Redefining "Unpredictable"

Lately when people ask when we'll travel to bring our kids home, we've been saying something like, "We're not really sure, but we're estimating sometime in late July or August. It's really unpredictable." Yesterday, we learned that the unpredictability of our travel date is even MORE unpredictable than we originally thought.

Since we accepted the referral of our 3 little ones, we have been waiting for a court date in Ethiopia that would grant us parental rights to the children. We don't have to be present for that court date, but it needs to happen before we get a birth certificate for each of the children. And the birth certificates need to be issued before we can receive a travel date.

Often, the court dates are assigned (but not yet heard) about a month after a family accepts the referral. Because we are in that timeframe right now, I recently emailed our agency to inquiry about our status in being assigned a court date. This was the response:

"We are still waiting for one final document to be issued by the government authorities in Nazret before the staff in Ethiopia will be able to submit your case to the court registrar in Addis Ababa. The responsibility for child and family welfare in the Oromia Region [where our children are] is currently being shifted from one organization (MOLSA) to another (MOWA). A new MOWA office is being opened in Nazret, but it not up and running yet. At this point we are not sure how much longer it will be before we have the final document, but we remain confident that it will come from the MOWA office in Nazret as soon as the new office logistics are worked out. We will continue to be in contact with the staff in Ethiopia about this situation and will let you know if we learn more information about what timeline to expect."

This is further complicated by the fact that Ethiopia's courts close in early August. So, if we don't pass court before then, we'll be waiting another 3-4 months before a court date can even be assigned.

The question that this brings up is: Will we travel this summer or do we have to wait until the winter to bring our children home?

Obviously, we want to bring our children home as soon as possible, but so far, we're handling the news okay. We knew that by accepting a referral of children in this new-to-our-agency orphanage, we might have some extra bumps in our road. This is one of them. Our children are in Nazret, so we'll do whatever we need to do to bring them home!

A Little Step Closer...

We received our revised I-171H in the mail today! (That's the short story. If you want more details about what that means, read below.)

So, what does that mean? Some of you know that in addition to getting the "approval" of our adoption agency to adopt, we also needed to get the approval of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). We completed our first round of paperwork for that purpose back in July 2008, and received our initial approval (called a I-171H) in August. Our initial approval was for 1-2 children from 0-6 years old. This is directly related to the approval from our adoption agency.

At the time, we didn't even know that sibling groups of 3 nor children over the age of 6 were waiting to be matched through our agency's Ethiopia program. Of course, when we discovered that we have 3 children from 2.5-8.5 years old waiting for us in Ethiopia, we knew that this paperwork needed to be updated.

Updating the paperwork is not a quick process. First, we needed to meet with our adoption agency social worker and explain to her why we were interested in adopting 3 children at once and why we were interested in adopting a child over the age of 6. (Binyam and Helen are under 6, but Hirut's 8.5 years old.) We had to explain how we had prepared for the adoption of these children, what resources we had to help us (because "it takes a village to raise 3 older adopted children"), and how we planned to take care of ourselves and our marriage when the kids came home.

Then, about a week later, our case was submitted to the "older child adoption committee" at our agency for final approval of the changes to our age range and number of siblings. Evidently, they agreed with our social worker that we are as prepared as we can be to adopt 3 older children simultaneously. As much as I understand the need to ensure that children are joining well-prepared families and going to good homes, it's hard not to feel a little resentful of this process when you're going through it. That said, it's an amazing feeling to have gone through all of this process and have others affirm what we already thought was true: Though it's going to be a challenging experience, WE CAN DO THIS! :) More than that, we WANT to!

So, anyway, after all of that, our social worker updated our paperwork to submit to USCIS. And TODAY, we received our revised approval from USCIS in the mail.

This approval brings us one small step closer to meeting our children. Now, we just need a court date!

The Care Packages Are On Their Way!

Just a quick note to say that we have finished putting together the care packages for each of the kids (complete with toys and photo albums of us and our home). Yay! Though we're not sure exactly when our children will receive the care packages, we're excited that they are on their way!

Our Next Steps...

Thanks everyone for the well-wishes! Your support means so much to us!

So, not surprisingly, we've gotten a lot of questions since we've been matched with Hirut, Helen, and Binyam. Here's our first attempt at answering some of them!

Where are the children now? Do they know about the adoption?

Right now, the three sweet little ones are in an orphanage in the city of Nazret in the region of Oromiya in the country of Ethiopia. (Note to the Googlers among you: Nazret is also known as Nazareth and Adama.) The children know about adoption in general but don't know anything about us specifically yet. Right now, we're preparing a care package for each child to introduce ourselves, our home, and our pets. We want to get these to them as soon as possible!

Why are they being placed for adoption?

The story of how the children were placed for adoption and what happened within their birth family is private and personal. We’ve decided not to share that information at this point in time. This is sacred information to an adopted child, and we want to be sensitive to our children's needs. We will be open and honest with our children about their adoption story (those parts that they may not yet know or understand), but it will ultimately be up to them as to whether or not they want to share parts of their story and with whom. If, in the future, any of the children ask you questions that you can't answer, simply tell them to ask us. Thank you, in advance, for understanding!

So, why can't you pick them up now?

The answer is because there is still too much to do! These are the next big steps for our process:

• Right now, we are waiting for a court date in Ethiopia. Jeremy and I do not have to be present at the hearing. Usually, the court date happens 2-3 months after referral acceptance.
• On the court date, either a decision is made by the judges or a new court date is scheduled. When the decision to grant us the parental rights is made, we are legally the parents of the children according to the Ethiopian government. At that point (and not until then), we can also post photos of the children on our blog!
• Then, we wait for the Ethiopian birth certificates to be issued for each of the children, with us named as the parents.
• Once the birth certificates have been issued and are correct, we will find out our travel date. Usually, families get about 3-4 weeks advance notice before traveling.
• According to our adoption agency, we will probably travel to Ethiopia sometime between late July and late August to meet our children for the first time and to bring them home. The required length of travel is about 9 days, but Jeremy and I are hoping to travel a bit within Ethiopia beforehand as well.
• Then, we'll come home... More information about that to come later!

Well, I think that's enough for now. Let us know if you have any other questions :)