Finally...more than 9 months after submitting our initial application, we have sent our dossier to our Adoption Agency (America World Adoption Association) and hope to receive our official place on the waiting list, this is referred to as our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) date, before the new year.  The first trimester, which in an adoption is the assembling and submission of the dossier, is over!  Now...we...wait...

We received word a couple of weeks ago that the wait time from the DTE date until receiving a referral has increased to 24-30 months for an infant.  The reason for this increase is as follows:

"The length of time it is currently taking for children to receive their necessary clearances is still the main cause of the increasing wait times. The clearance process is intensive and contingent on the governmental bodies in Ethiopia."

Even though it is difficult, we know that the wait has a purpose.  First, this wait means that our agency is working with the Ethiopian government to make sure that every adoption is done in an ethical manner.  Additionally, we trust that God selected our son for us long before we ever knew that we would taking this path and long before he was/is conceived.  The wait time may decrease at some point during our wait or it might to continue to increase as it has over the past couple of years.  Either way we trust that the length of our wait holds a purpose.  The length of the second trimester is in God's hands.

So...today we rejoice that we are now officially a "waiting" family and no longer a "paper chasing" family!