The adventure begins

I'M ADOPTING A BABY!!! Wow. The power of that statement is overwhelming. I'm excited, scared, and somewhat anxious. Being a parent is an awesome responsibility and I hope I'll be good at it.

Paper pregnancy. The paper chase. Home study. Prospective Adoptive Parent. Dossier. I-600A. I-171H. All words and phrases I was unfamiliar with several months ago. Now they're part of my mental vocabulary every day.

After considering adoption for about 3 years, I made the big decision earlier this year to start the journey to motherhood. I'm single. That certainly complicates things a bit. But I'm also intelligent, resourceful, adventurous, financially stable, and surrounded by supportive friends. And I had great parents as role models. It feels like the right time to do this.

I'm adopting through International Adoption Net, a small agency based in Colorado. I've decided to adopt an infant (between 0 and 12 months old) from Ethiopia. I've left the gender up to the agency. That somehow makes it even more exciting.

At this stage, I'm working on putting my dossier together. The dossier is a set of legal documents that represents me with the Ethiopian government. It consists of my completed home study (all about me), financial statements, insurance coverage information, health statements, and a criminal background check... all notarized and certified, then sent to Ethiopia for translation. This is definitely not the most exciting stage of the adoption. But it makes me feel like I'm in control of some part of the process, and I'm proceeding pretty quickly through my dossier checklist from the adoption agency.

I've also got paperwork filed with the US Government. My I-600A (application to bring an orphan into the country) was filed almost 2 weeks ago, and tomorrow I get to go have my fingerprints taken at the Fort Worth office of the Dept of Homeland Security. Every appointment like this brings me one step closer to mommyhood!

I'm new to this blogging thing, but I'll do my best to keep you all updated on the process.