Long time reader, first time poster: Hello everyone :-)

Welcome! I just came home with my little one in January. It was a wonderful experience.

Welcome! You really have had a quick process thus far. We are into our 5th month waiting on our home study. We've had several delays. Long story. I've had our dossier paperwork ready for awhile and anticipate having everything submitted within the next few weeks. Our agency currently has a 5-6 month wait on infant girl referrals, so we have a ways to go. I hope the rest of your process goes as quickly for you.

Adopting1Soon,Welcome. Your journey is speeding ahead at the speed of light. Congrats and continued good luck.PizzamomaPS. Love your blog!

Thanks guys! Today, I got my court date!!!!! 2xaround, why has it taken 5 months to get your home study??? I was able to pay $200 more and get my home study "expedited", meaning the SW came to my house THAT week. She then had it written up 2 weeks later. I was told by my agency that I should get my paperwork done ASAP since I was a single parent and the laws in ET might change at any minute. If they did, and my paperwork was in country, I MIGHT get grandfathered in. That was enough to motivate me to get my paperwork done pronto!

Congrats and welcome to the new ethiopia families

Congrats on the court date! Things really are moving quickly for you. No one in IL can pay an extra fee to expedite the process because IL has requirements that other states do not have. The big one being that all families who are adopting have to get approval from DCFS. This typically takes longer than the home study. Part of the requirement to get DCFS approval is getting a FBI background check. We had to do this with our first adoption and had hoped we wouldn't have to go through it again, but DCFS needed an updated background check completed. We got our prints done and mailed into the FBI. We got the results back in just under 3 weeks and while my husband's were fine, they couldn't read my prints so I had to have them redone. :eek: Just that part of the process took between 5 and 6 weeks. Anyway, I won't bore you with the rest of the story, but right now we're waiting on DCFS to send our approval to our social worker so our home study can be sent on to USCIS.:grr:

Here in maryland you need the same approval..not to mention our homestudy provider had to have two seperate meeting with us..Can't imagine being able to do a homestudy that quickly

It can be frustrating can't it?!!!:arrow: We only had to meet with our social worker one time since we used her for our first adoption. She's waiting right along with us now.

Our home study took 5-6 months and it was very frustrating I was very stressed I cried alot I ate alot of chocolate etc etc. However when i saw our baby boy's pictures I knew that he was the one for our family and it was God's perfect timing. Now 3 weeks from our court date I again try to tell myself that its god's timing not mine that will get us there this time i just hope his timeing meshes with mine. I'm so ready to hold my boy.

I agree. All the frustration and tears are well worth it when you see your child's face for the first time. :love: And once you have them home, the entire process starts to just fade away. If it didn't, very few of us would go through it again. :eyebrows:

Hi,:flower: Congrats Adopting1, wow I wish my agency was as fast as yours! We applied 1 1/2 years ago, homestudy also took 5 months (I hear u ladies who had to wait, ugghh!), dossier went over in August/08. Now we're in for another 10 month wait for referral, and then I hear Ethiopian court is slowing down as there was some fraud on paperwork so court is becoming more careful with documents. This is also my first time here, I was in chat last night and didn't get much of a welcome, so this seems like a good place to say hello. It's inspiring to see all of you with placements as it feels unreal that it'll ever happen, some days. Finding

Welcome Findinghope. I hope you catch a few breaks along the way and the process is speedy, rather than slow.

Welcome Finding!!!! I just found out yesterday that our social worker has everything she needs and our home study is on it's way to USCIS. YEAH!!! And it only took 5 months and 1 week. :arrow: You are correct that the Ethiopian courts have slowed down. However, a big reason for the slow down was due to the fact that one of the judges was out on maternity leave. She is back now. It is also rumored that they've added a judge, but that judge isn't up to full speed yet. The hope is that the court process will begin to speed up a bit. At least some have had their court dates moved to earlier dates which is encouraging. I hope your process moves along smoothly from here on out.

Wow, 2x, how do you get that kind of inside info?? :clap:

I follow 3 other Ethiopia forums. It's pretty easy to get a lot of information that way.:eyebrows: