We have a court date!

Exciting news today. We received a court date for July 20th. We are excited to have this court date, but are still somewhat guarded.

Here is the deal-

The MOWA (Ministry of Women's Affairs) looks over our case and writes a letter. This letter has to be with our file for the Ethiopian judge to hear the case. Normally this is an easy process. Normally! BUT..MOWA has closed for TWO weeks for training. Timing not so great. So, the courts are now letting familes get court dates, but now this MOWA has closed.

The judge has asked MOWA to please write letters for all the families with my agency who have been delayed. We were ALL given court dates for July 20th.

MOWA is not to reopen until July 24th. Again, this timing thing really sucks!
So, hopefully with the Judge asking for this, MOWA can make this happen.
If not? well, once a again our case will not be heard. BUT....at least we are making some progress. The ban is over and suspension is lifted! If our case doesnt get through on the 20th, hopefully before court closure, which is in August.

I feel like we are getting closer to finally become the parents of Baby Tiny.

To be continued..........

Still no news..maybe Monday?

My feeling was right.....Friday was rumored to be a day when we would find out how or when our adoption hearing will proceed. Apparently, one of the CHI reps in Ethiopia went to court on Friday. The judge asked her to wait around until noon. At noon, the judge asked her to come back on Monday.

So, that's tomorrow. The CHI rep also stated that other agencies were told to come back on Tuesday. I am hopeful. I am thinking that agency by agency that the courts are going to maybe start giving out some new court dates. I am just guessing at this, but I think we might hear some news next week. Lets hope! We are so ready to go pick up baby tiny!



If I don't hear news this week, that means we will have to re-apply with the CIS, to obtain our babies visa. It will expire this fall!! That means, if we had to travel this fall we would have to make sure that is current..or there is no bringing baby home! To re-apply, that means a new homestudy. The good thing is, I have all the documents needed to redo the homestudy - I have spent the last 3 weeks getting those together!

I have our wonderful social worker Nikki on standby....she can whip that together and I can get an appointment with the CIS/INS office to get it going again. Last year it took almost 6 weeks to get that approval back, so I am going to make sure that we will allow enough time to get it back so if we cant go until this fall, we will be ready. NO document will hold us up on getting to Ethiopia.
Lets just hope we wont need it!

Not getting my hopes up.....

July 1st. Its now been almost TWO months since our court date that was never heard. I am not getting my hopes up that we are going to even hear anything this week. I want to hear so bad that we have a new court date or that we have a surprise and just find out the court has legally made Amara ours.

There are SO many rumors, I don't know what is true or not anymore. Many agencies are telling waiting families that they will hear something later this week regarding the cases. Many agencies are saying the investigation is not over. I cant even remember what our agency has confirmed or not confirmed at this point. I am so tired of week after week I get excited thinking this will be the week that we hear something.

I am beyond sad, I am now mad and frustrated. I am so mad that we are missing out on the first year of this sweet little babies life. Either way, whatever age she is when we finally can bring her home, we are dedicated to her. It will be quite a story to share with her some day.

My gut feeling is that we will not bring her home this summer. There are only a few weeks until courts close in Ethiopia..until October. I have a feeling she will be 1 when we finally get to meet her. I hope I am wrong, but this is what I am feeling right now.

I know our agency is doing the best they can with finding out what is going on in Ethiopia. Our director of the Ethiopia program just returned from Addis. She took the most beautiful photos of our baby. I received them yesterday and cant stop looking at her sweet little face! I know new video will be coming soon. I'm sure its a huge task to get all the photos downloaded and sent to all the families that are waiting to travel to pick up their children.

I am looking foward to my husband returning home tommorow from his business trip in Asia. We are throwing a party in a couple weeks at our home, just to pass the time of this waiting. It should be a great time!

I never thought I would hate Fridays....

But I sure do now! Fridays were always the best day of the week, winding up with work or school and looking forward to having the next two days off.

Now, Fridays have a completely different meaning in my world at the moment. Fridays mean its the end of any possibilty of new news on our adoption. It means we have now have two days of waiting until Monday.

The work week is coming to and end, and we are still waiting to hear what is going on with our case and when we can get another court date to bring our Baby Tiny home. The good news is, she is still tiny. (in a healthy way!) Here is a recap of what has been going on-

• Baby Tiny turned 8 months old this week
• Baby Tiny is looking healthy and super cute in the video I received last week
• Baby Tiny weights 15.4 pounds, a huge difference from the 5.9 pound she was at 3 months old
• The word is the investigation is over in Ethiopia and the orphanages have been cleared
• The rumor is July 2nd we are to get some news, maybe like an annoucement that our cases will be heard and we can proceed
• Also rumored the Ethiopian courts might not close this year, which would be awesome news for us familes that have been involved in this delay

Hopefully next week will bring on some good news and hopefully and idea of what our timeline is with our adoption. Mondays have never looked so good.

Ps- I cant put those numbers up here anymore counting the weeks we have been waiting since our first court date. Its too painful!

4 Weeks

Four weeks have now passed since the courts have suspended hearing cases on abandoned babies. The is a rumor though, and even my agency has heard some of this information. Apparently the investigation is completed. AT this point we are all waiting for the formal announcement from the Ethiopian Government that hopefully cases will be heard. I really hope so. Our baby is soon to be 8 months at the end of this month. I hope to see her before she gets much older. There is a family traveling this week to pick up their twin boys, they are going to take some updated photos of our baby for us. I cant wait to see her!!

John and I continue to take our mini weekend vacations. It has been a wonderful distratcion. I am so glad we have the opporutniy to do this, while we wait for news. Last weekend John and I drove up to Minneapolis, it was a quick 6 hour drive from Kansas City! John has a little business to do on Friday and we made it a nice weekend. We stayed in downtown Minneapolis at the Graves 601 hotel.

I highly recommend this hotel, the accommodations are amazing! We also enjoyed a very nice dinner at Johns Uncle Bill and Aunt Mary Kay's home in Minneapolis. It was nice to see his family. Johns parents even drove in for the visit. We are planning our next get away. Maybe something on the West coast! John will be going to China in a couple weeks for business, but when he returns I will have something else planned. Ideally, it would be Ethiopia, but we have no idea how this will play out.

Sunday night my niece had a birthday party slumber party. She is turning 9! So hard to believe! I went over to my sisters to help and we gave all the girls pedicures, it was a good time. Katy is the little blond on the top of the pyramid, she is like a little mini teenager. Scary!

All for now, I am hoping the next time I post I will have some news on whats happening in Ethiopia.

3 Weeks....

Ok, I didn't think I would be ever putting these numbers back on this blog! But, it has been 3 weeks since the Ethiopian Courts has suspended hearing cases on abandoned babies from Addis Ababa. I thought waiting for a referral was painful....its nothing compared to now even wondering when and if this gets resolved and that each day that goes by we are now missing out on baby tiny's development and all the fun things!


It probably doesnt sound like it.... but, I am feeling optimistic. I think the investigation is progressing and I hope soon, one day..and I am emphasizing soon - I hope to post that the suspension has been lifted and we can get on with this!


Amara has a full closet of beautiful clothes and shoes! Most are size 6-9 months. I know she is small for a 7 month old, (more like the size of a 5 month old) so I am hoping we can get her home this summer. Its not only because I don't want her to outgrow her clothes before we even get to meet her. Its because a lot of these little outfits were picked out with love from many of our family and friends. Each outfit honestly has a special meaning to us! My husband even had me write on the tags on some of the outfits just so he can remember that who it was from when she was wearing it!

I am still following this blog, http://ethioadoptionnews.blogspot.com it has some interesting news/rumors. I am starving for any information that I can get regarding this situation.

All we can do right now, is enjoy the weekend and the nice weather.

Just stuff....

I am such a bad blogger. Its actually hard to even talk much about what is going on. I don't have any new exciting news in our adoption case. This afternoon I had our 2nd
conference call with our adoption agency. They have set up weekly conference calls with the 10 families within the agency that this court suspension has effected. They didn't have really anything new today, but they are letting us know they are here to support us, answer questions and let us vent.

Yesterday, I did receive this bit of news,


Dear All:

We contacted the Ethiopian Federal First Instance Court today. Court President Ato Dessalegn told us that the investigation into cases of abandoned children is still pending. But, the Court has begun accepting cases of abandoned children referred from Addis Ababa government orphanages. These include the following orphanages:

· Kebebe Tsehay Orphanage
· Ketchene Orphanage
· Kolfe Youth Center


I hope this information is helpful.
Regards,

Paul Cantrell
Consular Section Chief


In my opinion this could be a great sign that things are starting to move, maybe as this investigation proceeds more suspensions will be lifted.

Our baby tiny has turned 7 months old now. She was 3 months old when she was referred to us, and she is getting bigger every day. She is such a little doll. She is looking healthy and plump, such a HUGE change from the tiny malnourished baby I saw in the photos back in January.

We should be in Ethiopia right now picking up our baby. Last weekend we would have started this journey. There was no way I could stay at home, so John and I planned a last minute get away. We decided to take a road trip to Denver. We had a great time. We love staying at Hotel Monaco in Downtown Denver, and eating Panzano restaurant in the hotel, with lots of wine! :)







So while we are waiting for all this adoption stuff to get resolved, I have decided to keep planning some fun get aways so we don't sit around the house and stare at each other and so I don't have to avoid the second floor of our home right now, since that is where the baby's room is located.

We are going to head to Minneapolis the week after next. John has a meeting to go to, so we are turning it into another little get away. I just booked a swanky hotel room at Graves 601 in downtown Minneapolis.

I know I get a lot of hits on this blog now, I know a lot of families are in the same situation as we are. Many are overseas and many in the US all trying to adopt from Ethiopia. If you pray please pray, if you do positive thoughts please do those...whatever it is that you do, please do it.

We need all the help and postitive energy we can get to bring these babies and children home.