Color

If you know us, you know who picked what colors for M's room.

He has a family!

We are told that our adoption case was approved in the Ethiopian court system. Holy Cow! We are shocked and thrilled and just can't believe it.

We are wandering around the house looking at each other in disbelief.

We are his and he is ours. Amazing!

In the next 15 hours....

...our adoption case will (possibly) be heard in the Ethiopian courts. Our court date is scheduled on Tuesday, March 18th. Right now it is about 2:45am Tuesday morning in Ethiopia. Hopefully all those involved in getting our case through the court system are resting peacefully, so they will be clear and focused when they awake. It will be a busy day in the courts, there are many cases scheduled for the day. My heart beats fast when I think that it could be the day...

My heart also beats fast when I see that some families that passed court on April 30th are leaving for Ethiopia on May 26th. Less than a month...oh my goodness.

Yeah...good news on the adoption front.

Hopefully, it is not premature to celebrate this step, as I don't have the paper in my hand yet. But I got an e-mail from USCIS today, stating that our application for immigration was approved and that we should be getting the paperwork in the mail next week.

Yippee! I will be checking the mail everyday, for sure.

Yesterday I Heard...

...the phrases, "your new adoptee" and "baby shopping".

It bothered me. I have read about and listened to other adoptive families discuss wording and phrases that they find inappropriate or insensitive adoption language. And I have always thought, 'I don't think that is going to bother me. I think they are being too sensitive.' But then yesterday, these words came out of peoples mouths and I found myself shocked for a second and taking a deep breath.

I took these phrases away from their context and from people that I know mean no harm, but still it affected me in a not so nice way.

I guess I understand that these people haven't been sitting in classes about adoption for months like I have. They haven't spent the past few years reading, researching, and learning about adoption. They haven't spent just about every waking (and sleeping) moment thinking of this child...this child...who they will be, where they will come from, what they will be like. To them, this new and strange picture is "my new adoptee", not my child. I guess I can't fault them. I know I need to educate them, but it's hard when I am taken off guard and holding my breath.

I can't blame them, can I? I have trouble saying "my child", "my son". It's not official yet. We still have to pass court for this to be legal on paper. But in my heart this is our child. It's like when I got married, though. I couldn't call Daniel "my husband". In fact saying such a thing would reduce me to laughing and giggles. I had to get used to "having a husband". I have to get used to having a child, to having a son. It may seem more real to others, and to us, if I had a growing belly to see. But rest assured, this child is real, he won't be our adoptee, he will be our son.

As for the phrase "baby shopping". I just hope I never hear that phrase again.

Dropping the baby!

Yesterday, Daniel and I were in an all day Baby and Toddler Care class for adoptive families. We had to get there early to pick out a baby, diaper it, dress it, and pick out a carrier to carry our baby around in. We were instructed to take care of our baby throughout the day (8 hours). The most interesting part of all that was getting to try out different baby and toddler carrying devices.

The day went really well, I thought. The nurse speaker was great and the information throughout the day was very helpful. We got to meet more families in the process of adoption and a few more couples that are adopting children from Ethiopia.

In the last part of class, we had a young woman born in Korea and adopted into an American family come and talk with the class. She is also an adoption professional that works with an organization in the area. We were all divided up into different groups during an exercise she had us doing. During this time, I hear a loud crash and thud, and the group catching their breath and ohhh-ing. And what do I see, but my baby on the ground! My husband had dropped our child onto the ground. When I got our baby back his head was turned halfway around. Daniel assured me he was fine. Hopefully, practice makes perfect....

Daniel's Birthday and Court Dates

Friday afternoon we got an e-mail from our adoption agency that our court case had been scheduled with the Ethiopian courts for May18th!! Throughout the whole process they state that it can take 2 or 3 dates to pass through the Ethiopian court system. Many things can happen to delay the process. In Addis, the capital, there are frequent power outages which of course interrupts the work day. Paper work can be missing or done incorrectly. In certain cases, the relinquishing party has to appear in court for the case, and if they are unable that will delay the case. Sometimes there are just too many cases scheduled on one day and they can not all be heard and end up being rescheduled. Our agency has forewarned us that there are many cases scheduled on May18th, so not to be surprised if the case is rescheduled.

We are still going to be hopeful, though, if all goes well, we will pass court on our first date! May 18th is Daniel's birthday, so we think that is a good sign, somehow. When our adoption case is approved in the Ethiopian court, this will mean we are the legal parents to our boy. Some people have wondered if we have to be in Ethiopia for this date. We do not. We, as far as we know, are in the group of adoptive parents that fall under the "old rule", the one trip rule. We have been told if your court case was submitted to the courts prior to May9th, which ours was, we only have to make one trip to Ethiopia. Cases submitted after May9th, will have to plan to make two trips to Ethiopia to adopt.

If we pass court on May 18th, we will then be waiting for an Embassy appointment in Ethiopia. Yes, I did say waiting, waiting again. This typically happens 6-8 weeks after the adoption has been approved in the Ethiopian High Court. If all goes well, we think we may be traveling as soon as July.

Amharic, Part II

So Monday, Ms. A, eagerly came over to our house. The plan was for an hour language exchange, but we ended up working together for two hours. Daniel gets very excited and passionate about teaching people English, which is a good thing, as that is his profession. Ms. A came over with a list of body parts in Amharic, and we practiced saying hair, head, eyes, lips, teeth, arm, hands, finger in Amharic. And, also trying to remember the phrases and greetings she and taught us before. I wish I was better at learning a new language. I am always amazed by those adults that can speak 3 (or more) languages. I wish I could just learn by osmosis.

Daniel started his census job last week. He did a week of training and then will start going door to door to enumerate in the afternoons this week. He was excited to have a young Ethiopian man in his work group and has been practicing his new language skills with him.

Amharic

Today two lovely Ethiopian girls came over to our house, in what we hope will be a chance to learn each others languages. Daniel had met and been talking with some Ethiopians that work at the store around the corner. He approached the young woman about coming to our home and meeting me and possibly trading Amharic and English lessons. She called him several times about the opportunity and seemed very interested. This evening she came over with her cousin to meet us, and they spent about 2 hours at our place. We weren't sure what to expect, Ms. A, has been in the US for about a year and can speak enough English to survive, but not enough to make conversation easy. She is in her early 20's. Her cousin, Ms. B, is also in her early 20's and has been in the US for several months and seems to speak/understand English a little better. What brave women! We struggled through conversation and they understand that we want to learn some Amharic because we are adopting a child from Ethiopia. They are both hoping to learn English well enough to take a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) class, and begin the path to becoming nurses. After our time together, Ms. A, agreed to come back on Monday for our first round of language lessons.

Upon their departure, I immediately headed to the bookstore for an Amharic phrase book and dictionary. They both kept telling me their language was really easy, but I am not convinced.

Joy and Grief

I couldn't be happier to announce that we received a referral for a 7 month old boy last Tuesday, on March 30th. It was late in the afternoon. Daniel and I had just returned home from a walk, and I went upstairs to finish my work. I had been having problems with my work phone earlier in the morning, so was running behind and still had lots of patients to contact. I remember looking at my cell phone and it was almost 4pm, and thought to myself... 'I guess they won't be calling us today'. Maybe 5 or 10 minutes later, my phone is ringing and who is on the caller ID, but Holt. I couldn't believe it.

I answered the phone, and our social worker says hi to me, but then a pause. Gosh, they shouldn't even use a standard greeting. When the phone is answered they should just blurt out 'we have a referral for you'. The few seconds of suspense is mind boggling. I asked her if she had news for us and she said something like is " Yes, is Daniel around?" My response, something like "Who...what?". "Daniel", she says. I think, oh yeah Daniel, my husband, and say, "He is downstairs, let me go down there". As I announce down the stairs and hallway, "You'll never believe who is on the phone!". He kind of already knew, as he had just checked his messages and had a message from our social worker to call her back. He was actually on hold with the front desk, waiting for our social worker, while I was on the phone with her.

We were breathless as we listened to the information she had to give us, and heart broken to hear the details of his life so far. I had read/heard from other parents, that they had not been prepared for the grief they felt upon receiving a referral. So, I had been trying to prepare myself, but to no avail. The grief hit me harder then I expected. We were, and still are, very sad to think of what our boy has had to lose, and what he will continue to lose in the coming months. (And we know there are millions of children with similar stories around the world.) But he will gain...he will gain a loving family, lots of nutrition, health care, a good education, and lots of opportunities...and did I already say lots and lots of love and nurturing.

After all of this, which took a couple hours to process and be able to function again mildly. I had to go back to work. I couldn't see how I would ever be able to concentrate on work again. But this week, I think I have my concentration back. It's back to work, back to the gym, back to cleaning out the closets in the baby room, back to cleaning out and organizing our nest, and back to waiting.

Now we wait for a court date in Ethiopia, and hope and pray that everything is in order for this date, so we can pass court on the first time. We are not legally his parents until the case gets approved in the Ethiopian court system.

Another Mini Milestone

Today we received our appointments to get fingerprinted for immigration. It might not seem that exciting to most of the world, but if you're in the process of adopting internationally, or have adopted before, it's exciting to check these types of things off the list and get closer to being able to bring a child home. These fingerprints are used by immigration services in the department of homeland security, to approve our application to bring a child into the country .

Adding to our Family!!!!!

Daniel and I have been in the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia for several months. Well, sometimes it seems like a few years. It was about two years ago, April 2008, that we seriously started looking into international adoption and having conversations with adoption agency's. That summer, as we were contemplating international adoption, we had the opportunity to buy my great grandmothers house in another city and decided to move about 3 hours away and buy our first house. We spent the summer, fall, and winter buying the house and working on fixing the house up. In the Spring of 2009, we started thinking about adopting from Ethiopia again (we never really stopped thinking about it), and again started talking with adoption agency's.

We finally decided to work with Holt International Children's Services, which is the agency that Daniel's parents used to adopt their daughter, my wonderful sister-in-law. We applied to Holt's Ethiopia Program on August 28, 2009. September 5th we got an introduction call from Holt and a few days later the first packet full of paperwork we had to start filling out.

It took us a few months to get all the homestudy requirements together, as I was distracted in the fall by taking a statistics class at PSU. Plus, it was all a little overwhelming. We were able to turn in all our paperwork at the start of 2010, and got our homestudy completed in February. A few days after our homestudy was approved, we turned in our dossier to Holt on March 9th, which was approved and sent on to Washington D.C. for further processing.

A few days after being officially placed on the waitlist for a child referral, there were rumors and news that Ethiopia was going to start requiring two trips to the country for adoptions. Previously Ethiopia had been a "one trip country", only requiring travel after the official court process. The trip is to, of course, meet your child and bring them home, but also to be at the Embassy in Ethiopia for the child's visa appt. This two trip talk from the Ethiopian High Court, is to have prospective adoptive parents come to Ethiopia and meet their child prior to the court processing, and state that they do indeed want to adopt the child. Then, the parents would return a couple months later for the visa appointment with the embassy and to bring the child home. There are many other countries that require parents to make two trips to the country for adoption, so it's not unusual. But, it was definitely shocking news. This would/will add, probably, $5,000 onto the cost of our already very expensive adoption process.

But, things are still up in the air regarding this new adoption rule. And in the mean time, our agency is working very hard to process as many children and families that are ready before the new rule is instituted. When we first went on the list for a referral, I was not very hopeful that our case would be submitted to the courts in time. In the last week, though, Holt has referred many children to waiting families, and we have moved further and further down the list of waiting families. If we are offered a child referral and accept the referral, and if our dossier makes it from Washington D.C to Ethiopia in the next week to two weeks, we might just make this deadline for one trip to Ethiopia.

However it works out though, we are thrilled to be expecting a little boy!!!!!!!