Letter from Rachel Donoho

Dear fellow AWAA families,
 
I am writing to you from San Salvador as a new mother.  It is difficult to compress all the events and emotions we have gone through in the last two weeks into one blog.  Our adoption journey started in November 2005.  We accepted the call of adoption for our family at that time.  We knew we had an upcoming move so we could not start our paperwork until September of 2006.  In May of 2007 we submitted our completed dossier.  In July of 2008 we received our OPA approval.  In August of 2008, I accompanied Brain Luwis with other AWAA families to El Salvador and was able to meet our lawyer, Salvadoran adoption advocates and officials in the Consulate office at the American Embassy.  In September 2008, my husband and I drove halfway across the country to attend the Angels in Adoption event and were able to meet the Procurador, the director of OPA and reacquaint with others from El Salvador.  It was after this trip that we changed our immigration and home study to be willing to accept a sibling pair.  In each of these meetings we not only told our story but reminded those that there were many families waiting to adopt.
 
In November of 2008, we were told of a sibling pair that was going to the Joint Meeting to be paired with a family.  In December we found out they went to a family in Italy. In January of 2009, my husband led a mission trip from our church to El Salvador and through AWAA local contacts was again able to meet with the Procurador to remind him of all the waiting families in the States. In March of 2009, Susan Maines called us to let us know of another sibling pair that was available.  The day after Mother's day, we received the call that we had an official referral.  We immediately sent our acceptance to AWAA. In July we received pictures of our children.  And in September we received our court date, October 12, 2009.