Finally . . .

After nine long weeks (+ two days) we finally received our official Ministry approval letter. For those of you who aren't familiar with the adoption process, this is a letter from the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services that gives us permission to adopt another child. We are breathing a huge sigh of relief and Mother's Day will be that much better now.

Many of you know that over nine weeks ago, we brought our homestudy and other parts of our dossier to our agency in Cambridge. We were told at that time that it would only take 2 - 4 weeks for us to get our ministry approval since our homestudy was only an update (it's an update because it's our second time adopting). So that was really good news and we thought it was great that we wouldn't have to wait the 6 - 8 weeks it was taking at that time for original homestudies to get approval. After four weeks went by, I emailed our agency to see if they had heard anything and they said they hadn't. They also said that things were taking a little longer at the ministry for a variety of reasons so not to worry. At six weeks I emailed again and they still hadn't heard anything. I was starting to get a little more anxious but I was still holding it together and remaining somewhat calm.

At eight weeks and one day, I was on the verge of losing it. I was worried we weren’t going to get approved for some reason, I wasn’t sure if our file was lost or if it even got to the ministry. I emailed our caseworker again (by the way, her name is Julie and she’s the best caseworker ever!) to voice my concerns and see if there was anyway we could check the status of our file or contact the ministry by phone to see if our file even made it there. Julie got on the phone right away and found out that yes, they had our file and it was “being processed”. They told her that it would be done by the end of the week and we should hear something the following week (that would be this week). Ok, that sounded really good to me. And the other really good thing was that, because we had all our paperwork together and at the agency office and because Julie is the best caseworker ever, she worked ahead on our file so that the next step would be shorter for us. She told us that instead of the next step taking 2 – 4 weeks, it would only take one week for us. Yay Julie! (See? Isn’t she the best caseworker ever???)

Soooooo, that brings us to this week . . . the week we should be hearing from the ministry. Monday – I didn’t assume we’d hear anything yet. Tuesday – I thought maybe we would hear something but was somewhat ok that we didn’t. Wednesday – I thought was a very strong possibility that we’d hear something – I mean how long does it take to send an envelope via courier or even snail mail within Ontario? I emailed Julie on Wednesday just to make sure she hadn’t received it and forgot to tell us (Ya right! After all, she is the best caseworker ever!) By the time Thursday came around, I was falling apart. What was going on??? Are we approved or not approved? Why is it taking more than nine weeks when it should have been 2 – 4 weeks??? There is only one day left for us to hear something this week - I can’t go through another weekend not knowing for sure if we’re approved or not. And yes, I emailed Julie last night (Thursday night) to voice my concerns once again.

Ok, I need to interrupt to tell you more about how great Julie is. This whole time as I’m emailing her, she has been the most patient, understanding, kind person. We’re still just at the beginning of this process and already she’s done so much for us. She even went so far as to tell me I could email her everyday to check in and not to apologize for that (I was apologizing in every email because I felt like I was bugging her). See how great she is? We are truly blessed to have her as our caseworker.

This morning (Friday) at 8:33 am, I received an email from Julie saying that she had contacted the ministry last night before she left work. She was told that we were officially approved on May 2 (last Friday) and that our letter was on its way. That made me feel better but I still wanted that final confirmation . . . the official approval letter. Julie also told me that we received our declaration back from Ottawa (part of the next step that’s supposed to take 2 – 4 weeks) so as soon as they receive our approval letter, our file is on it’s way to Ethiopia.

This afternoon at 2:20 pm, we received the following email from Julie:

Hi Mike and Karen,

I just wanted to let you know that I received your letter of approval today! Congratulations – you have been approved to adopt “a healthy male child, as young as possible, up to the age of 12 months, from Ethiopia”.

As I mentioned before, I have your file all ready to go. I will be sending your file to Ethiopia either Monday or Tuesday (depending on when I can get DHL here, but it will be going soon!). I will certainly let you know what day it gets picked up and you can certainly celebrate that milestone!

Have a great weekend and HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

HOORAY! We are so excited to have this part of the process behind us. We know that it will still be many more months before we see a picture of the precious child that God already has picked out for our family, but we are so happy that we are finally officially expecting again. Let the real waiting begin!