A gift for our son...

Our coordinator for Ethiopia is going their on March 7th. I am so jealous! We are so anxious to meet him and bring him home! We put a package together for him that included a Phoenix Suns shirt, 2 Matchbox cars, a coloring book, crayons and a small photo album with captions. Megan will hopefully be able to see him and give it to him in person. She will also get new pictures and some video. We can only imagine in our minds the long journey there and to finally see him and hold him. Where it will be real and not surreal.

Court date is here!!!!!!!!

Yes, we got our court date today! It is April 28th in Ethiopia. It is later than we hoped, but at least we have it! We will not be attending the court hearing...most families don't. Now we have just (just?) have to wait about 75 days and keep our fingers crossed that everything will be in order and we will pass court on our first try. All the families I have spoken to from our agency have passed the first time. Then we can officially call him ours! So if all goes as planned it looks like it will be late May/early June to travel. I want May though!

Last of the paperwork and more waiting!!!

We received our new 1-171H this past Thursday. This is the last piece of paperwork we needed to complete our file. Now we wait to be assigned a court date. His remaining family member must come to the court hearing, so the courts can verify he is an orphan. As long as the family member is there and they have all the neccessary paperwork, the adoption will be finalized under Ethiopian law. Right now I am seeing court dates as far out as Late April, so it makes me nervous, because it could be as much as a month later before we could travel to get him. We really want him here by May since I have the summer off. Next post to announce our court date and hopefully soon!

Documents off to Ethiopia!!!!

Today our agency received our signed acceptance of "I" so now they can tell Ethiopia, "yes, they officially accept him". They also received our authenticated documents back from the consulate and they were shipped off to Ethiopia today! Yea!!!!!! Once they get there next week, they will be able to request a court date! I don't know if we will wait a long time to get the date or if it will be assigned soon and then a wait for the date to arrive. We are going to put together a photo album for him of us and our community. We will also send him a shirt and a little toy hopefully....it all has to fit in a gallon size bag and we are only allowed to send one. Things are moving along great and with great timing! It will be nice to have him arrive at a time that I will be off for a couple of months before going into the whole school and work routine with him.

Moving forward...

One of our pediatricians reviewed the minimal medical information we had and he didn't have any concerns over his labs....yea! Our social worker has already updated the age on our homestudy and submited it to USCIS. I bet I'll have our new I-171H by the end of the week, because we have an awesome lady there I've gotten to know. Then we can request our court date! After all the disappointments we had with Vietnam, we are so anxious to get him home and make him ours! We emailed WACAP to tell them let's go forward!

Quick as a rabbit....

My new ticker has a rabbit, for hopefully quick speed as we prepare for and wait for a court date to finalize the adoption in Ethiopia.

REFERRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes! We got our referral tonight! A very cute boy who is 6&1/2. Our homestudy was for 7-9, so we will need to have it adjusted before we can get a court date. I am sooo glad that wait is over, but we can't do anything til Monday...I won't complain though! Now the push to get him home. We cannot post a photo until after we pass court and it will take about 2 months for that. The courts close in August and September, but I am sure we'll have him here before that, hopefully no longer than 3 months. He is a little guy (I still have to convert his height/weight into inches) with the most beautiful skin tone and such handsome facial features. Can't wait to hug him!