Trip 1 to Ethiopia (extra short version)

The (really) short version: We flew to Ethiopia, we met our wonderful little bug, we passed court, and she is officially our daughter!!!

We hope to go back for Embassy in about 4 weeks (hopefully less).

Our trip was amazing, but jet lag is rough, and I still haven't sorted through all our pictures... but just wanted to post this for those of you who don't follow our story anywhere else. :)

Getting ready to hop on an airplane to meet our daughter!

It's been a while since the last update! The Ethiopian courts have re-opened now that the rainy season is over. We are counting down the days (single digits!) until we get to hop on an airplane to FINALLY meet our daughter! 

We got our monthly update today. Seeing our daughter's sweet face, her beautiful smile, and her sparkling eyes is a major highlight. At the same time, it's so hard to watch her grow up so much before we even meet her in person. It has been 205 days since referral day... and our little girl will be 2 years old next month!

(we can't show her face publicly yet)

The flight is SOOOO long, but knowing that our sweet girl awaits us at the other end makes it 100% worth it. After nearly 2 days of travel, we arrive in Addis in the wee hours of the morning.
We spend the first few days getting to know our sweet girl, and then we go to court, where we formally adopt her. Once we pass court, we are traveling to our daughter's region of origin, where we hope to meet the woman who cared for her, and to visit the orphanage she was brought to initially. Then we get another few days to spend visiting with our daughter, and then comes the hardest part: we have to go back to the USA without her. The US Embassy still has to process her immigration paperwork, her passport (with OUR last name) has to be generated, and a few other things have to happen. Once we get Embassy clearance, we get to travel back to Ethiopia (about 2-6 weeks after court), to take custody, and to bring home our daughter.

Please pray for safe travels for us, and that everything goes smoothly in Ethiopia. We will try to post updates, but internet access can be patchy!

Good news (update)

The last months have been a little crazy, so I failed to update....
The cliff notes: we received our MOWCYA approval letter, and then we received our PAIR letter after a successful i-604 investigation was completed by the US Embassy in Addis Ababa. All the pieces are falling into place, and with these final documents, our agency was able to request a court date for us!

Because the rainy season had begun by the time we got the above documents, our assigned date isn't until late October... but the good news is: we HAVE a court date, and the days will pass quickly until we get to finally travel to meet our daughter!

Some cuteness to share

Please continue to pray for our daughter as we wait to bring her home... that she continues to be healthy, and that her heart is prepared to join our family!

...still waiting on PAIR letter and MOWCYA letter...

It has been a few months since we received our referral, so I thought you might like a small update.

(we can't share our daughter's face yet, sorry!)

We are still waiting for a few parts of the adoption paperwork to be processed in Ethiopia before we get to travel:

First, we need to wait for the Ministry of Women's Children's and Youth Affairs (MOWCYA) to review our paperwork and our daughter's paperwork, and then to write the recommendation letter necessary to get a court date. This review was scheduled for May 29th, but they are currently back-logged by about a month due to several factors, including an extended power-outage in the MOWCYA building in Addis.

Second, we are waiting for the US Embassy in Ethiopia to complete the Pre-Adoption Immigration Review (PAIR) process. A few of our daughter's documents need to be re-translated before we can be submitted to this - translation errors can send up red flags and delays.

Once we have the MOWCYA recommendation letter and the PAIR letter, we get a court date, and travel to Ethiopia to meet our daughter in person, and to adopt her in the Ethiopian court. After this, she will officially be ours.
Then we have to travel back home while we wait for final Embassy clearance. Once we receive our Embassy appointment, we then travel back to Addis Ababa, to take custody of our daughter, go to Embassy, and finally, FINALLY bring her home!

Please join us in praying that we get a court date BEFORE the rainy season, during which the Ethiopian courts close for 3 months... 

Referral! Referral! Referral!

After 1319 days (43.5 months) of waiting, we got THE CALL today from our agency!!!! We have a daughter! 

She is 16 months old and SOOOOO cute. We can't share pictures of her until after we have passed court, but here is her little hand.

 

We are so excited and happy!

It will take several more months before we get to travel to meet her, and then several more weeks or months after that before we get to bring her home... so the wait is far from over. However, being able to see her little face makes the wait SO much more rewarding!

We have a daughter!!!!!

...yep, still waiting....

There is no speck of doubt in my mind that THE CALL (aka, our referral call) will come at just the time it is supposed to be, for the exact little girl who is supposed to become our daughter.

However, knowing this does not necessarily make WAITING any easier. I keep reminding myself that many good things in life are worth waiting for - but I still may (or may not) be going very a little bit crazy waiting. Among other things, today I sorted 3 bins of mixed crayons/ colored pencils/ markers into 3 nicely organized bins, 1 each of markers, crayons, and colored pencils. You know, because that DEFINITELY needed to be done. Not only that, but I tested every single marker, and discarded the ones that were dried up.

Anyway, to put a bit of a humorous spin on the fact that we are still waiting, I drew this little cartoon. If you click on it, it should enlarge in your browser, so you can see it better.

For all my lovely family and friends, THANK YOU for putting up with the little bit of crazy I might be exhibiting lately. I hope promise that I will return back to fairly normal at some point in the near future!

On a side note, I am fully aware that waiting is exponentially harder for our daughter. My heart and arms ache to hold her, and I know that yearning to be held and loved must be so much more difficult for our daughter, because she probably doesn't understand what is going on right now.

In the meantime... we pray... and wait... and stare at the phone WILLING it to start ringing with that 703 area code... and wait some more.

43 months since DTE!

It has been 43 months since we sent our dossier to Ethiopia!
Monday also marked 4 years from the day we first applied to our agency... but families don't get onto the wait list until they send in their dossier, which is a compilation of documents required by the Ethiopian government.

I was really hoping that we would have some news by now, but at the same time, I know that many of the best things in life are WORTH WAITING FOR.

Our DTE buddies (their paperwork got sent to Ethiopia the same day as ours did) got their referral call yesterday, so we are confident it will be our turn SOON.

Yesterday's Bible study included the following verse:
"Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." (Psalm 5:1-3)
We will continue to wait in expectation, until we hold our girl in our arms!

Walking on a beautiful beach last weekend helped put things into perspective!

Please continue to pray for our daughter, and for the other children and families at all stages of their adoption.