We have a "DTE"....and a Due Date!

Well, we have some BIG updates…but first on the adoption front- we made our deadline of getting our Dossier finished by June! We had some unexpected set-backs towards the end (not to mention a couple of months of all-day morning sickness to enjoy at the same time) but I was determined to get that package sent by the end of June. We finally received the last document we were waiting on early last week, so last Thursday, a couple of friends met me at the post office and prayed over the package as we sent it on its way! I didn’t really understand when we first started the process that we don’t actually send the documents to Ethiopia ourselves- our agency takes care of that for us (thanks to a nice little courier fee we have to pay to get it there safely), which was actually a huge relief to know. I personally don’t trust myself to send very important documents all the way across the world. So this week, our agency is reviewing everything one last time, and then taking our Dossier to the Department of State and the Ethiopian Embassy for certification and authentication. They will then courier the final package to Ethiopia, which is set to arrive the next week in Ethiopia, so our official “DTE” (Date-To-Ethiopia) will be July 4, 2014. What a fun DTE!

The most important thing about having a DTE is that we finally get our name on the official waitlist. The wait time has been steadily increasing, and the current wait time for a healthy (relative term in Africa) infant/toddler is now around three years. It could be shorter for us due to the fact that we are requesting siblings, which aren’t requested as often as single children, but we are mentally preparing ourselves to wait the full three years- I mean, what is three years when you get the rest of your life with these precious children?! I feel like my patience and ability to be at peace in “waiting” has been tested, and tested, and tested some more over the past couple of years…and y’all, it has been HARD. But for me, I’ve come to realize it’s more about perseverance to not give up on the dreams and promises God has given me, regardless of whether I see them coming to fruition anytime soon or not. I could write a whole post on that topic alone, and I think I will soon, but for now, I want to focus on the JOY of being done with such a huge part of the adoption process!

And speaking of JOY and dreams, we also found out in April that there will be yet another little Steenken joining our family, set to arrive this year! We literally found out I was pregnant the very same day that we sent our paperwork to USCIS to be approved (something tells me that was more than a coincidence!). It has been so hard to keep it a secret for so long, but we wanted to make sure the pregnancy was going well and the baby was healthy due to my past experiences with pregnancies. But this pregnancy has felt SO different in so many ways- so HOPEFUL (and so full of my head in the toilet, which my doctor has assured me over and over again is totally a “good sign!”). I ended my first trimester last week and got the go-ahead from the doctor to shout it from the rooftops…we have a perfectly healthy baby set to arrive at Christmas of this year! I hope to write out more of my thoughts about our experiences on this two-year journey of so desperately wanting children, but again, for now I just want to delight in the faithfulness of God in our lives through this little miracle baby joining us in December! I know so many of you have not only prayed for our adoption, but have also been praying for us to be able to have biological children. God has heard every prayer, and He is so faithful. Thank you from the deepest place in my heart for contending for us in prayer as we’ve shared our journey in all of this. It really does take a village, and I am so glad to be in this one.

 

 

“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord” –Luke 1:45

WE ARE APPROVED!

I have to apologize for not getting to this update sooner, we have had major computer issues in our house lately, but several visits to the Apple store later, we are back in business with some great news to report! We received our approval letter from USCIS in the mail last week- which means we could technically accept a referral for a child or children immediately. (Oh how I wish it worked that way! Since we are going through an agency, we still have some more steps to go through and then quite a long wait list) We were expecting it to take a little longer to receive the approval letter, so we still have a couple of documents we are waiting on…but once those are in, all of our paperwork will be off to Ethiopia! I can’t we are finally to this final stage…the paperwork process was no cake walk, but we’ve had a lot of favor in getting it done so quickly (thanks to all of your prayers during this part of it all!) We are more than ready to be on the wait list (which will happen once the Ethiopian government receives our paperwork and processes it through their system), and it’s crazy exciting to think that it could happen THIS month. Thank you for your continued prayers for us in this journey; they are being answered in a real, tangible way!