Done!...and more to do...

I sent our I-600A form in to Immigration last week, and express-mailed our dossier to AAI yesterday - yay!

We are waiting to receive the DVD of waiting children right now. My friend Deanna, who adopted 3 children from Ethiopia through AAI, put me in contact with another mom who has adopted from there. She has been there more recently and met many of the children, so that will be really helpful as we are trying to decide whom we are to adopt.

The next thing on my to-do list is to apply for some adoption loans. There are Christian organizations that offer no-interest loans to families for adoption; this would be a huge blessing for us. So far, the money we have had to pay has been pretty spread out, and not in huge amounts (the largest being $2400); but when we choose the children we are going to adopt, we will need to pay $4000. Then, when the case is submitted to court, we will need $5000 more. The final big chunks needed will be for traveling to Ethiopia, which we have to do twice, once for court and once to bring the children home. I'm not really sure how much we will need for those trips, but I'm estimating $3000 for the first trip and $6000 for the second.

The great thing is that there is a refundable adoption tax credit now, $13,170 per child in 2010, so if we can get loans for these costs, we can repay them easily with the tax credits. Anyway, please pray that we will be approved for some loans, enough to cover our major costs.