I know, she really is the cutest little 3 yr old EVER!

 

A sneak peek at her goofy and charming personality! We could just gobble her up. The first day, she was a little hesitant and shy, but by day four, she was totally digging us. Our hearts were going pitter-patter for her. She seems curious, playful, inquisitive, assertive (textbook 3 yr old behavior), and had that entire orphanage wrapped around her tiny 3 year old finger. She also has her dad wrapped around it, too. We heard that when she flew down to her new WACAP orphanage, there were a bunch of Italians on the plane that kept saying "Bella! Bella!" I can totally believe that.

We have 100's of other pictures that have other kids at the orphanage in the background (a no-no to display publicly). We'll keep working finding some pictures to share, though!

And why did your daughter not get to fly home with you?

I know it seems nuts. You meet your soon-to-be daughter, you play together, you giggle, you hold her little hand in yours, you let her sit on your lap and get to squeeze her little tummy, you gaze at her sweet curls, you start to get little pecks on the cheek, your hearts start to merge heart-to-heart, and she starts telling her nannies that she is going up in the sky in a plane with her mommy and papa. After 4 days of this, you go to court and the judge announces that she is now your daughter....... and then you leave her there and fly off half way around the world. She is flown to a new "transitional orphanage" (a temporary orphanage provided by our agency in the interim of court and embassy) with a new nanny and is set up in her new home without you. She is there with new nannies caring for her without you. She will start to establish new relationships, norms, routines, all without you.

We are now here. She is now there. Was that whole experience last week real? Was is just a beautifully nutty dream? That is sure is what I am wondering. Betting Y is, too.

Sounds messed up? You bet it is! It is unnatural. It is torturous. It goes against that primal, maternal instinct. And for lack of better words.... it just sucks.

But, it is how it is and this is why. The US Embassy and the Ethiopian High Court has this screwy system worked out where the Ethiopian Embassy determines that the child is legally orphaned, you are considered appropriate parents to adopt that orphan, you get to go and meet your child, the courts let you legally adopt her, AND THEN the US Embassy decides to do their investigation of the case to make sure they feel the adoption was on the up-and-up (aka ethical, moral, no buying of children, no potential unrealistic and deceitful promises to birth families). 

And this can't be completed before the child is considered adoptable and then actually adopted? The investigation of the US Embassy is a very important step, don't get me wrong, but before people. DO IT BEFORE THE ADOPTION TAKES PLACE, people. The ironic thing is that the US Embassy can't void your adoption if they think if smells fishy. That can't keep you from you child forever, but they can sure as hell make it extremely difficult to get your child a visa to bring them home. Luckily, not issuing a visa is an extremely rare thing to happen, so the Embassy process should take just about 4-8 weeks after court.

Are we worried that the embassy will find a glitch? No. We were extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to not only meet the birth mother, but spend the entire day with her. The details of that day and her story will be locked away for Y one day, but I can say that I feel very at peace with the situation. We talked clearly with the mother about the adoption, what this meant, and what the future holds. We feel at peace with how this adoption came to be. At the end of the day, this mother and I sat side by side, arm in arm. She told the translator that she is happy that we will be Y's parents. That was an insanely emotional experience - and that is an understatement.

Flying back, I could not imagine that I would do anything other than step off that plane and book another ticket to get right back on that same plane to get back to Y. But then reality hits. I have a son here that also needs me. We have to factor in that the guesthouse that we would be staying is isolated and very expensive, drivers are expensive, getting nasty little tummy bugs is oh-so-easy. Trying to venture out to find food to feed myself and Y sounds daunting. Would taking custody of Y then cooping us up in a tiny little room of a guesthouse really be the best things for 4-8 weeks? Probably not. That little 3 year old would probably be mortified and want to un-adopt me, as I would be a grouchy claustrophobic mommy that really liked to sit on the loo almost all the time.

Sooooooo, here's the plan. I, as in only me, will be flying back on July 20th to take custody of Y. I hope to only be there 1-3 weeks. The two of us will then honker down in our guesthouse, start our bondingfest, and try to get that embassy paperwork expedited. Our return ticket is for August 4th, though am hoping I can get things squared away and move the tickets up sooner.

We were going to have the entire family go back, but decided against it. As beautiful as Ethiopia was, it was hard. A little harder than I think J could cope with right now. I would give him one day to forget and accidentally put his toothbrush under the faucet, or start whining that he can't actually see the monkey that is supposed to be in the tree, or complain that there are only Ethiopian soap operas and cheap budget horror films on TV (really he would be whining that I would not let him watch a mutant vulture puppet bird gouging out eyes out of a styrofoam human head),  or he'd get sick of eating only injera - which would be all I would allow him to eat as I swear it only takes looking at other food to get a parasite.

As for Husband goes, thinking that I might potentially be there for 3 weeks, we thought it best that he stay back with J and pick up the slack when I return with Y completely beaten down from that beastly 40 hour flight. Another reality is the price of those plane tickets. This was a totally unexpected blow (peak travel season, increase fuel cost, last minute purchases) and we felt that it is worth just having me give it a shot. If I get there, however, and it is too hard, he will be jumping on a plane ASAP.

We feel so fortunate to have a met group of fabulous adopters there in Addis/Mekelle. One woman, in particular, was my email buddy for months before we met in Mekelle. I knew I loved her though email and was totally smitten with her (and her husband) when we met. Her family, along with two other couples, are all flying back over the same time. We are all staying at the same guesthouse with their adopted children (friends from the same orphanage) and we will all be going through the same process together - while supporting each other along the way. We had good mojo and this is priceless folks. Seriously!

As always, I will be keeping you all posted, but imagine blog to be a little slow before the crazy begins again in a month!

Introducing our daughter....

Today we passed Ethiopian Court! She is now ours and we are now hers. We are family. Introducing our daughter, "Y".

Above is her referral picture. Our hearts skipped a beat.

               More to come on this amazing little girl that has already captured our hearts.

We got us a court date!

We are in hyper-insanity mode right now as we are frantically making plans, but wanted to take a quick break to share the news!

All has been going accordingly with the courts this week - which means that she has been officially made a ward of the state, or a recognizable orphan, or whatever they call it. Today we got word that our court date is on June 14th! We hope to be leaving on the 7th or 8th. Husband and Travel Agent are madly looking at all ticket scenarios (that won't break the bank) as I type this.

**UPDATE: Most tickets were sold out, or were a million dollars, but managed to get one on the 6th that did not totally bust us. It is a direct flight from DC .... meaning we will be in the air for 13 hours straight! This thought puts me in hyper-freak mode.

Holy cow - this is really happening! 

Happy Mother's Day!

I want to wish all of my dynamic, amazing, rockin' mothers out there the happiest of days!

Each day, I feel so grateful for the gifts of my life - mainly my sweet son. Being a mother to him has far exceeded my wildest expectations and dreams. Somehow he just gets it on Mother's Day - meaning he is on his best behavior. He's not demanding nor a rascally pest, rather just doting and loving. It is a much appreciated day when I can just sit back, be loved on, and take some time to think about how amazing my life is being his mom.

Of course, I am also thinking about little Y. I've heard that she is an active, playful, 27 pound firecracker. What is she doing right now? Is she jumping, laughing, hugging, crying? I have to remind myself that I won't officially be her mom until she lands on US soil, but as my son put it this morning, "Mom, even if maybe-baby-sister does not ever get to come home to us, she is always going to be a sister in our hearts". I agree with him completely.

I used to read about adopted mothers' feelings toward their child's birth mother, but I could not really understand the magnitude of that feeling until I saw her picture for the first time. Somewhere out there, there is a mother that needed to give up her child for reasons that I am assuming are circumstance beyond her control. Maybe she could not feed her, maybe she is sick, or maybe she has a new husband that does not want former baggage. Regardless, I feel certain that 6 months ago, this mother was the bravest person in the world and her heart hurts beyond imagine for what has happened.

We anticipate the chance that we will get to meet her. We will learn her story and the story of how Y came to us. We will lock that story up in our hearts, and being attune to Y's needs, share with her when she is ready to hear it. When I meet Y's mother, I want to grieve with her. I want her to know that I will always honor the sacrifice that she made so that I could mother her child. I want her to know that her life will always be honored in our lives. I want her to know that she is always #1 mother and that I will always be #2 mother, and I am very much at peace with that.

We got us a court date!!!

Woot Wootin' Willy!

Three cheers for Atu Teklo for working so hard to get the courts to move Y's family member's court hearing from July up to May 28th! As in the very month that we are in right now! Like in 22 days!

What does this mean for us? That means that we will most likely be on a plane in 1 month to meet and adopt our daughter! As in the very next month from this one! As in 30 days from now!

                                                              ........ GULP .......  

In layman's terms, a family member or "finder" gets a court date and then the adopting family's court date (that would be us) is typically scheduled 10 days after. In adoption lingo, an emphasis is always placed on "typically" because even though that is the norm, it all is just crazy unpredictable. Because of this, the really sucky thing is that we will not be able to book our tickets until the family member goes through court and we officially have ours assigned. Before we have our court date, we will have to fly to Addis Ababa then up north to Mekelle to spend some time with our sweet little Y, then fly back down to Addis for court.

To have all of this sequence just right, this essentially means that we get a court date then pretty much need to be landing in Addis 6 days later.  Six days! As in, 1..2..3..4..5..6! Ummm... has anyone priced last minute tickets to Ethiopia lately? Because I have not and I am scared. Very scared.

But holy hell  - it will be so worth it!!!!

(clarification: we will actually not be able to bring her home this trip, rather we will have to come home to the states without her for a short time while embassy does it's thing, then we'll fly back "typically" in a time frame of 6-8 weeks. BUT, this first trip is the most significant by far, as the adoption will take actually take place.)

I will keep the updates rolling as they come!

So, how does it work from here?

Okay.....Okay.... enough of the mushy referral story stuff and time to answer the most common question we are now getting, which is, "When do you actually get to bring her home?"

Well, the good news is that we could have her home in 4 months. The bad news is that we could have her home in 6 months. I'll try and break these scenarios down to see if it makes any sense.

1. Our dossier (a packet of paper that looks innocent enough, yet actually costs hundreds of dollars sprinkled atop with some physical blood, sweat, and tears) is now sitting in some office in ET waiting to be assigned a court date. It seems like they process all of the collected dossiers for court dates once - maybe twice a month.

2. The first court date is for either the family member or the "finder" (person who found the child) to come in just themselves. In our case, they will transport Y's family member from Mekelle down to the capital city of Addis Ababa. This is where in a court of law, they understand that their rights are terminated, that the child will live out of country forever, and that the family/finder's part in the adoption was in ways of ethical practices. This part made Husband and initially nervous thinking that maybe some new info will crop up or the family member will change their mind in court, but our agency basically said it is almost unheard of. Thankfully, they have tried everything to keep the child with the family (...and this is a very good thing), so when we get to this stage, the family member is pretty determined to follow through with the adoption. Also, they have thoroughly investigated the case and local officials have already determined it to be ethical and legit. Statistically speaking, having a family member change their mind in court has only happened in 1/300 of WACAP cases - and was more or less the bio father making the choice to rather have his ill daughter live in an orphanage for the rest of their life :(

Here's the bad news: The first court date has been getting scheduled out for 2-3 months. So for example, on April 10th, folks that had their dossiers sitting in that ET office got news that their first court date was scheduled for June 15th. WACAP told us that if this happens, plan on having our first court date in the first few weeks of July.

Here's the good news: Our WACAP ET representative (Atu Teklo) has been working tirelessly to petition the last wave of folks to get pushed up, so about 1/2 of the last bunch that had their June court dates got moved up to today. That is 1.5 months faster! There is no rhyme or reason as to why some got bumped up and the others did not, but he will try for ours. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that we might get to be there much sooner!

3. After this first court date, ours will be made the same day. This is typically 1-2 weeks afterward (yes - the thought of buying international plane tickets one week in advance does make me have a mini stroke). For our trip, we will first fly north to Mekelle to meet and spend time with "Y", then fly back down to Addis for our court appointment.

4.  After court, we will have officially adopted her, but there is a whole other wave of paperwork that has to be processed through the Embassy. This is typically 2 months. I imagine that the most difficult part of all of this whole experience will be spending time with her, adopting her, then leaving her for 2 months! We have decided that if school is back on, I will fly out a few weeks before the boys to start bonding with her. The boys will then come out a few days before to do a little bonding (and sightseeing with Jaden) before we all come home together. Together as a family of four!

Hopefully this process is now just as clear as mud ice!