We've Come and Gone

We found out about a week and a half before we were to leave that our court date was August 5. We thought there might be a chance, because other families that received their referrals on the same day or the day after had already gotten their call to travel. I "calmly" answered the phone on July 21 and our caseworker told us that we also had a court date of August 5. The next week was a blur of packing our things, donations, making sure our boys were taken care of and leaving lots of directions and instructions for my parents for while we were gone. We never considered an August court date, so this whole thing happened a lot sooner than we expected. In a way, getting ready to travel to Ethiopia in about 10 days was easier than having several weeks. It all had to get done and it all did and we didn't forget anything. The only bad thing was the huge cost of our airline tickets, but she's definately worth it.

We drove from here to Atlanta on Saturday, July 30 to spend the night there, leave the car in the hotel parking lot and get a shuttle to the airport at 4 a.m. I slept maybe an hour or two rather restlessly, we got up and dressed and headed to the airport. The United ticket counter doesn't even open up until 5 or so there, so we sat in line for about an hour waiting, checked our luggage, found our gate and waited some more. Our flight from ATL to IAD was uneventful and very short compared to the next flight. When we got to IAD, we found our next gate and waited there for about four hours for our flight to Ethiopia. We saw the people who had just spend the last 13+ hours of their lives disembark and head to customs and met up with another family in our travel group, who were on our same flight. We visited with them, shared photos and stories and got some lunch before we boarded around 11 a.m. We flew Ethiopian Air, which compared to Delta, which we took on our way home, was a lot nicer. Nicer plane, better food, better service, better headphones for 13 hours of movies, socks and a toothbrush, which felt really good when we were finally getting closer. Both of us slept a little, but mostly we caught up on every single movie that we were even slightly interested in. We played solitaire, visited with the woman sitting next to me, and stood to stretch from time to time. Overall, the time went pretty quickly and faster than I thought it would. We landed in Addis, got our tourist visas, found our luggage, went through customs, found our driver and other fellow travelers and all head to the hotel bus for our ride to the hotel. Truthfully, the whole Addis airport thing was the most stressful time of the whole trip. I felt out of my element, desperately needed a shower and was exhausted.

Our hotel was about 20 minutes from the airport and we just stared out the windows the whole time taking it all in. Very different from our little world in Tennessee, but after reading blogs and looking at pictures for the past 12 months or so, I pretty much expected to see what I saw. We checked in, found our room and immediately unpacked stuff so we could take a shower. Our schedule, which we picked up when we checked in, said we'd be going to Hannah's Hope, our daughter's transition house, at 1. We had about two hours at that point. We got cleaned up and went downstairs to wait for the van to come get us along with the same famiy we met at the airport. I fell asleep on the hotel lobby couch waiting, but quickly jumped up when Scott said the van was there. HH is about five minutes from the hotel. We turned off the main road and onto another road, which was unpaved and very bumpy, and before we knew it pulled up to the big black gates of HH.

T-shirts Still Available

We still have about 40 t-shirts left, including lots of kids sizes. If you'd like one, send me an email (or leave a comment here) and I'll check for the sizes you need. We are selling them now for $10 so please don't order off the blog.

Our Referral Call

We got our referral call Thursday, June 23 right around 3 p.m. after 12 1/2 months on our waitlist. I knew we were getting close, because the family in front of us called the day before to tell us they had just received their referral and we knew our agency's orphanage had lots of babies going home recently and that there had to be more referrals coming.

I had a homeschool co-op meeting at a park about 20 minutes away yesterday and brought my laptop just in case. About 45 minutes into our meeting my phone rang and I recognized the area code. It wasn't the phone number I thought she'd call from so my "special" ring tone didn't happen. But I casually looked down at my phone, saw the number and knew what it was. I squeezed the arm of the mama next to me and told all three of my friends this is my referral call. I could barely hear Brandi, but I think the first thing I said was something like, "Are you calling me about a referral?" I was sweating, shaking, and so nervous. I tried to write down her name, age, etc., but could barely do it. I told her that I'd have to call Scott to come home and go home myself to call her back. I hung up and then I almost lost it. I remembered that all three of the other mothers sitting with me are also adoptive mothers and understood exactly what I was feeling.

A long drive home. Once we got home, we had to crank up the generator, because our power had been our for about 40 hours at that point from a bad storm on Tuesday night. So we got it going, turned on the computer, plugged a fan into the generator, because our AC was also out and the house was really hot. We set up our video camera to record our conversation. We called Brandi back and she went over all the paperwork with us first. We found out her name, age/DOB, weight, length, medical information, personal history, etc. That all took about 45-50 minutes. Then we had to wait about ten minutes for the next email which contained all her pictures. We stayed busy those ten minutes putting clean sheets on the beds and picking up the house. Of course, I checked my computer several times while we waited.

The email came through and we got to see about 9 pictures of our little girl. Next we were off to Walmart to get them printed and buy me a new phone charger. Mine got lost and my phone was dead. I had lots of numbers in it of people I needed to call. We printed pictures and then went to Target to get a charger. I plugged it into the car and starting making phone calls. We ate supper out and came home and started our paperwork and emailed our file to an international pediatrician to review. Our power came back on around 7 and we were so thankful to have it back on. While I was up still at 1:30 am working on paperwork a really bad storm rolled through and our whole family ended up in our basement bathroom waiting it out along with the computer and our adoption binders and paperwork. I ended up getting to bed around 2 am.

This morning I still hadn't heard from our doctor, so I emailed our information to another doctor and got busy with more paperwork. I met up with our social worker to have her sign her form, came home and jumped into the car with Scott to find a notary. Four banks and one UPS store later, we found a bank that would help us. We forgot one piece of paper at home and she actually met us on her way home from work with her stamp to notarize that document. Still waiting on our pediatrician review. Once that is done, we'll Fedex it all back to our agency and let them know Monday that we're ready to proceed. Then our agency will contact the courts in Ethiopia and get the ball rolling there. We probably won't travel until October. Their courts usually close for about two months beginning in August. Our best case scenario would be to have her in November.

In many ways, this wait has been a really long one, but we know now why we waited. We waited for her. We think she's beautiful, but you'll have to trust us on that one. We can't share pictures until she is home.

February Update

Our family is now number 19 on the girl's list for our daughter. We've moved 40 spaces since June 2. There have been very few referrals in the last two months. I really believe there will be a flood of referrals soon. Not ours quite yet, but we've made a lot of progress and the time really has flown by. This is a much different road than pregnancy. Easier in some ways, harder in others, but, oh, how I am so thankful we're on it.

November Numbers

We just got an email with our new number and we are "officialy " 30, but another family is in the midst of referral paperwork, so we're actually 29. We are down 30 spots from number 59 in June when we started this part of the process, halfway there!

Adoption T-Shirt "Sale"

We ordered the wrong style shirts for our woman's short-sleeve and are selling them for $10 instead of $20. They run small so if you normally wear a small or xsmall, you'd need a large. I also have them in smalls and mediums. If you'd like one of them, please email me or leave a message here, because the price is incorrect on the Paypal link. Thanks for supporting us in our adoption in this way.

Where are we now?

We are now officially #39 on the girls' list with our agency, but based on referrals that have gone out since the end of September, we are probably around 31. Lots of referrals have gone out in the past couple of weeks and our agency's orphanage is full of children and babies who have parents here and are waiting on court and embassy appointments. It's been very exciting to watch these families come together. Based on what we've seen thus far, a referral by April or May seems feasible and not really that far off.

What I have to remember as these children get referred to families is that with each child gaining a new family here, they have also experienced an incredible loss. And the birth parents of these children are, of course, grieving for their little ones they've had to relinquish and whom they love. That's the part of adoption that is easy to forget in the midst of our joy at becoming parents, but these children and their birth families really need our prayers.