How Does this Whole Adoption Thing Work?

We are working with America World Adoption Association (America World or AWAA for short). They have a great overview of the process on their website:
http://www.awaa.org/programs/ethiopia/

The specifics of the so called “paper-chase” are fairly mind numbing, but we first finish a home study with a license social worker who looks at all aspects of our lives and recommends us as adoptive parents for children of certain ages. We then have to get pre-approval from the government, form I-171H. We collect other information about our selves and lives. All of this paperwork is certified by the county, the state, and then the US government. Lastly, the dossier, our paperwork, is translated and sent to Ethiopia. This step takes about 4-6 months.

We then play the waiting game. The agency works with the government and orphanages to match us with children. When the match occurs, we receive a referral with a brief description of our children, their health, and a history. We can either accept or decline the referral. When we accept a referral, we make travel plans to go to Ethiopia and bring our children home. The waiting game takes about 3-9 months and from referral to travel is about 6-8 weeks. So our children could be home as early as July, but more likely later.

We have requested that the agency match us with two children, preferably siblings, a boy and a girl. We would like one child birth to ten months old and another birth to thirty months old.