Preparations

I've been lucky to have this week off of work to get some of the preparations for Lydia going, like:

• purchasing plane tickets and booking a hotel
  
• filling out health and dental insurance forms
  
• scheduling medical and dental appointments
  
• filling out school registration forms and finding out immunization rules
  
• filling out daycare registration forms
  

After Lydia comes home I will be submitting post-placement reports to our agency who will send them on to Ethiopia. Once I submit the six-month post-placement report, I can start the process to re-adopt her here in the United States. I did this for Lalie too but was able to pick Lalie's entire name when she was adopted in China right away. In Ethiopia they don't give name choices before the official adoption. They keep the child's first name, the middle name becomes the first name of the adoptive father (or in the case of a single mother such as myself, the name of the adoptive mother) and the last name of the adoptive parent(s). Because of this, currently Lydia's legal name is Lydia Erica P. so unfortunately that is what I have to put on all of the forms. After I readopt I will need to re-visit all the places and provide documentation to change her middle name. Luckily though it's only the middle name that will be changed. At least her first and last name are correct so it won't be too confusing for everyone.