When I filled out the pre-approval there was a space where we had to list our top three "country choices." I tried to put "Ethiopia" in all three blanks, but it wouldn't let me. I finally clicked Taiwan and China as our 2nd and 3rd and turned that bad boy in. When our coordinator, Erin, called the next day she said, "I think Ethiopia is your best bet. For the other countries you have to be at least 30, so those won't work." My heart fluttered a little when she said that. "I knew those other countries wouldn't work," I thought, "our baby is in Ethiopia!"
After receiving our pre-approval, we filled out the actual application and sent that in immediately. We received a call not even 3 days later and were told that we had successfully made it through that phase of the process also.
Next came our first phone interview! We received a HUGE packet of information and were told that we needed to be very familiar with all of the information before the phone interview. We spent hours going over every detail - agency contract, adoption process, timeline, fee schedule (…oooohh, that fee schedule) - and, finally, we were ready. On September 7th, we had our first interview and it went perfectly.
We were pumped up and ready to go. The next step? Write a check. A big check.
Oy.
Erin had given us a list of fundraising ideas (and they were great ideas), but still…yikes. I started doing a little research to find out what kinds of things other families had done to fund their international adoptions. There are lots of awesome blogs out there - it's like a little community of families who are all in the business of helping each other bring home their babies. I'm excited to join in on it and get this ball a-rollin'!
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