sum before we could get our home study completed. So we had to go a few more months, gathering funds for our 1st set of fees.

As soon as we received our home study binder in the mail, we went right to work on it. So many forms have to be filled out and just as many have to be notarized. Reference forms need to be completed and background checks have to be done before any home visits can even be scheduled. Right before we went away for our Christmas vacation, we had our local background checks done and dropped off paperwork for Eva's pediatrician to fill out. When we got home in January, I was sure that those documents would be sitting in our pile of mail. Nothing. It turned out that Eva's pediatrician office misplaced the form, then found it, thought they mailed it, then realized they didn't. In the end, we just drove to the office to pick it up. Then our Sheriff's Dept said that they mailed our notarized letters but we NEVER received them so they had to create new letters, have them notarized again and mailed out again. More waiting.

I was so thankful that those family members and friends who we trusted to fill out reference forms did so in such a timely manner. They have no idea how much of a burden that lifted off my shoulders. We had our home study visits in the middle of January, much sooner than we had anticipated. God is merciful :-) And what made us even more grateful was the fact that our social worker came over 1 weekend, for a 2-day visit, and was able to get all the information she needed in order to write up a completely new homestudy.

As I type this, we just received word that our home study was approved. That means that all required signatures were made, notarizations were done and our adoption agency has approved it and made all of their signatures and notarizations complete. Our homestudy is in the mail enroute to our mailbox. 

We are still learning about waiting, however. Since November, I have been trying to get our medical forms (for the dossier) signed by our doctor and (his signature) notarized. The notary that used to be in the office is gone. Then a new girl was brought in, however, she had to go to notary class (training, whatever) and take a test. She did. She passed. And as of this date, she still does not have her stamp kit. What that means is that unless I'm willing to pay a (mobile) notary to come to the office to witness our doctor signing a 5 sentence form (that we already signed), we are still waiting for their in-house notary to obtain all of her equipment. Waiting.

John keeps reminding me that this is God's plan. I realize that. I understand that. I think my frustration comes from what our past experience was. The first time everything flowed so smoothly. I was less efficient in collecting the documents but other documents that we had to rely on others for was completed and returned so quickly.  This time I was way more efficient collecting documents and filling out forms and there have been delays, delays, delays.

We know that when we eventually get on the waitlist, it will be a 2-year wait. And we've accepted that. We could have gone with a different adoption agency and had a considerably less wait time, but we chose not to. Our first experience with our agency was so wonderful and they handled everything so smoothly with all of our documents as well as everything in Ethiopia, that there was never a consideration to use anyone else. We love the peace of mind that using AGCI gives us.

This little girl must be something special. Satan is trying to throw monkey wrenches into the plan from the onset. Documents getting lost in the mail. People not filling out reference forms. But I'm thankful that in the end, God has His master plan for us and we just need to trust that plan. I'm learning, slowly but surely. I need to be quicker on the learning curve though and remind Satan that he can't trip me up and make me frustrated. 

Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to move forward and prepare to send in our next batch of paperwork in, our dossier. Please pray that when we send in our application to have our fingerprint appointment for Customs & Immigration, that we hear back from them in a relatively quick turnaround time.

Prayerful Decision

**When you least expect it, a seed is planted that you once told yourself 

would not happen. Here's how it manifested in our family**

We got home from our 10-day vacation on July 23rd. The next day, July 24th was our 8-year wedding anniversary and I decided that no business would be attended to until Monday the 25th. The first thing I did Monday morning was to check my e-mail.

I read an e-mail from another member of our Ethiopia family support group, explaining that a multiracial girl, with a birthday on the 26th, was planning on being placed for adoption. I don’t know why, but that little girl resonated in me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I called John later in the afternoon and read him the e-mail. He was adamant about us not doing anything about it. We both agreed that if the Lord doesn’t call both of us, then neither of us can do anything about it.


The day of the little girl’s birthday I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I had all kinds of questions about where she was and what she was doing, who she was with and if they were celebrating her birthday with her. For the next several days I still could not stop thinking about her. Every day I would pray for her, her family, adoptive and birth. Every day I would ask God to take this thought out of my head if it truly was not from Him.

By August 3rd, I still could not get that little girl out of my head, so I sent an e-mail to the originator asking for contact information. Thankfully he responded right away, later that day. I also e-mailed a friend who has done both a domestic and international (Ethiopian) adoption asking for the name of her case worker who did her home study. She sent me information back the same day with the case worker’s name as well as the adoption agency she used. When I looked up the adoption agency on the internet it turns out that the adoption attorney who is handling this particular case is also the attorney who represents clients for this particular adoption agency. Not a coincidence! I read the information over and over for a day and then just decided to go ahead and call the attorney’s office. I figured all of these questions I had in my head may all be moot if a family has already started the process of adopting her.

Friday morning, August 5th, I gathered the courage and called the attorney’s office. I had a wonderful and informative conversation with his wife who also works in the office.  It turned out that she had not heard back from the birth mother after several attempts to make contact about their decision. She gave me lots of other very good information that made me feel a lot better about possibly going through with a domestic adoption.

On Saturday the 6th, at a makeup class (tumbling) for Eva, I met a couple that moved here not too long ago from Atlanta, GA.  The wife overheard me talking about adopting Eva from Ethiopia and told me that her daughter was also adopted through a domestic adoption. I introduced myself to her as well as the husband and she & I continued chatting. At the end of the class we agreed that we would exchange information and keep in touch with one another. It turns out that she and her husband are contemplating doing an international adoption. Not a coincidence! Praise God. Of course I told John about the meeting and the discussion that we had.

For the next few weeks I kept pretty busy during the day, but at night adoption questions lingered in my head.  Then on the (Aug) 17th,  I received an e-mail from AGCI with a special announcement that they were giving financial incentives to those returning families who were interested in pursuing another adoption. God always knows. With restrained excitement, I told John about the e-mail. On the 21st I finally broke down and sent the AGCI Ohio Regional Director an e-mail asking questions regarding the home study. On the 27th I sent my AGCI Ethiopia Case Manager and e-mail letting her know that there may be an interest in a 2nd adoption. At this point I just wanted to gather enough information for John and I to be able to sit down and discuss this decision with everything on the table. In between receiving responses back from the 2 e-mails I sent, I started researching adoption grant organizations. I already knew that if we were going to be able to do this at all, we were going to need help, grant help. That’s because I am not going to be able to work this time. I’m at home with Eva. Every night while I laid in bed I prayed and asked God if this was His will for us, to prepare John’s heart for it, and if it wasn’t His will, to take this crazy notion out of my head for good. I prayed this prayer for several weeks.

Finally, on Labor day (Sept. 5th), I couldn’t take it anymore. I was increasingly having problems falling asleep at night. I had spent the last night tossing and turning, huffing and puffing. I even woke John up and he asked me if there was anything that I wanted to talk about. I told him that I didn’t want to talk about it at that time (it was 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning), that we would talk about it in the morning. That morning of Sept 5th I finally mustered up the courage to let John know everything that was on my mind, how I had contacted AGCI with my preliminary questions, everything. I soon learned that John had been praying as well. First he was capturing the thought and dismissing it every time it popped in his head. Then he found himself dreaming about it at night, waking up and still trying to dismiss the dream. After a while he started praying for peace about this adoption. By the time we sat down to discuss this, God had prepared both our hearts for this second adoption.

The next day I contacted AGCI and spoke with someone in Inquiry Services about our situation and what our status was in regards to our first adoption. Usually, their policy states that after a 1st adoption you must be home at least 9 months before starting a 2nd adoption. However, because the waitlist is estimated to be 18 to 24 months, they’ve revised it to having the 2nd post placement (6 month) report approved by AGCI staff.

This decision was such a big one for us, for me. I wasn't able to be my true self until I met John almost 10 years ago. I no longer had to pretend that I liked or didn't like something. We have always been able to talk about ANYTHING. But these last couple of months leading up to this decision, I could feel myself regressing. I wasn't open about my feelings. I would only show a portion of them for fear that there was going to be dissension. I became a little distant and not as communicative because I didn't want to create an argument. I was so afraid that John would chastise me for these feelings that I somewhat reverted back to that 20-something girl in a relationship that tries not to rock the boat.


But the truth is, John wasn't like that, isn't like that, and has never been like that. That fear was Satan trying to put that doubt in my head from the very onset. Satan knows what bringing another little beautiful gem in this family will do, and he was trying to thwart it from the very beginning. I'm blessed that John and I have the wonderful bond that we do because we were able to speak the truth through all the lies and know that God is with us throughout this journey.

We have officially started our 2nd adoption....from Ethiopia....for another little girl. Please pray for us & keep us in your prayers as we begin this next phase of our journey as a family of 3 working to become a family of 4.