Update

Just a brief update on "the situation." A letter was faxed from my Dr. this morning. After that we got a letter from CHI asking for permission to actually contact my Dr. so that they can speak with him in person. I don't know what other information they might need and I don't know whether or not I should be optimistic. So, there is no telling when they will be able to get a hold of the Dr. Anyone that works in the medical field should know that doctors don't tend to be in their office a lot and when they are, the last thing they want to do is have to deal with an issue like this. So, we wait. In the meantime, Stuart and I went this morning to get our CIS fingerprints done. The whole time I was praying that it was not in vain. That there was actually a reason why we got fingerprinted. So, we wait. It seems we may be in limbo for a while. I am ready to know where we are getting this baby from.

Happy Birthday Hayden!!!

Happy birthday to my awesome nephew Hayden. I can't believe he's three. He brings so much joy to all of our lives. He got the best ever birthday present this weekend too.



Yep, a baby brother. Brody Patrick Patton was born Saturday afternoon weighing in at a whopping 8 lbs. 9 oz. He was exactly the same size as Hayden was when he was born. Both Lish and baby Brody are doing great. So, after celebrating FC homecoming this weekend with our great friends, we made an unexpected trip to Washington to visit our new nephew. I'll post more pics when I get them downloaded.

Overall, it was a good weekend. Friday night we distracted ourselves from all the recent stress by making cookies. We must have cut out 40 cookies and no two were the same. We did everything from trains to giraffes to letters and question marks. It was a good time. Saturday morning the mighty Impact continued their winning streak with a 5-1 victory over the Strikers. The last game of the season is this weekend but Stuart and I will not be there due to the Hilly Hundred. Saturday afternoon was spent at Franklin College at the homecoming festivities and then it was down to Washington to see the newest member of the family. Needless to say, we are pretty tired today. I think this was the distracting weekend we needed to keep our minds off of the latest adoption developments. The plan is to fax in a letter from my doctor tomorrow afternoon and we will hopefully know something by weeks end. Stuart and I want to thank everyone for their prayers and well wishes. I've said it a thousand times before but I'll say it again, our friends and family are awesome and we are truly blessed to have each and every one of you in our lives.

The first dip

In this roller coaster ride, that is. We had been moving along at record speed with no bumps when all of a sudden we hit a major red light. We heard from CHI yesterday who had received our homestudy from ASC. Apparently because of a medical issue, we have to get more documentation from the doctor. We thought that this could cause a problem, however, we were under the impression that as long as the Dr. wrote us letters stating that we were in "good physical and mental health and free of contagious diseases", it wasn't going to be an issue. Well, we were wrong. So, right now we are faced with the prospect of losing this whole thing. We will hopefully know by the end of next week as to what direction we will take. We may be switching to a domestic adoption but will wait to make a decision on that until after CHI reviews the dr.'s documentation. Both Stuart and I are terrified and angry at this whole situation. However, we are reminded constantly that God is in control. We have faith that we are going to get the child we are meant to have.
So, in the meantime, we are going to have a good weekend. Tonight, Cameron and I are going to make cookies. Tomorrow, we are going to Franklin College homecoming with some of our dearest friends and on Sunday we are going to watch football like its our job.
Oh, and congratulate Stuart as he scored his first career goal in soccer last night at our indoor soccer game. Imagine everyone's excitement when husband and wife met at half field for a mighty chest bump in celebration.

Movin' right along

So, imagine my surprise when I'm sitting at my desk yesterday and open up my email to find that the first draft of our homestudy is finished. That definitely sent me into panic/frantic/omg what am I gonna do mode. It just made me so excited that they got that done so quickly. Stuart and I both looked over the draft and have faxed in our changes this morning. I am so hoping that things continue to move smoothly for us. Another super exciting thing that I found out is that the state of Indiana is one of the few states in the country that does not charge for state certification. Finally, we are getting something for free!!! Also, instead of sending it to the Secretary of State for certification, we can drop it off and pick it up the next business day.
Amazingly enough, I am calm as can be today. Last night, the most important lesson I've had in a while, hit me square in the face. God's timing is perfect. I can't control how fast or slow or how many ups and downs we're going to have from here on out. He is completely in control. Therefore, I sit here today with a peaceful, non frantic heart. I am so thankful for that. Especially since I was 30 minutes late for work today because I apparently only paused at a stop sign and Mr. Policeman was sitting there watching me. Whatever, no ticket, just a warning. Seriously, do these people not know that I've got enough going on in my life?

Our first official baby purchase

Yep, we got a jogging stroller. Thanks to the heads up of my awesome sister-in-law. One of her co-workers was selling it at a great price so she jumped on it for us. Hooray!! Last night was one of those "ohmigosh this is really real" moments. It felt good for a short while then the realization of the wait set in again. I did manage to assemble most of our dossier last night. It's all done and notarized (thanks to my favorite notary). I'm waiting on our family pics to add some of those in and then a couple of letters from the social worker. I'm hoping to be able to fax in all of our documents by the end of the week. It's been almost 3 weeks since our last homestudy visit so I'm expecting the homestudy to be done by the end of October. Once that is done, we can finally assemble the rest of the dossier for certification. What a long process. I know I share this sentiment with a lot of people: Why in the world can anyone go out and have a baby but because I want to adopt a child who needs parents, I have to spend thousands of dollars, watch 10 hours of parenting education, and stress over a pile of paperwork?

Getting Closer!!!

Monday already. However, this Monday brings new excitement for the Rogers family. We are in final dossier preparations and hope to have everything done at the end of this month. On Friday we received our appointments for CIS fingerprinting. Our homestudy agency didn't think we'd get that until our homestudy had been forwarded to them. However, they surprised us and we get to go next week to be fingerprinted. Then, when our homestudy is done, that's the final piece of this crazy puzzle. At that point there will be a lot of frantic trips to the post office and lots of certified mail I'm sure but then it will be onto the wait. We are really hoping that our wait won't be that long. We know that our wait is going to be at least 6 months from the point that our dossier is officially added to the waiting pile. The good news is that the referrals have started coming in again and just in the past week there have been 5. Some as young as 1 week old.
Tonight I am meeting my friend Laura for dinner and a notary party. She is going to be notarizing all of the documents that Stuart and I have put together for our dossier. Our friends and family have really been very helpful on our journey. We are truly blessed to have the support system that we do and we know our child will be also. Later in the week we will be scanning in our dossier and emailing it to our CHI social worker for her to look over. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have to redo anything.
In other news, the mighty Impact improved to 4-0 on the season this past Sat. It was a hard fought game but we came out on top by about 3 goals. And last, but not least, here are a few pics from our family photo shoot this past weekend. I'll post the rest when we get them.




Seriously, could he be cuter?

Oh and one last pic.


Just wanted to show what it takes to be successful in the 6 and 7 year old league these days.

Midweek Madness

It's hump day, hooray!! I love it when the week is on its downward slope and we are heading toward the weekend. This weekend is going to be a doozy too. We've got several functions on Saturday including a soccer game, family pics, and a party that night. Then on Sunday we head down to Washington for my awesome nephew's birthday party.
I just had to share a few stories from our little entertainer. First of all, last night, he was meant to be upstairs brushing his teeth. We didn't hear anything for quite some time and finally Stuart yelled up and asked him if he had brushed his teeth yet. Standing at the top of the stairst Cameron yells down "That is in a excellent question Dad." Seriously, just when I thought I couldn't laugh anymore he keeps it coming. This morning while I was driving him to his mom's house, he serenaded me with a pretty accurate version of "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. Really, do six year olds really know that stuff?
On the adoption front, the courts in Ethiopia are open again!!! Hurrah. That means that the referrals should start coming in at a greater pace than what they have been coming in for the past two months. We have finished with all of our documentation and just need to get everything notarized. I spoke with our CHI social worker today and she said she'd review all the documents for us and make sure we have everything perfect. Once that is done, our homestudy is done and we get our I171H, we basically send everything into the State of IN for certification. From there it goes to the Ethiopian Embassy for certification and then to Ethiopia. It sounds like a lot, but really we've done all we can to expedite the process. Then we can just sit back and wait anxiously as we work our way down the waiting list. Patience is key. I'm going to need a lot of things to keep me busy.