We've moved our adoption meeting

We've talked with our Agency and have moved our meeting to January 11, as we would like to have this sooner than later.
We've finished all of our paperwork, which I will be dropping off tomorrow with our application fee.  The only forms that we're missing are the medical examination forms from our doctor.  Or physicals are booked for the beginning of February, so we should have these completed before our meeting.

For our paperwork, which I've previously touched on, we were required to do the following:
* An International Adoption Application with the Province of Alberta
* The Application Forms to the Adoption Agency.  Part 2 of these forms required us to complete long answer/essay questions of our reasons to adopt and our autobiographies
* SAFE Questionnaire (Structured Analysis Family Evaluation) - which is a multiple choice questionnaire about our childhoods and our relationships with our families and each other
* A copy of our Birth Certificates
* A copy of our Marriage Certificate (you must be married for more than two years to adopt from Ethiopia)
* A copy of my Divorce Decree from the Court of Alberta
* Our Intervention Record Check Form
* Our Criminal Record Check Forms
* Our T4 Slips from our previous tax year
* Our Family Budget Analysis
* and Our Letter of Understanding

From our research, adoption from Ethiopia typically takes 1.5 years.  It takes 4 - 8 weeks to process all the paperwork, so we should have this all processed and hopefully approved by the end of February.  We then have to do a Home Study and an Assessment of our Home, to make sure that Social Services approves for us to adopt.  Once we pass this, assuming we pass, we then would have our request sent to the Ethiopian Government and request to be matched to our child.  When the paperwork reaches Ethiopia, it takes them on average 6 months to approve the papers and match us to our son.  We then have the choice to accept or approve the match.  Once the match is made, we have to apply for immigration for our son to come to Canada.  This can take anywhere between 3 months and one year.

Ethiopia has an adoption process in place with the Province of Alberta and Ethiopia is not a Hague Country.  Hague Countries have government intervention in the adoption process and must first try to find parents for the child in their home country before approving an international adoption.  This can cause the adoption process to take years.

As Ethiopia is not a Hague Country, there are no fees to be paid to the Government of Ethiopia or any agencies there.  All our fees go through our Agency in Calgary.