Adoption and Life in General Update

It has been exactly one month since we received our referral. Since the time when we accepted our referral, our dossier was combined with all of Amayah's legal paperwork, and our now bigger and better file started it's journey to Ethiopia's court system! We haven't heard anything from our agency since we accepted our referral but we are hoping for news on our court dates soon.

I did realize recently that if we had decided to continue to wait for a baby --(remember that the director of our agency told me that around 10 babes or so had just been taken in and it should only be another 2-4 weeks for one of them if we wanted to keep waiting??)-- we would still be waiting!  They gave out one baby girl referral since our referral but that was to a family that was in front of us.... and they gave out, as of today, I believe 2 baby boy referrals.  So we would have been 18 months on the waiting list!

As I think back on the decisions we had to make that day.....should we wait for that baby we had been waiting for all along or should we take this little 2 year old sweetie??  I have no regrets.  We have all fallen in love with her and we just can't wait to bring her home so we can love on her!  We are so thankful that we were able to find so many pictures of her in the albums in our agency's snapfish account and we are also grateful to those few families, so far, that have sent us pictures that they had of her!

We know of at least 2 families that will be traveling to Ethiopia for either their court date or their embassy appointment on the 8th of October and they have graciously offered to check on Tihun (Amayah) for us.  My friend Julee has even said she would try to get some video of her!!  That would be incredible!  At the very least we will have new pictures and hopefully we will get her sizes so I can start planning what clothes to bring for her and what to have here at home.  The very best info we will be getting though, is the information about her.....her personality and how she's doing and things like that.

As far as an update on what's going on around here.....

We have officially sold our home after only 2+ months on the market---yay!--- and we have purchased a new home that will fit our large family a bit better.  This new house is quite a bit bigger and also has 7 acres and a large pond so there will be plenty of room for the kids to roam!  Closing is scheduled on both houses for October 11.  We will be able to start getting the new house ready to move into by the 16th and we will have to be out of this house by the 25th.  So we will be moved in to our new house and hopefully pretty settled by the end of next month! I can't wait to start setting up Chloe and Amayah's bedroom and getting things all ready for her to come home!  I'm so thankful that we will have the selling/buying/moving/settling process long over before we have to travel to Ethiopia!  This takes a big weight and worry off my shoulders!

The director of our agency flew to Ethiopia on the 13th for a 10 day trip and she had our "Welcome Bag" for Amayah with her.  She should be back in the U.S. now so I am going to be calling in to talk with her and to see if they gave it to her yet.  They usually take pictures of the children receiving their  welcome bags so that will be fun to see those  =)  Here are the contents of Amayah's bag:

Most of the things we included were things for her to share with the other children.  We also put a picture that Chloe drew for her and a note to the nannies in the bag as well.

While I have our agency on the phone I am going to try to find out when our court date will be.  We were told when we accepted our referral that we should know something by the middle of this month.  Nothing.  The only thing we do know is that some families that accepted referrals in July just recently got court dates at the end of November so that tells me that our court date won't be until December some time and then our embassy appointment and bringing her home probably won't be until late January or early February!  =(  I have a feeling that she will be close to 3 years old by the time we get her home!

Further updates to come soon......gotta go get packing!!  =)

Have a great day!