Itinerary

We have had several people ask us what our trip is going to look like so we thought it would be helpful to post our itinerary for you. Here goes:

Friday 17 July 09: We are flying out of Cincinnati. We fly to New York and will have an overnight flight to Dubai. Thirteen hours. Oy.

Saturday 18 July 09: We arrive in Dubai at 7pm local time and will spend the night at a hotel. Thanks, Emirates!

Sunday 19 July 09: Depart Dubai in the morning and arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia around noon. We will go to our hotel and have the rest of the day to get acclimated.

Monday 20 July 09: We will have a huge paperwork meeting with all the other America World families in country preparing for our Embassy appointments later in the week. That afternoon we get to meet Mathios!!! We'll spend a few hours with him at the Transition Home and that night will have a special Ethiopian meal with all our travelling families.

Tuesday 21 July 09: We will have free time in the morning and that afternoon will get to go pick up Mathios for good! We'll spend several hours at the Transition Home, taking photos for a few other waiting families and loving on their kids and will have a traditional coffee ceremony with the nannies. Then back to our hotel for the evening.

Wednesday 22 July 09: We have a free morning before heading to the Embassy that afternoon. Each family gets called in one-by-one to be interviewed and I think having a last name that starts with Z will once again not be helpful. Could be a long afternoon for all of us!

Thursday 23 July 09: We have the opportunity to go visit two of the orphanages that America World works with in the city. We aren't sure what we will do yet, it depends on how Mathios is doing, but we hope to visit at least one of them. And word is that there is some sort of Guys Night planned for this evening!

Friday 24 July 09: We don't know exactly what is planned for Friday, but again, we can choose to do whatever we want. We might try to see some sites if we have the time, but we'll just have to be flexible. We depart Addis at 8pm headed back to Dubai.

Saturday 25 July 09: We'll start our day in Dubai and too many hours later will land in Cincinnati at 4pm. Home again, home again, jiggety jig! Hopefully we will be united as a family of four (and joined by several other family members and friends) by 6:30pm!

That's a lot going on for 8 days! It's going to be an amazing, life-changing trip! Pray for us!

Nine months and an update

Nine months. It brings tears to my eyes to even have to write that we've been waiting this long. And unfortunately, there is no end in sight. There are several reasons for the slow down and I will attempt to explain why in as few words as possible. The biggest factor, at least in our understanding, is that the Ethiopian court system is investigating all current cases where the child was abandoned. While the investigation is going on, no families with a referral for an abandoned child are passing court. Our agency has told us that approximately 25% of the children they work with were abandoned. Our agency doesn't just match up a child with the next family in line. They are prayerful about their matches and are now in a very difficult situation. We don't know this for a fact, but I have a feeling that part of the hold up is that the next few families in line for referrals were perhaps abandonment cases and the agency is trying to figure out what to do with these kids and the families. Wait it out? No one knows how long this investigation is going to last. Match a child with a different family? I do not envy the people working on our behalf in Ethiopia right now. They are faced with a difficult situation. I am so thankful that the Ethiopian courts are doing all they can to get rid of corruption in their adoption process, but it's hard to be on the other side of it just waiting.

Our agency has also had other issues the last few weeks that have made it impossible for families to pass court it seems. One judge will accept a particular paper this way, another judge won't. One judge allows something to be done one way and another says no. It's hard to keep up with! Again, I don't envy our agency's staff and all they have to deal with.

So what does all of this mean for us? We don't know. We just know we don't have our referral yet. The other piece of this that I haven't mentioned yet is that the Ethiopian courts will close entirely for the months of August and September. Referrals will still be given out, but we will obviously not have a court date during that time. That means that unless we get a referral in the next week or so (which is highly unlikely!), we will not be able to have a court date til October. We wouldn't travel until November then. Ugh. I hate even writing that out. Now I find myself hoping that we don't get our referral for a few more months. It's one thing to be longing for and hoping for our baby and wishing he were with us. It's another thing entirely to have a face and a name and to know details about him and to know all the things we're missing out on. My heart hurts just thinking about it. I think longing for the unknown will be easier then missing the known.

And we're sad, disappointed, frustrated. When we submitted our paperwork nine months ago we never in a million years thought that the court closures would delay us. We thought we'd be home and worrying about attachment issues and sleep deprivation. But we're not. This is the reality of where we are and I'm slowly accepting it. I don't like it and it makes me unbelievably sad, but being sad doesn't negate my trust in God. I still believe that His timing is perfect and that He is working all of this out in the way only He can. But right now in the midst of it, I feel a heaviness like none I've ever known. Knowing our baby is out there and waiting for us but we can't get to him because of bureaucracy is...painful. Not having any answers as to when all of this might change is frustrating. But this is international adoption and we knew there would be bumps on the road. We knew that delays, and court closures, and vacillating judges were all part of the equation. Perhaps we were just too naive to believe they would effect us.

Nine months. It's been a pretty easy ride for the most part. Maybe all that peace we've had for the last eight months was to prepare us for the lack of peace we feel now. So we might not have any answers to the questions that swirl around in our minds, but we know a few things. God is always good. He's always working things out for our good. He has a plan and a purpose for us and for our family. And He's always good.

Always.

-kate-

s.e.v.e.n

Seven months have passed since we sent off that fat stack of papers to Ethiopia. I honestly can't believe it. We have steadily moved up the list in waiting for our referral with our agency giving out 20 referrals in March! That is amazing! We are hopeful that April is going to be our month.

On Friday there was a great deal of activity with the families of America World and seeing our names move up the list hit me hard; like freaking out! I felt such a wave of excitement that was more intense then anything I've experienced thus far. I truly believe that the Lord has been protecting my heart and mind through this journey and helped me to just be in the moment with our family now, while hoping for the days to come. But that really changed for me on Friday. I am feeling the weight of what's to come in a whole new way. I am excited, scared, overwhelmed, hopeful, and eager. It's a wonderful place to be and I praise the Lord that He's waited til this point in our journey to let me experience all of this. I couldn't have handled feeling like this for the last 7 months!

And now for a few details...we are really hopeful that we'll receive our referral by this time next month. Once we accept our referral we will have a court date set which will be approximately 2 months later (June perhaps) and we will travel a few weeks after we pass court. We have already begun praying that we will pass court our first time around and would ask you to do the same. Our best guess is that we will travel in July to bring that baby home. We are eagerly awaiting that day!

-kate-

We got it!

The mail this morning contained an especially happy piece of mail: the I-171H that we've been waiting on for exactly 4 weeks! We were so excited, and actually surprised by it's presence, that we decided to just drive up to Columbus today to get the necessary certification. Thankfully we made a few calls before going and knew exactly what we needed to have before we got there or we would have been in some trouble. So a few stops near home for a notarization, a county certification and we were off. It was really a quick and easy process once we got there and we couldn't be happier.

Tomorrow I will go make 3 copies of every document we have and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon all our paperwork will be in an overnight envelope on it's way to America World's offices.

We are officially done paperchasing! Praise the Lord!

-kate-

Goodbye July

I am having a hard time believing tomorrow is August 1. August has loomed in my mind as being very far away. For the last 6 months, before we even officially started the adoption process, August was our check point. August was going to be the month that everything was done and we began our official wait. August was THE month.

And here we are...ready to begin this new month and to finalize our paperchase. As of today we are just waiting for our I-171 from USCIS and then we can get everything certified, authenticated and on its way. On one hand I am thrilled that Cale and I have gotten our end of the deal finished with time to spare. On the other hand it's frustrating to be waiting on other people so we can move ahead. The Lord has been gracious to me and kept it far from my mind for the most part. There's nothing I can do to make it go faster so there is no need to stress and worry about it. I am certain in the Lord's perfect timing and have no doubt that His sovereignty covers the day that final piece of paper gets put in the mail to us. We will be ready and waiting...

In other news, we got an update from America World today that they met their goal of 10 referrals for July. While that in and of itself is fantastic news, what's even better is that the wait times are getting shorter for boys! Right now the estimated wait times are 5-7 months for an infant boy and 7-9 for an infant girl. If these time frames remain the same then it looks like we just might be adding a baby boy to our little family! Who knows but the Lord!

Track it

Who knew tracking numbers could be so exciting?! We got an email last night that our home study was on its way to USCIS! The first of many tracked packages...yippee!

-kate-

One step closer

Today we had our fourth and final meeting with our social worker. She was going to be in the area so we drove down to meet her and go over our home study and a few other items. It was a quick and easy meeting and part of me still can't believe that we are almost done with the whole paperchase process.

From here, our home study is being reviewed by our family coordinator and when she approves it will be on its way to USCIS. USCIS will then give us the okay in the form of the I-171H and then our dossier will be complete! Today we went to get a paper notarized and had our visa pictures taken so that means we only have ONE paper left to do in our dossier packet. And if I had been on top of it I would have done it when we were at the bank today! Oh well- we certainly have a few weeks of waiting ahead of us.

We are one step closer to bringing that baby home! Praise the Lord!

-kate-

Paperwork progression

The last week or so has been a flurry of paperwork activity. We got several things we had been waiting for in the mail that I then had to run around and get notarized. It's amazing to me that there are only a few things left on our big list of paperwork that we need to finalize. And most of them are out of our hands- we're just waiting on other people.

We also had some good news- our doctor's physicals were supposed to be notarized. When I made our appointments I made sure there was a notary in the office who could take care of this for us. Well, unfortunately, she quit the day before our blood work came back and thus, the papers were not notarized. We were trying to figure out an alternate solution and mentioned to our family coordinator the situation. She told us it was okay that it wasn't notarized and I was excited! I had run out of ideas of how to get this fixed and am so thankful that it's okay. And honestly- this has been our only real issue through our whole paperchase process. We are so thankful at how quickly and smoothly everything has come together.

We had an email from our social worker that she is going to send us a copy of our home study for review this week and then we will meet with her for the last time next week to finalize. We are thrilled that our August timeline seems to be a reality. Now we will still be waiting for one more piece of paper from USCIS, but I am believing that it's going to come quickly. Please, Lord!

-kate-

Home studied

We are officially home studied! We had our second meeting this morning at our house and the 2+ hour meeting was mostly comprised of individual interviews. Cale and I both felt like they went well and are feeling very relieved to have that huge piece of this process almost completed. Our social worker will get our report written up in the next few weeks (in the midst of her daughter getting married!) and we will meet with her one more time to go over everything.

We also received our Child Protective Services clearance in the mail today. That means that we have EVERYTHING done for our home study! Now I need to get busy on all the dossier paperwork waiting for us! Honestly, it has not been bad at all. Yes, there are a million little details, but I'm thankful and amazed at how fast we have been able to get things compiled. I'm hopeful that the rest of the paperwork process will go just as smoothly!

-kate-

And a special thanks to Jenny who pointed out to us that there was no place to leave a comment. We've been wondering why no one has left any! Problem fixed!

Some information and a correction

More things crossed off the list this week: physicals, blood work, random paperwork stuff. I'm very aware that we are in a hurry up and wait scenario. I'm surprisingly okay with that. We received an update from the African Director of America World today. She recently spent a month in Ethiopia to see first hand how things are working over there. Positive things happened during her time there including our agency working with a new orphanage. Here are a few excerpts from her email that I thought would be interesting to share with everyone:

As most of you know Adoption from Ethiopia has grown popular in the past year. In the last two years the number of adoptions from Ethiopia by US citizens has increased by 100%. While there were only a handful of US adoption agencies working in Ethiopia two years ago, there are now over 30. Most people are attracted to the program for the same reason: compared to other countries it has proven to be the quickest and there is a need for adoptive families as there are many orphans. Because of this increased interest families should expect to wait longer for a referral than some of the families who adopted a year ago when the number of prospective adoptive families applying to the Ethiopia program was not so high.

As most of you know, power is currently rationed throughout Ethiopia because of the lack of rain. There is no power two to three days out of the 5 business days. This has created all processes to slow down. For instance MOWA cannot write recommendation letters to court on some days because of power outages resulting in rescheduling of court dates. Or the Vital office cannot issue a birth certificate because of the same problem. Families should expect some delays after a referral and leading up to travel because of these reasons.

The current wait time for both infant girls and boys is 7-9 months. The wait time is also 7-9 months for toddlers and children up to 5 years old.

So if you think of it please pray for rain for Ethiopia, not even because there's no power but because people are dying from lack of food. Crops won't grow, food costs are astronomically high and there is literally nothing to eat. It is a desperate situation for an already desperate country. Read more here if you're interested.

And one more thing...I have had a number of people ask me recently if there would be a chance that the child we adopt will have HIV. My answer was no and I explained that Ethiopia doesn't allow children who are HIV positive to be adopted out of country. Children that are put up for adoption are generally tested twice for HIV. I read something today that contradicts that information so after a bit more research I discovered that I have been misinforming people. It is possible for Americans to adopt HIV positive children if the petition for and receive special permission from both the US government and the Ethiopian government to do so. With that said, it is not our intention to adopt an HIV positive baby at this time. I stand corrected and I apologize to those I misinformed!

-kate-

Progress, slow but sure

We've got quite a bit of our paperchase done in the past couple of weeks. Here's a list of accomplishments:

• fingerprinted by USCIS
• written our autobiographies
• completed half of our Hague training online
• each read a book off of our required reading list
• had our home inspected by an official from the fire department
• had our local and FBI background checks conducted
• scheduled our first home study in-home visit and physicals
• had our daughter tested for TB
• verified my employment
• had umpteen documents notarized
• several other things (I'm sure) that I'm forgetting

Getting each piece done isn't that overwhelming; when you look at the hundred or so things that you have to do, then it's overwhelming! But we're getting through it, and it's not actually that bad. We're pretty optimistic that we'll be able to submit our dossier by the first of August. We'll keep at it!
--cale

Forms and fingerprints

Progress is being made as we cross things off the list in preparation for our home study. Our long weekend got extended due to flooding in Cale's office so we made the most of him being home this morning and went and got our fingerprinting done. We have lived in Ohio for many years, but because we had that brief stint in Namibia, we haven't been here for the last 5 consecutive years. This isn't a huge deal, but means that we had to do BCII and FBI fingerprinting which really just means to us that it cost more! Hopefully there won't be any other complications in light of our international travel.

Other exciting news (to us!) is that we got our appointment with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office for next week. We have to go there to "have our biometrics taken." (I know- three set of fingerprints seems silly, but we're just following the rules!) This is the office that basically approves us at a national level for adoption and once our home study is complete we wait for their clearance. That magic piece of paper called an I-171 is what holds many a family up in submitting the dossier. We are already praying that our case gets processed through this office in a timely fashion with no major bumps along the way.

-kate-

Home Study Orientation

We spent a good part of yesterday driving in the car and attending our home study orientation. Thankfully, we were able to drive up with the Wings which made it a fast and fun car ride. Not that I don't like to get to spend alone time with Cale, but I could not tell you the last time the four of us sat and had uninterrupted conversation. It was nice!

The meeting was really informative and helped me to have a better grasp on where we're at in the process and what we need to do from here. I didn't really get that we could be working on and submitting things to her piecemeal. If I had understood that I would have had a lot more done before we went last night. But I've more then made up for it and have gotten a ton of it written and gathered today. By the end of the weekend we should only have a few things left to do and will be able to schedule our home visits.

I really like our social worker, Therese, and look forward to working with her. She is very relatable and has been doing this for a long time. She was so helpful with all our questions and is going to know more about us then most of you do when we're done with this process!

So today I'm thankful for making lots of progress and for friends that are along the journey with us!