Finally Waiting In a Line!

Hello Friends,
Are you ready for some good news?! I am on cloud 9!
We mailed off our dossier to our agency yesterday! I should arrive in Oregon on Monday and from there go to the orphanage in Ethiopia!!! Then it will fall into the hands of a board member of the SOS EE orphanage who will read over everything about us and match us with a child!
Some of you are thinking you missed an announcement of us getting an answer to our letter to the Ethiopian govt asking if Amos can be excused from court. We have not received an answer yet but I found out some info this week that lead to our decision to send off the dossier without hearing back from our letter.
First of all, our letter went to one of the 3 judges in Ethiopia. He looked over our letter and gave us the thumbs up. However, he wanted to make sure he was correct in his thinking so he sent it to the top judge and there it sits (has been sitting for 6 weeks now). Ethiopia adoption courts are extremely backed up hearing cases and will continue to be until they close down hearings for August and September. Our agency was surprised that our letter didn't get an answer faster but they think it is because the courts are in 5th gear with all the changes happening.
Secondly, we boiled it down to this. If our letter gets a thumbs up, we will send off our dossier and I will travel alone. If our letter gets a thumbs down, we will pay more and wait longer to have our child escorted to the US. Either way, we need to send off our dossier and be matched with a child so I asked (again) if we can just send off our dossier to get that 4-6 month wait going while we wait to hear back from our letter (which we think will get the thumbs up). Makes sense right? I tried doing this 2 months ago (Sending dossier and letter at the same time) but I got a 'no' from the agency). I think they wanted to keep things in a sequential order and we didn't want to loose $6500 if the letter got a thumbs down. However, escorting is still available so we will get a baby either way!!! And the agency really didn't think an answer would take this long.
Lastly, I heard from an adoption friend today that Ethiopia is showing more grace on the 2 parent travel rule than previously feared. So we have that going for us!
So that's the skinny! Good news! I am seriously so happy to be waiting for both at the same time. The thought of waiting for an answer for an unknown amount of time just so you can wait for 4-6 months on top of that to be matched is awful.
So hopefully we hear back officially about our letter soon and then we'll know whether to just wait on our referral (child they match us with) or get paperwork together to have our child escorted when we get matched. Either way, our paperwork will soon be on the desk of someone who will match us with our baby! ...Our baby that we have waited 2 years and 9 months for!
Those of you who pray for us can pray that our dossier arrives safely in Oregon and then Ethiopia and that it falls into the right person's hands there.
Thanks everyone:)

Moving Along...slowly....

After waiting in limbo for about 2 months (seems MUCH longer) we heard last Friday what we need to do to progress despite Ethiopia's new 2 parent travel rule. We need 4 letters from Amos' doctor explaining his condition and asking permission for a power of attorney to represent him in court because of the dangers of him traveling. We will send one letter ahead and wait for the Minister of Women's Affairs to decide if his excuse is good enough for him to be absent from court. Hopefully they find his medical excuse a good one and allow me to travel alone. If they allow this, we will send off our dossier immediately along with the other letters from Amos' doctor and wait to be matched with a child!
I read somewhere that the wait times for children 0-2 is decreasing. This is good news for us! I hope it's true. Even if it's not true, it gives me hope.
One step at a time. That's all I can do. If I look too far ahead I get discouraged.
For now, the goal is to get Amos' doctors letters off to our agency so they can forward them onto Ethiopia. We have no idea how long it will take them to get back to us. I'm hoping its weeks rather than months but one can never know...

Garage Sale Weekend

What a successful weekend! I am exhausted but I am happy to report that we made $1,423.88 this weekend for the adoption!

Church friends, school friends and family donated TONS of items and baked goods for us to sell! We had the cutest lemonade/baked goods stand with the yummiest treats you could imagine. My Cross Training girls manned the stand. One lady came and bought a lemonade and left us $20 for the adoption. Another man from our church bought 75 cents worth of stuff and gave us $100 that he got from selling some fish tanks. One friend took time to bring me coffee-bless her heart because we got rained on pretty good on Saturday!

We want to thank everyone that donated their time, items or baked goods. You guys are helping make this adoption dream a reality! We especially want to thank the Huguenins who so graciously let us use their home for the sale. This would not have been the success it was without you guys. Hugs to all!

Not So New News

Hello Friends,
So we heard this week that Ethiopia IS indeed requiring two trips and both parents have to go on the first one. However, they are saying that if one parent is not able to travel, that absent parent needs to be represented by a Power of Attorney. I take this as great news! However, now we are in a holding pattern yet again as we wait for more to be released on situations that are deemed acceptable reasons for that one parent to not being in court on the first trip. My gut feeling is that a medical condition will make the list but if I've learned one thing from this adoption process it is DON'T COUNT ON ANYTHING! So we wait some more.
We have come so far and are so close to sending our stuff off to Ethiopia! Prayers for clarification in the Ethiopian government and decision making on Amos and my parts are appreciated:)
Also, our Adoption Garage Sale Fundraiser is this coming weekend, April 24th in Mukilteo! We will be at the Huguenin's home selling lots of really neat stuff that people have donated and baked! Come check us out! And if you have any items you would like to donate to our sale, email or call me! I still have room for more! Thanks to everyone who has supported us through this:)

We are doing a FUNDRAISER! The Mukilteo Neighborhood Garage Sale is Saturday, April 24th! If you have any household items you don't need anymore please contact me about a pick up or a drop off! Also, if you are willing to donate some baked goods, I will take those on Friday, April 23rd or the morning of the Sale! Anything you can donate will help. Thanks so much for your support!

More Waiting

So I just got off the phone with our agency. Rumors and bulletins are flying around everywhere on the Internet about the recent travel requirements. I guess there are varying accounts of decisions that are being made. Some people are saying that the new requirements are being put on hold indefinitely and others are saying they still stand. Our agency's lawyer is meeting with other agencies' lawyers and they are asking the judges in Ethiopia the same questions we are asking. What about parents that can't travel for medical reasons? What about military families with one parent deployed? What about families that are pregnant and can't travel? It's good to know we aren't the only ones who are waiting on pins and needles to hear about these new requirements.
Ethiopia is supposed to release these proclamations with more details by the end of this week or early next week. Until then our dossier and check sits on our kitchen counter waiting. Boy, when people tell you that you will wait a lot for an adoption, they aren't joking. The paperwork is a walk in the park compared to the waiting.
Prayers please!

Final Dossier Check!

We got our paperwork back from Olympia today all shiny and stamped with the Secretary of State seal. This is great! We would be sending our dossier off to our agency today but we are waiting to hear about the new "2 parents traveling" requirement. As soon as we hear more details from our agency we will put this puppy in the mail and wait on a referral!

Today I got all of our dossier paperwork in order. I REALLY hope we did everything correctly!

Baby Kallen, we are not giving up yet! We're trying so hard to bring you home!