29 months of waiting

January 31 marked 29 months that we have "officially" been on the waiting list! 

29 MONTHS!! 

It still amazes me that this process has taken so long. However, Malachi is WORTH THE WAIT!! 

I know that most of you are thinking "well how much longer until you get him??"

That's a great question!! I ask God that same question on a DAILY basis! Although we don't know exactly when will will get him, we do know a few "statistics" within our agency. These are merely statistics and give us a rough estimate of time. 

Before I talk about "wait times," I feel like I need to clarify that we have NOT been matched with a child yet. We are waiting to be matched. Once we finally are matched and we see his face... You will know about it... TRUST ME. 

Please attempt to follow my adoption jargon for a minute!

There are 2 main ways we are tracking approximately "how much longer we have." 

Here they are:

The first tracking method:

We have been waiting 29 months. 

Our DTE (Dossier To Ethiopia) day was August 31, 2012. On that day, we were officially paperwork ready to receive a referral (match) therefore we were placed on our agency's waiting list. 

Okay... So... 

Our DTE was August 31, 2012

Our agency currently estimates a wait time of 36-48 months from DTE date to referral (being matched). 

We are 29 months from Our DTE date. 

Based on those estimates... We could receive a referral anywhere from 7 to 19 months from now. Ha! Talk about a large gap of time! Plus those times are subject to change! When we first entered the program, the estimated wait times were 12-18 months! 

Obviously that has changed drastically! 

The second tracking method:

This is our "number" on the waiting list. 

I need to clarify. Our agency does NOT give us an official waiting list number every month. So any "number" that I say we are is a unofficial number.  

So where does the list of numbers come from? 

It's been around within our agency long before we were adopting. Basically, when you enter the Ethiopia program with America World, the agency encourages you to get in two main groups for support and encouragement. One group is a Yahoo Group, the other is a closed Facebook Group. Once you are in those groups you can be "added" to the unofficial list. Basically, you tell the "keeper of the list" (which is just another mom in the program volunteering to keep up with the list) when your DTE date was and what your parameters are. 

For example:

Blackburn Family

DTE 8/31/12

Requesting a boy age 0-24 months 

Once you communicate that to the groups, they add you to the list. 

The "majority" of families volunteer this information and are added to the unofficial list. Some families, however, choose to remain anonymous. 

Since not EVERY SINGLE family is on the list, it is not entirely accurate. However, it does give you a very good idea of where you fall in line! I would estimate that approx 85-90% of families in our agency are on this list because it has been very accurate. 

Whew. Now that that is explained... What number are we?!?!

Well, December and January were amazing months in reference to referrals and movement! 

8 baby boys referrals have gone out!! 

So in the last 2 months we have moved up 8 spots!! 

We are #44 for an infant and #26 for a toddler!! 

I have been so encouraged because there is a possibility that we are even lower numbers than those! 

We stayed in the 60s for what seemed like a year. Now we have flown through the 50s and 40s. 

I cannot wait to get to the 30s!! 

So... How much longer until we get Malachi?? 

I have NO idea. 

But I drive myself nearly psycho tracking the details of when we might be close!! 

And I can feel it in my bones :-) 

We are getting closer!! 

This is us at the Federal Building in Jackson last week. We got our fingerprints done AGAIN! 

We have been working hard to update all of our paperwork so that if baby Malachi gets ready... We are ready too!! 

We lack ONE piece of paper before we are completely up to date on paperwork! 

Sidenote: 

Chip had a double ear infection so he was with us. 

Y'all, please keep praying for us! Pray for Malachi! Keep asking about adoption. We ask that you suffer long with us!! We know that God will bless you for continuing to lift us up to Him. We bless you! We thank you! We cannot wait to be on the other side of this journey and to get to share life with Malachi. 

Have a great week!! 

Abby