Things that happened Thursday…

Thursday was a big day around here: 

Our eldest celebrated his 8^th Birthday.

 

We also got word that our case was submitted to the US Embassy in Addis.  Baby A’s birth certificate, passport, adoption court decree, and various approval letters will be reviewed, processed, investigated, etc.  We are told that the process generally takes several weeks, but we’re so grateful that things have moved so smoothly since we’ve returned home from our first trip.

It’s been two weeks…

…since I held my baby.

 Last week went pretty fast.  It was spent getting things back to normal around here with routine and house and schedule.  Ryan and I brought home yucky colds from Ethiopia and were pretty miserable for a few days, but we enjoyed sorting through photos and video from our trip and putting updated pictures of Baby A in frames throughout the house.  I got out the 6-12 month clothes and filled her closet.  I purchased some diapers and baby bottles.  Last week was good.
  

 

 

This week didn’t pass quite as quickly.  We’re back in the grind of life.  Ryan was busy at work.  Our three year-old is battling through the cold we had last week…ugh.  We’ve anxiously had an eye on the news about the US Embassy threats and closures in the Middle East/North Africa (unlike some neighboring countries, the US Embassy in Ethiopia has remained operational).
 I sure wish we knew how much time we have in front of us before we can go back for her.  The official paperwork says the time between the two trips is somewhere between 6 weeks and several months while the Embassy completes their investigation and prepares her documentation.  We’ve been told to expect a couple months.  I feel confident that I can wait this out, but it would be so much easier on my mental health if I knew where I was in the wait.  I’ve undertaken some strenuous tests of endurance before (marathons, homeschool years, 14-hour plane rides, labor), but previously I’ve been able to count down the miles, days, hours, centimeters.  This deal is like walking blind.  It’s hard.  I don’t know if I’m miles away from my destination or if I’m going to trip over it with my next step.  In any case, I guess we know that today we are one day closer to having our family together.       

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

We received our official adoption decree from court today (which will allow us to add our girl to our health insurance plan).  As I think about the zillion families (they seemed to be from Europe and Canada, in addition to America) who appeared in court on Friday July 26^th in Addis, I know that court reporter had A LOT of paperwork to do for the number of cases that were heard that day.  I am pleasantly surprised in the turnaround time with which we received this document.  It was 7 business days, which even included translation into a language we can read and understand.

Our adoption agency staff in Ethiopia (the ones who sent this decree to us via our adoption consultant in St. Louis) will now deliver it, along with some other paperwork we left with them when we were there, to the US Embassy in Addis, who will investigate the case as they deem necessary, and then prepare a passport and birth certificate for our daughter.  Oh that this next part of the process might go as quickly and smoothly as our receipt of the court decree.  

Without Further Ado

Now that we’ve been to court, and she’s officially ours, we can share our girl.  Could she be any more darling? 

 

 

Counting down the days (probably 40 or 50 of them, at best) until we get to see this sweet smile again and bring her home for good.  Step on it, Embassy!! 

Fancy Pants

We’re sitting in the airport in Toronto killing a 7-hour layover, though we’re not complaining…our Ethiopian Airlines flight took off over an hour late, we had to circle the Toronto airport for a while before landing, and it took us 2 hours to go through US Customs and Immigration once we got here (I don’t know why we went through US Customs here already, since we’re not in the US yet, but I guess it’ll save us having to do it once we get home).  Anyhow, we would have never made a connecting flight with a reasonable layover interval.  As it is, we have been able to enjoy a little “western” breakfast, electricity, free Wi-Fi, and cable television (apparently the royal baby was born this week, and it was kind of a big deal).  We’ll have a bite of lunch before boarding our short flight home. 

In the file of things-to-do-better-on-our-second-trip: My sparkly jeans were a bit of a headache as we went through US security.  I failed the initial metal detector and failed the secondary “body scan” (I saw the image on that one…my mid-section was lit up like a Christmas tree due to the placement of the silvery sequins and metallic detailing on my jeans, Yikes!!)  After an additional pat-down, I apparently convinced the authorities that I was simply a fashionista rather than a strapped terrorist.

Hard to believe that I was wearing these same sparkly jeans when I last held Baby A before we left her…20-some hours ago.  Looking forward to being home to Kansas in a few hours.  Looking forward to being back to Africa in a few weeks.

Oh yes, and I’m glad to report that our Dreamliner 787 flight was free of flames and unremarkable.   

Court Update

It's official!!  Baby A is ours in the eyes of the Ethiopian courts.  Things went smoothly... the judge asked a handful of questions, we answered them, it lasted 5 minutes (though we waited 90 minutes for our turn... evidently about 50 other couples also had a 1:30 appt with the judge J).

We've accomplished what we came to do (and more) on this first trip and our looking forward to coming back in 4-8 weeks and bring our girl home (next step in the process is waiting on the US Embassy to process paperwork so they can issue her a passport so she can travel with us). 

We are back at the Guest House packing.  We leave for the airport in about an hour.  We'll arrive back in KC Saturday afternoon.

Thursday

Another full day at the transition house with Baby A and her birthmom.  Some really sweet time. 

Baby A is just a honey.  We’ve really not seen her cry yet (it’s only a matter of time) and have only really seen her fuss a bit when she’s tired (and once when it was apparently bottle time and we had no idea…that item didn’t make it onto the rundown of her daily schedule that they gave me).  Thankfully, a nanny hunted us down where we were hanging out in a different part of the house and wordlessly handed us a bottle…Baby A almost jumped out of our arms to grab it.

Our girl is really happy and loves kisses and tickles.  She sticks her tongue out a lot, and she’s putting everything in her mouth…maybe she’ll have some teeth soon.  She likes to touch our faces and yank our hair (well, my hair more than Ryan’s).  And, speaking of hair, I got to help the nanny fix Baby A’s hair up on Tuesday.  “Help” may be generous…basically, I held Baby A on my lap and handed rubberbands to the nanny when she motioned for them.  But, I was watching intently.  I’ll still need some intensive hair tutoring when I get home from my friends Hope and Lily!!  J

This afternoon, we said goodbye to our new dear friend, Baby A’s birthmother.  She has established a special place in the heart of our family.  We sure hope to see her again in a couple months when we travel back to Ethiopia for our Embassy interview and to bring Baby A home.

Tomorrow afternoon (Friday) we’ll go to our court hearing and declare our intent to adopt our girl.  And tomorrow evening we’ll fly on an airplane…away from one and back to three at home.  My how our hearts are divided.