The Zabels Journey to Adopt from Ethiopia

Its almost been one year!

2010-08-15T04:01:00.000-07:00

We are quickly approaching Amara's "gotcha" day. I cant believe that she has been home with us for 1 year. We brought home a baby, and now we have this little person, who is walking, talking, screaming and running! We love her so much and it has been amazing for me to see this sweet little girl develop. You know, you always hear people say they grow up fast. I never really understood that until now!

So much has happened in the past year. John has left the International department at Farmland Foods, and now is heading up a pet food division. I know this will develop into something big for him. I am excited that he is not traveling for long periods of time anymore! That was so hard.

In early March I found out I was diabetic, which in may ways was good news for me. I couldn't figure out why I could never get over being sick with colds, or lose weight. Finding out that my blood sugar was out of control and now being able to control has helped out so much. After cutting out carbs and sugar, and taking some medication I have successfully been able to lower my numbers to non-diabetic levels. I also have dropped close to 40 pounds..and feeling really good!

John has lost a lot of weight to0, and taking up a pretty serious running hobby! He ran ten miles yesterday and is pretty dedicated about running 5-6 times a week.

My 35th birthday is not here yet....but Paul McCartney was in town for a concert. I have loved him since I was a kid! My generous husband bought tickets for my mom and I to go to the concert...not just any tickets..17th row tickets. We had a great time..something we will always remember!

Back to Amara.....Amara is talking up a storm. She loves to mimic and is a very quick little learner! I am still impressed with Amara's daycare, she loves going and they are teaching her so much.

We are excited to hear that Tseguy and Almaz are traveling from Ethiopia to the US next month. We are planning on going to St. Louis to meet up with them. Tseguy and Almaz run the House of Hope where Amara lived from the time she was 3 months old to 10.5 months.

Almaz and Tseguy August 2009

Amara, her daddy and grandpa are planning on take a road trip from Kansas City to California. This is a trip that John and his father enjoy together, but this year, they want to take Amara. Crazy?? Yes, but that's great! I am planning on meeting up with them by flying to San Fransisco for the weekend.

All for now. I have to get better at updating this blog. I spend so much time cooking and cleaning and taking care of Tiny, its hard to find the time!

Here are so photos of our cutie pie!

WOW...its been 3 months since I blogged!!?!?!

2010-04-11T05:01:00.000-07:00

Ok, I am back! I cant believe how fast time is going since we have brought Amara home! I am going to work hard on posting! In fact..I am going to try to post something everyday. Lets see.....Amara is almost 18 months old. She is very active and has the cutest bubbly big personality ever! Everyday she is saying a new word, yesterday it was shoe!

Amara is finally getting healthy again. We had alot of ear infections and months of getting sick. She had tubes placed in January, but it took a couple months to get her ears back to normal. I am anxious for her follow up appointment this summer to check her hearing. Before tubes, she hardly had any hearing in her right ear.

This time last year we waiting for our first court date, and waiting to see when we could bring baby tiny home. I am so glad that process is over and we can just enjoy sweet little Amara.

Here are some updated pics-

Amara is really enjoying the Easter Egg Hunt and Aunt Mechelles

Grandma Marlene (my mom) and Amara getting ready to sit down for Easter lunch

Cousin Katy and Amara

Happy Holidays!!!!!

2009-12-27T01:41:00.000-08:00

This holiday season has been extra special this year as a family of 3. Amara is now 14 months old and changing so quick!! Its amazing to look back at Christmas last year. We didnt even know about little Amara Eskedar! Amara was 2 months old last year at this time, she was less than 6 pounds and staying at the Enat Alem orphanage in Addis Ababa. Its so nice to say she is now a very healthy, happy active toddler. We are blessed to have her in our lives.

Last weekend we enjoyed celebrating Chrimstas in Chicago, and Amara experienced unwrapping presents, she is picking up very quickly!

This is the view from our window at the Swissotel. Amara enjoyed playing on the huge bed!

Then off to Grandma and Grandpa's condo! Amara is opening her very first Christmas present!

Later that evening, a nice dinner and more presents!

Christmas in Kansas City was enjoyed with lots of snow and family!

We look forward to bringing in the new year. I can see many new adventures and experiences in 2010!!

Our cutie pie!

2009-11-04T02:45:00.000-08:00

Amara is such a little blessing. I am so amazed how much she is changing everyday. She is so funny, and has her little bag of tricks that she pulls out to entertain anyone who is watching.

She is waving, blowing kisses, using a sippy cup and moving away from a bottle. She is getting to be a big girl with eating. She will eat anything, and wants to feed herself!

Its a matter of a few weeks and I think she will be walking. We cant wait for Christmas this year..its so fun to see Amara experience all these new things.

The adoption process was so hard, even more with the delay with abandonment child cases, but when I look into this little girls eyes, I would do it again and again. I am so wanting to start the process to go back for another child... There are so many children in Ethiopia and after spending time there and seeing the orphanages and the children who do not have homes it just breaks my heart. I also like the idea of Amara having a sibling with a shared heritage. So hopefully someday soon I can say that we are starting the process again. Unfortunately, there is that one thing, and that's paying for it! Its a little costly!

For now we will enjoying watching our Baby Tiny experience life and grow. I cant think of anything better.

My best friend Kristi made Amara a tutu and top. I must say its pretty adorable! Amara also enjoyed dressing up as a ladybug for Halloween!

Happy Birthday Amara!! 1 year old!

2009-10-25T11:26:00.001-07:00

October 23, Amara turned 1! We enjoyed making it a special day for her!

11 months old..

2009-10-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

Amara is such a joy! We have been with Amara a little over a month now and I am amazed how well she is adjusting. She goes along with anything! She still takes 2 naps a day and sleeps all night. She is crawling and pulling herself up and I know soon she will be walking!

Its been hard to update the blog, time is just flying by. What a huge change from the summer when we didnt know what was happening with the adoption and time was dragging on. Life is good and we are enjoying every minute with Amara.

She is turning one in a few weeks!

LONG overdue update!!

2009-09-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

I am a horrible blogger! I update my facebook almost everyday with photos and feel bad that my little blog has been neglected! We have been home safe and sound and with a baby that is the best thing that has ever happened to us! She is really a little doll, with a sweet personality.

John is back to work, the house guest and visitors have slowed down, and I am enjoying every minute with baby Amara. She is such a blessing!

Our trip to Ethiopia was an amazing journey. All the people who work with our adoption agency work so hard in Ethiopia to take care of all the children and us families when we were in the country.

I am still working on a montage of photos from our trip, but here are a few of Amara in Ethiopa and since we have returned home!

Here are some photos take while we were in Ethiopia-

Photos since we have been home -

More photos to come soon! I promise!

New photos! 10 months old...

2009-08-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

A wonderful family, who was just in Ethiopia took some adorable photos of our baby. I cant believe it.. she is standing up!!!

A Very Special Story....

2009-08-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Baby Amara has a very special story. I want to share this story for a few reasons. One, is to commend the adoption agency we chose. They really did a lot for us when we really needed it. Two, I think all prospective adoptive parents should be aware of the many unknowns when it comes to this adoption process. I was asked not to share it until we passed court, because our adoption agency made special arrangements for us during the time period when we received our referral. Which we are so grateful for!

When we received our referral, it was so exciting and eye opening. We received the call from our case manager and she was telling us that there was this little 3 month old baby. She was very very small. She only weighed 5.9 pounds...at 3 months old! Also, that they were not going to send us photos until we agreed that we would consider a "special needs" referral. Which is understandable, they didn't want us to feel guilted, or feel bad if we decided to not accept it.

One thing that we were a little surprised about was that our home study stated we were open to a child with special needs. So with this referral, this baby was considered special needs due to her low weight. The low weight wasn't really what we were concerned about, we were very concerned with the medical report. It was of course..pretty unclear, but then had some things on there like Chromosomal abnormalities, which could be minor or very major. While waiting to receive more info from out CHI, we decided to have our Dr take a look at her report...and photos. CHI agreed to send the photos to our DR.

The next day, we visited our doctor, he looked at her medical report and photos. He felt she would be ok, as long as she would get better nutrition. He didn't seen any signs of Chromosomal abnormalities, but couldn't see why that was on her medical report!!? The report was so vague.

We tried to get in with Children's Mercy Hospital, there is a doctor there who runs the International Adoption Clinic. We were told it would be TWO weeks before he could even look at her medical report. Lucky, my best friend Kristi, knew a nurse that worked at the hospital and was able to take her medical report to the International adoption clinic Dr to let him review it! After all that, he said, there is just not enough information to give us any feedback.

So, one week has passed, and we were still waiting for CHI to obtain some more information. They were able to get more photos for our Dr's and during that time the baby was moved to the House of Hope. At least there, we knew she would be getting better nutrition and medical care.

On Friday evening Jan 30th, 4 days after we received the call, my good friend Joan called me and was very excited about something. She just had dinner with another couple and she had told them about our adoption story. They all then realized that one of their mutual friends, Dr. Andrew Kaufman a neurosurgeon in Kansas City, had just left for Ethiopia. He was on a medical mission trip. He loves teaching doctors in Africa.

His friend Saul was put on the phone with me. He told me he was 90% sure he could get a hold of Dr. Kaufman and see if he could go to the House of Hope to see our referred baby. Immediately, I emailed our agency and explained what opportunity we had to have this Dr. visit the baby and let us know what was going on!

Within a few days, we had permission. I remember waiting until the middle of the night, because of the time difference, to call Dr. Kaufman to let him know we had the OK! I gave him the director of the House of Hope's cell phone, and prayed he would be able to make contact!

Friday morning at 2 am, John and I could not sleep. We were anxiously waiting for Dr. Kaufman to make it to the House of Hope. We just couldnt sleep knowing that just a few hours we would know really what condition the baby we referred was in.

At 5am, I looked at my blackberry and had an email all the way from Ethiopia. The email was titled -

Email Subject : I have a very good report

Amanda & John:

I finally made it to the home and was very impressed; more of that in a moment.

I had the good fortune last evening of meeting a young American woman who is studying child development and currently working in an orphanage in Ethiopia. She was able to prepare me for the visit and was extremely helpful in educating me about malnourished infants.

The home is well out of the center of Addis, perhaps a 15-20 minute drive from the airport. From the entrance gate to the grounds, living areas and children's rooms the place is probably the cleanest and best maintained home I have seen in two visits to Ethiopia. Please do not expect American standards but this place was cleaner than any hospital, home or hotel in which I have stayed or visited.

Tseguy is a sincere and marvelous fellow who was completely open in not just answering all questions, but spontaneously amplifying upon the issues. He is a former school teacher. He himself found the place (an empty deteriorated home), plastered, painted, cleaned, bought all furniture, etc. On the grounds they have two guest apartments and use a nearby guest house if necessary.

Your child is in a room with four other children. Each "nanny" is assigned to three children. Your child is currently taking 60 cc (2 oz) of formula 12 times daily. She is held for all feedings (I have a movie of a feeding). I have a photo of the jar of formula being used as well as several additional photos and movie clips.

The child has a completely normal neurological examination. I see absolutely nothing in her physical exam that would indicate any chromosomal abnormality or other physical defect. She is clearly malnourished. However she is very alert, sucks very well and has seemingly normal sight and hearing. She clearly followed me and my brightly colored hat from side to side. She cried only briefly while I was examining her. Otherwise she had a very calm satisfied demeanor, and yet was completely alert and attentive at all times.

She seemed most happy and content when I was holding her. She often was spontaneously sucking a finger when not being held. When fed she immediately responded with a good strong suck.

She is clearly not yet at 3 months of physical or emotional development, but that would seem to be consistent with her nutritional status. Her exact age is in fact not known.

I had the pleasure of meeting two American mothers who are here to receive their new adoptive children. One is an undoubtedly Jewish woman from Indianapolis adopting a 6 year old child. Hers is not a fertility problem; she has three natural born children and now wanted to adopt a fourth and at age 40 did not want more diapers to deal with, but more important feels that the older children of Ethiopia should not be overlooked. The other woman is adopting a newborn. Both are extremely pleased with the care and attention their children are receiving, their accommodations and their visit here.

I am very impressed with this agency and the fine work that they are doing. I hope this is helpful to you.

Best regards,

Andy

__________________________________________________________________

I will tell you, that was the best email I have ever received - in my life! Things were clear and we knew she would be OK. We were so fortunate on how all these events turned out.

We are so grateful to the amazing group or people who made this possible. Dr. Kaufman and his wife Lynn, Ron and Joan, and Saul and Sherri.

So here we are now. Just a couple weeks away from meeting our baby Amara. What a story. I cant wait to continue this adventure.

Amara is now 17.5 pounds, and looking wonderful. I have received so many wonderful stories and reports from other families traveling to the House of hope to pick up their babies.

This is Amara when she was 3 months old and 5.9 pounds - so so tiny.

This the video Dr. Kaufman took while he visited her at the House of Hope-

Amara Eskedar is now 9.5 months old. She looks happy and healthy, and we will be seeing her in just a couple WEEKS!!

We passed court today!!

2009-08-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

I am so happy to acutally say and type those words! We PASSED court. There were times where I couldnt imagine saying those words. Its been a bit of a bumpy road, a lot of waiting and a lot of wondering if this adoption would ever go through.

We are so happy to introduce to you, our daughter Amara Eskedar Zabel. We cant wait to bring her HOME!! Just a few weeks away.....

Ohhh Please let it happen!

2009-08-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight while we are sleeping, hopefully a judge in Addis Ababa will approve our adoption case and we will become the legal parents of Baby Tiny. Its been a long wait since the day we first set eyes on the tiny baby who I hope will soon be our daughter. (144 days waiting or 20 weeks to give you an idea!)

Last night, I had a wonderful surprise when I came home from work. Our adoption agency had a video of our baby and sent it to us on disk! It was taken last month, and it was wonderful! BabyTiny is kicking, smiling and looking really good! She is a little thing, and its good to see we will still be able to experience many firsts with her, that I though we would miss out on! We cant wait to get our hands on this sweetie pie!

Please send your positive energy my way, we would love nothing more to finally pass court and on to the next step to travel to pick up our baby.

August 5th

2009-07-15T06:52:00.001-07:00

A minor change with our court date. I am not surprised or disappointed; I had a feeling that there was no way the MOWA was going to issue the letter for our case to be heard. I am just so thankful to HAVE a court date and to know that things are moving again.

Our court date was rescheduled for August 5th. With a tentative embassy date for September 3rd. Meaning we would probably leave the last week of August to head to Ethiopia. We might be arriving to Ethiopia on my birthday, August 29th! Wouldn’t that be the best birthday present ever?!

It was also announced that the Ethiopian courts will stay open this year. They normally close from August to October. Its good to know that if we encounter any more glitches that we still have time! Wish us luck!

We have a court date!

2009-07-09T13:47:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-07-05T15:14:00.001-07:00

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.....

2009-07-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-06-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-09T07:55:00.001-07:00

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....

2009-05-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-05-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Update......

2009-05-20T06:24:00.000-07:00

I am checking this other blog everyday. It really has some good information. One thing that was posted today was-

"the hold on abandonment cases started back on May 4th. This means that we are now 2weeks into the investigation. In case it's of interest, I've been told the last big MOWA investigation and halting of court cases (which resulted in extra paperwork and court steps for relinquishment cases) lasted about 6 weeks"

To anyone family in this situation, I recommend following and sending anything you hear to this blog.

http://ethioadoptionnews.blogspot.com/

My adoption agency has scheduled a conference call with all the families involved in this situation. I know our agency doesn't have any new information, but they are holding this call so we can ask questions.

I will post later today, the call is at 1pm central time!

Update

2009-05-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

We recieved very little information form our agency regarding the meeting on Monday with the Joint Council. Although another family has started a blog to update what is going on. I want to pass this website along to my international friends who are in the same situation. I will post any information I recieve on my blog, but I will also be checking for other info on this blog

http://ethioadoptionnews.blogspot.com

Today, May 18th, the Joint Council of International Children's Services had a meeting discussing the investigation in Addis Ababa.

They've not updated their website as of now, but this is from IAN:
All of IAN’s Ethiopian Program Coordinators took part in a conference call today with the Joint Council on International Children’s Services and approximately 15 other agencies working in Ethiopia.

The main focus of the conference call was to clarify the current status of adoption in Ethiopia particularly as it pertains to the cases of abandonment in Addis. At this time Ethiopia is suspending abandonment cases in Addis only and not cases for children who have been abandoned in other areas of Ethiopia. The court in Ethiopia recently discovered the abandonment of 16 children to one 1 police officer all at the same time; these children were then placed with 4-5 orphanages. None of these children were placed at Sele Enat, the orphanage where IAN’s children are placed. Because of the fear of possible unethical conduct and illegal practices, IAN strongly supports the Ethiopian governments investigation of these cases.

Other news from the conference call is that the Ethiopian government is expecting at least a 20% increase in international adoptions over the next year and that Ethiopia’s focus will be on maintaining it’s current level of adoptions instead of increasing adoptions over the next year; that there is a strong need for more adoptions of older children (over 4) and children with special needs; and that U.S. agencies are contributing to services for children in Ethiopia through not only international adoption, but also through health, education and other human service needs.

No news.....

2009-05-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

I was really hoping to hear news today regarding the status of what is going on in Ethiopia. I haven't heard from our agency yet. I have received some emails from other families outside the US, in the same situation as us. Amazing. Sorry to hear so many families affected by this unfortunate situation. Apparently I am getting lot of hits on my blog due to this information that I am posting. I am glad I can help with passing along info I receive. Sorry that I don't have any yet today.

Update

2009-05-16T04:11:00.000-07:00

Thursday evening we recieved an update from our agency.

Dear Families,

This is to inform you that the Joint Council on International and Children’s Services are working as well to confirm the extent of the illegal activities and investigations going on in Ethiopia regarding the abandonment children’s issue in Addis Ababa. They will be having a meeting on Monday, May 18th. Any updates on the situation that we may be able to find out from Joint Council on next week, we will be sure to pass along to you.

The State Department has also posted the information below on their website.

We are still trusting that this will have a positive end. We’re waiting to hear the judge’s decision after the investigation is complete. Certainly the MOWA can be expected to have their input as well. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

Waiting....

2009-05-14T05:22:00.000-07:00

We are still waiting to see what is going to happen with our adoption. My heart is so heavy right now. I try not to think of the negative, but its so hard. I haven been able to even go into the nursery we created for her, since all this has happened. Its hard not to think that what happens if this goes on for months? What about all the cute clothes that she may not ever wear, or the bed she will never sleep in. I mean, really....if our baby is truly abandoned and the judge just never hears cases on abandoned children again, what happens to her? Or, what if her biological parent(s) were offered money for her and were so desperate that they took up that offer? Would she be returned to them? Does she end up living her life in an orphanage? I feel for the other 9 families in the same situation. We all communicate wtih each other now practialy on a daily basis. Its great support, but also heartbreaking to see so many people who have grown attached to all the photos of the babies they were referred. Its amazing how you get attached to photos and the idea of being this little persons parent.

I have received a couple updates from my agency and another family who is with a different agency has been posting the news she hears.

This is what my agency has sent us -

Dear Families,

I know that many of you have concerns and anxiety regarding the information given in the update on last week concerning abandoned children in Addis Ababa. If you have any questions or just want to talk please contact your adoption consultant. We will be happy to walk you through what we know regarding this situation that you still may be concerned about. One question that I would like to address further is the concern that this issue will affect ALL abandoned children in Ethiopia. This is NOT the case. This will only concern children abandoned in Addis Ababa, until further notice.

We work with orphanages in the SE, Northern Ethiopia, and also in the surrounding counties of Addis Ababa.

That is how some families who had court dates on last week, and are adopting abandoned children, were approved, while others with court dates that same day adopting abandoned children were not. This situation only affects those abandoned children in Addis Ababa.

The earliest that I thought we would hear anything regarding this issue would be yesterday(Tuesday), however after multiple phone calls to the country, and the power outage, I was not able to make contact by phone or email. I did speak to our in country representative this morning however, and though it is still not known how the judge is going to process these cases of abandoned children, or what new procedures will be put in place, if any; our rep did mention that the abandonment cases that caused the stoppage of hearing abandonment cases is being investigated by the police and a decision will be made on how the court will process future cases once they receive the results of the investigation. Our representative is hopeful that we could hear something some time next week.

The judge did mention that depending on the decision that would be made, the agencies could appeal any decision and ask the MOWA (Ministry of Woman’s Affairs) to give their opinion for the children who already have families and court dates. Because we have so many families who have had court dates long before this situation actually came up in country, our rep is very hopeful that the MOWA and the court will recognize that for the sake of the children, and give a positive opinion regarding these cases and allow them to be heard.

We won’t know of course until after the investigation is complete.

Though this situation is very stressful for some families and causes some uncertainly and anxiety, we truly want to uphold the highest standards of ethics as it relates to this work, and whenever there are unethical acts taking place in a country (any country), at some point, some one is going to notice that and take action to correct it, and this is what is happening here. That’s how different rules and regulations come into place in international adoption. We certainly want to place as many children that need a home as we can, however, we want to ensure that everything is in order for all children that we place, and I’m sure you do as well.. I would think/hope that the judge’s decision would not take too terribly long. We’ll certainly keep you informed on anything additional that we find out. Again please let us know if you have any additional questions and know that our prayers are with those families who are waiting in limbo at this time for the judge’s decision. I encourage you to remain positive, as we are, and stay strong.

Blessings, Ethiopia Staff

One of the familes with a different adoption agency has posted this -

Via the information I received today, from my agency director, who is currently in Addis, a preliminary investigation by the High Court has been completed. This preliminary investigation found that 1 police officer and 1 SW from Addis were involved in the cases of 17 children, which were "found" by the police officer and labeled "abandoned" by the SW.

Evidently, the children were not actually abandonded and do have birth parents. A more extensive investigation is currently underway, so they can, as soon as possible, get new court dates for the Addis children, labeled as abandonded, whose court dates have been postponed. It is believed that children other than the core (17) have NO connection to this single police officer and SW.

That is the extent of the information I received, and my agency director received it today from our in-country attorney (who's sister is the chief investigator for MOWA.) Tomorrow, my agency's director is having meetings with the US Consulate, MOWA, and court officials.If I recieve any more information, I will report it to this board.

Yesterdays update from her-

Families -- As promised, I want to pass along any information I receive from my agency director this week, while he is in Addis. Today we exchanged several emails (the internet is up and running today!). He did not have any new news about the families who have seen post-poned Court dates, but did say the Courts are "working diligently" to resolve the matter. He held meetings yesterday with Court representatives and MOWA. He seemed very happy about these meetings.

All we can do is wait. At least I know that she is in good care. I hope and pray we hear something soon.

Where do we go from here......

2009-05-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

I had to wait a couple days to post about our court date on Friday. I still have that giant golf ball in the back of my throat, I am hoping to get that to go away soon. It was hard enough to think about let alone to write about!

John and I are spending a weekend in Virginia. We lived in Southeast Virginia for a little over 3 years. John needed to take a business trip here, so I tagged along to see some old friends, check out the 2 houses we once owned and just have a nice relaxing get away!

I have been looking forward to Friday, May 8th for months. This was the day where Amara would become officially ours. I had all her pictures prepared in a video montage to post on my blog and facebook. The rule was, you had to pass court and then you can share your photos.

Friday morning was exciting. The other families with court dates are chattering away through email and the forum we have all connected with each other on. I was glued to my blackberry, and our adoption agency had set up a 1pm conference call with all the families. I decided to head over to Williamsburg to kill some time. I drove through the country and headed to the ferry to cross the James river. This was good, because on the ferry ride, I could read and reply to all the emails from the other families waiting like I was. After making it to Williamsburg, I received a call from Toni, our adoption case manager. She said she had some bittersweet news. The news was we didn't make it through court. We weren't denied by the judge, our case simply wasn't heard. She said on the conference call they will explain whats going on.

I wasn't too concerned. I was thinking oh....there were too many cases that day the judge didn't get to us, or maybe the power was out in Addis. I drove around for a while and ended up in a parking lot of a Target and a grocery store I used to frequent. John was in the middle of meetings and and couldn't get away. It was time to call in. Sharon the director of our agency had all the families on the phone that were in the same situation as we were. She proceeded to tell us the judge refused to hear our cases at this time.

The judge has suspended hearing cases of abandoned babies and children in Addis Ababa. Why? because of issues that are happening and happen with a lot of countries in international adoption. Corruption and unethical practices with other adoption agencies and orphanages. Babies who are sold and stolen and listed as abandoned.

I dont blame the judge. If it was found that our baby that was referred to us, had a mom out there that had no intention of giving her up, then that is where our baby should be - with her mom. Now...I truly think our baby was abandoned. I think this because of all the circumstances of her story and because I trust Children's Hope International. They strive to always try do things right.

That call was so hard. The whole adoption process is hard, lots of emotions that are up and down. I never imagined this would happen. Is there a chance we may never see the baby? Yes. But also the same amount of chance we will bring her home. The judge just needs to make the decision to hear our cases. The strangest thing is that I found myself in tears trying to make my way back to the Smithfield Inn where we were staying. I had a flashback of when I lived in Virignia years ago. People who are close to me know I had a very hard time when I had moved here before. I had just lost my dad at 56 years old. I was in a new marriage, moved to a new state and was terribly home sick. I spent a lot of time the first few years grieving about my father and a lot of driving and and tears. How strange that I am back in the same place in tears, driving and feeling grief about possibly not completing this adoption.

The hardest part is I don't know when this will happen. All through the process there was always something in the future, the day you complete your paperwork, the day you receive your referral, the day you receive your court date. I think the hardest part is there is not another date to be waiting for. I don't know what to focus on. The good thing is, our baby is getting great care by her loving nannies at the House of Hope. She will be 7 months old in a couple weeks. I received some new photos Friday night and a little update from another traveling family.

"She is adorable!!!!! Lots of hair and big beautiful eyes, she was sitting up in the walker and Paul took a picture of her doing so I will email that to you today "

Its so great to hear she is thriving. I cant imagine not ever seeing this sweet little baby. I am hoping and praying this all works out.

This is the update from our adoption agency -

Abandoned Child Issue

It has come to our attention that the Ethiopia Federal Court, as of this week, will not been hearing adoption cases of children who were abandoned in Addis Ababa, until futher notice. We had several families who had court dates scheduled for today who are being affected by this. Please know that this is not only affecting families with our agency,but for all agencies placing abandoned children from Addis Ababa, until further notice.

There was a case brought before the judge where a large number of children were presented as abandoned; there were many circumstances surrounding the children's paper work that made the judge suspicious,thus it was determined that the children were not in fact abandoned children at all. As a result, these adoptions were not allowed to go through. This was NOT Children's Hope families, and actually the name of the agency and those involved have not been released by the judge.

In our updates, we continually speak about ensuring ethical practices in adoption, for everyone involved in adoption. When something goes wrong in a country (in any country), it not only affects that agency, oroprhange, but many, and sometimes everyone involved in adoption in that country. That is the situation with the abandoned child issue that you may have heard families speaking about today. Everyone is not following the guideline of the Ethiopian Government and individuals are being made accountable.

We really do not have any information at this point regarding how long this decision will be in effect. The Judge in the Ethiopia Federal Court is making a decision regarding how the court will handle such cases. We will certainly keep you abreast of any information that we find of.

The Ethiopia team had a conference call with all of the families affected by this decision who had court dates scheduled for today. We elected to do that as there were 14 families with court dates today, our largest group at one time to date. We felt that it would be more effective and we could get information to each family in a more timely manner, and everyone would be hearing the same thing, if we had the mall on a call together. We certainly were hoping to give all the families the news that their adoption had been approved today and to discuss the process from here; however, unfortunately it turned out to be a call discussing why their adoption was not heard today.

We called families individually first to give them the news, as we didn't want them to here for the first time about their court date on the conference call, and asked families if they would not post any news about their court date until after our call with all of them. We certainly wanted them to hear the information from us first before they would post the information without really having details. We feel that that was in the best interest of the family regarding their personal adoption. We wanted to ensure that they had the information that WE would be presenting to them and that they would hear the news from us first and no one else, especially not from reading it on a blog . After the families received the information they were free to post as they'dl ike. The families also knew that this information would be in this weeks update for all families to be made aware of.

A few families did have their adoptions approved in the court today.These children were also abandoned; however, the children were not abandoned in Addis Ababa. Again the decision to not hear abandonment cases at this time only relates to children abandoned in Addis Ababa,not any of the surrounding areas.

The Judge in the Federal Court will determine what the next step will before all abandoned cases. We are hopeful that we will know something soon, however, no time frame has been given.

There are so many entities involved in presenting paperwork on the child that an agency would ultimately refer, that it is imperative that agencies, orphanages, facilitators, government offices, police officers,everyone involved in adoptions truly take a strong ethical stance for the sake of the children and international adoption.
I know that many of you will have additional questions. Please feel feel to contact your adoption consultant, or myself, and we'll be happy to
answer your questions.

We are believing for a favorable resolution, and our Ethiopia representative is very hopeful as well and he will be following this and of course going to the court to process other adoptions as well. We'll just have to wait, and pray, for now. Our prays are with the families too who had to receive this news today too,we know it's not easy to hear, or digest; but I say to you...

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute,if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. Philippians 4:8-9 God is still moving.!!

John and I are heading home today, back to Kansas City. It was nice in a way to not be at home when we received the news. I cant even think about seeing her nursery with her photos framed and the letters of her name on the wall.

To leave this on a positive note, my husband seems to always be right. He is one of the most logical and intelligent people I know. He isn't as concerned as I am, and he truly thinks this will be resolved quickly. He said this is what he deals with every day in his job in international business. John always seems to have a good sense of things and things always tend to work out how he predicts.

All for now, we are hoping for news this week.

Baby Shower Explosion!

2009-04-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

We were very blessed with two wonderful baby showers last weekend. Friday, Johns co-workers at Farmland Foods threw us a great shower. We enjoyed seeing everyone and all the lovely presents!

Sunday we had another shower that my sister Mechelle, best friend Kristi, Mom and Grandma put together. It was fabulous!!

We now are stocked with so many things, we have a weekend ahead us us to get Baby Tiny's room ready and organized! We have enjoyed going through all the presents two and three times..so many cute things!

Amara's room is an explosion of gifts!

My best friend Kristi had this made and it was sitting on the table with the food and cake at the shower. It lights up and is sooo cute! Very special, and proudly displayed in Amara's room!

This child will definitely know her name!!

We are 1 month away from the court date. If all goes well, we will acutally be leaving a week earlier than we thought! We will head to Ethiopia the last week of May. We are still trying to figure out our flights, but I have reserved the master room at the New Flower Guest home in Addis Ababa.

John is very busy at work and recently returned from some international travel. He went to China and Phillipines. We are glad he got this trip out of the way so he wont have to leave for a while! Billy really objects to these trips! Can't you tell?!

Two weeks ago, I hosted a shower for a very good friend, Angie. She is due in May!!! After the shower when I was cleaning up, Bosco discovered he really likes helium balloons.

Baby Tiny has a new blanket!

2009-04-05T09:42:00.001-07:00

WE received the CUTEST little blanket today from John's Aunt Mary Kay. What a special gift.....thank you so much. I loved how she stiched Baby Tiny on the inside of the softest little blanket.

Ahhhhhhhhhh, a COURT DATE!!!!

2009-02-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

Great news today! Our agency told us today that we have been issued a court date. Now the real countdown begins. May 8th is the date!! Once we pass court - our embassy date that we have to be present for is set,(the tentitive date is in the beginning of June- which hopefully will be moved up to May, so we can travel soon after and not have to wait any longer) We will then be on our way to pick up baby Amara!

We hope and pray that we make it through on the first time in court.We have been staring at her photos for the past couple weeks, it will be amazing to see her in person!

The day has come!!!!!!!! We have a referral!!!!

2009-02-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

We just accepted our referral today for a beautiful, precious, tiny 3 month old baby girl.

We actually received our call on Monday 1/27 at 1pm. I looked down at my office phone and saw on the called ID that is was Children's Hope. My heart was pounding so hard! On the other end of the line was Toni,our case manager. She told me she had John on the line and had some news for us! Toni proceeded to tell us about this sweet little baby.

Let me tell you, the last two weeks have been a whirlwind. Something really amazing happened.... There is an unbelievable story behind all this and I want to share it, but I have to wait until the adoption is complete write about it. There are a few people that John and I owe so much to, these people are such saints!

I also want to commend our agency. Childrens Hope International is a wonderful agency, and staff at the St.Louis office and from what I am hearing the group is Ethiopia is absolutely wonderful.

For our blog readers that are not in this adoption world, unfortunately we are not allowed to post photos of the baby until we have passed court. These are very strict rules that we have to follow! But...I will tell you, she is really pretty. She has huge brown eyes and the cutest lips. She has a lot of hair for such a little squirt!

We cant wait to meet her! So our next step is that we wait for a court date to be issued. This is a bit of a downer, because the process used to be fairly quick. Ethiopian adoptions have just taken off..the amount of adopting familes is increasing each month. There just isn't enough judges (only 2 or 3?) to process all these families, so the wait times have gotten longer.

I know we will hopefully travel in the spring. That means that she will be closer to 6-7 months old. She will have changed so much by the time we have her in our arms!

Referrals today! ALL BOYS!!

2009-01-21T13:45:00.000-08:00

Good news today for some very lucky families! This is an email I just recieved -

Dear Families,

The Ethiopia team is happy to announce that we received 3 referrals
today. 3 beautiful baby boys. Two boys are 2 months old and 1 is 6 months old.
Congratulations to the happy families.

Sharon M. Turner

Soooo.....wow. Where the heck are the girls! I am excited to see some referrals come in, but BOY, THIS WAITING STINKS!!!!!!!

Last week, I had an interesting conversation with our agency about the possibly to change our request to a boy. It would move us up to #1 in line and it turns out, it would be very simple since it would be as easy as just requesting it! No additional paperwork or home study addendums. I have seriously thought about just changing our preference to either and see what happens. After discussing this with John, we just decided to wait a bit and see what happens in the next few weeks! After all, I think the very girly nursey furniture wouldnt sit well with a little boy!

Stay tuned........

Amara (ah-mah-rah) Zabel

2009-01-12T15:15:00.000-08:00

Meaning of the name AMARA : In the legends of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) Amara is the name for paradise. Also, "amara" is a Kiswahili word meaning "urgent business."

Amara can also be a name of African origin, with two given suggestions. Firstly, it can be a female Igbo name meaning 'graceful'. It could also be a shortened form or nickname for the name Amarachi, which means 'God's grace' in Igbo. There are examples of it being occasionally used as a male name in such cultures.

~Amara Zabel~

Nothing new to post in our adoption world. We are still waiting to hear something from our agency! Its been a little too quiet, Its been three weeks and not any referrals for the families waiting.

My mom and I enjoyed a lovely lunch at Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurant on Sunday. We met up with many other KC families who are in the process or have already adopted! It was so much fun to see all the beautiful Ethiopian children. I didnt bring my camera and I am so mad at myself! Hopefully I can get a few of the photos from someone else who snapped a few shots.

All for now! Hoping for some exciting news sometime soon!

Eight Months and Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T07:54:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!!

Eight Months....can you believe it? The adoption process is such a roller coaster of emotions that I could have never prepared for!! There are so many ups and downs. One year ago (acutally 2007) when we started the process, the timeline with our agency was different. When we completed our dossier, we were for sure we would have our little girl home by Christmas. The wait has been extended some, but I have a feeling that our referral is coming very soon. It has to be...because I dont know how much longer we

The good news is, our agency is opened back up today after being closed for two weeks for Christmas break. We were told that even through the agency office was closed, things can be still moving in Ethiopia and referrals can still be coming in, and the familes would have to wait until the week Jan 5th to hear anything. So we are hoping to hear this week that many families receive some referrals and court dates!

We are so ready to get that call see who our daughter is.

Still waiting.............

2008-12-24T06:43:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted lately, because we have been soo bummed and not any really exciting news to share. We really thought we would have received "the call" before Christmas! We didn't, and John and I are still waiting for a referral. We are approaching 8 months!! The bummer news is that I found out we were actually pushed back in line a bit. I didn't know this was possible. But it is. Apparently, if a family with their dossier in line in front of us, changes their preference to what we are requesting, then they are in front of us. Only because they have been waiting longer than us. Meaning...if a family originally requested siblings, and decided to change to an infant female, then they will be ahead of us. Luckily, this doesn't happen much, but it can - and it did! At least twice! So that number six that I have been boasting about isn't even accurate. Who knows what number we are. Luckily, we have moved down in line, so we just will wait patiently. :) I think we are lower than six at this point.

The good news is last week our agency gave out EIGHT referrals. Most of them were boys! So if I had not have changed our paperwork from stating "no preference, male or female" to only female, we would received a referral last week and it would have been a boy. Our agency is closed for two weeks for the holidays, and will reopen on January 5th. Hopefully when they return there will be a lot of great news from Ethiopia and maybe it will be raining referrals again! Here is the last update from our agency -

Ethiopia Update 12-19-08
Dear Families

Our office will be closing today at 1pm to celebrate Christmas with the staff. We will reopen on January 5th. The Ethiopia team wishes everyone a very joyous Christmas and a glorious and prosperous New Year.

Traveling families
We will have 7 families traveling over the next two weeks to bring their children home . What a wonderful Christmas gift. Congratulations to all the families. These 7 families will bring a total of 8 children home. We wish them a safe journey.

This month we received a total of 16 children for referral, including one little 14 month old boy and a 10 month old boy who were just referred today. We will be closing out 2008 with at total of 74 children home. We are expecting to more than double that number of adoptions in 2009. So keep the faith, for those who are still waiting, your day is just around the corner.

Court Dates
With the number of adoptions taking place in Ethiopia and the limited number of officials handling adoptions there, we can expect court dates to be pushed out a little in 2009, in order to process all of the adopt cases there.

HOH (House of Hope)
The HOH can accommodate 50 children; and it is at capacity at this point. This does not stop us from receiving additional referrals. Some of the children will stay at their orphanage until families travel for their children and more room is made at the HOH for other children to move in. Yet some other children stay at their orphanage until the court takes place, per the contract with the orphanage. There are currently 10 nannies, 1 pediatrician and 1 nurse on staff to help take care of the children. Actually our entire incountry staff of 22 assist with taking care of the children. Many of them are hands on with the children, doing whatever they can to assist, as many of you know who have already traveled.

Dossier
For families working on your dossier, please remember to have your adoption consultant to review your documents prior to sending it for state certification. If there are changes that need to be made, it's better to catch them early prior to having the documents state certified and possibly having to have them certified again, should there be an error.

Please be reminded as well that families who have reference letters, or other documents in the dossier from a state other then where you live, that document will have to go back to the state where it was notarized for State Certification. So you may want to consider a reference who lives in your same state.

2009 Fee Increase
Please be reminded that there will be a fee increase for new families entering the Ethiopia program at the start of the new year. If you know of someone who is contemplating adopting, please have them to submit their application before the end of the year so that they will be on the current fee schedule.

Office Closure
This year the CHI offices will be closed for 2 weeks for the Christmas/New Year holiday. The last day in the office for CHI staff will be Friday 12/19/08; (we will only be open ½ day, in the morning) and the office will not reopen until Monday 1/5/09. I will not be sending out a weekly update during the 2 weeks that the office is closed unless there is urgent information to inform you of. Likewise there will be no dossiers sent to Washington DC, the week of Dec. 15th until we return. Also, should there be any referrals that come during the two weeks that the office is closed, the children will be referred upon our return. There are no additional adoption cases scheduled to be heard in the Ethiopia court until January.

Jesus is the reason for the season, Merry Christmas!!!.

Sharon M. Turner

Ethiopia Program Directorem>

Seven Months.....

2008-12-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

Seven months. It really has flown by! It seems like most referrals for families come about this point. We are still hoping for the call before Christmas. If not..that's ok! We know its soon. There are a few families in Ethiopia right now and probably getting ready to fly home with their new little babies. I am finally starting to kick in to baby mode. Just think about it. Our little girl has already been born.

John and I finally made the decision on which room in our home to make the nursery. We chose the room with the cathedral ceiling and it is painted in an eggplant purple color. This was a guestroom with a cherry sleigh bed. John has always pictured this room for the baby! So, my intention was to have it painted a girlie pastel color. I thought the eggplant color was too dark for a nursery! After taking a poll of a lot of our family members and friends, they all have told us not to paint it!

Trying to find some cute baby bedding for that color is a little challenging. Especially when the everything I find is lavender, pink or yellow! So this weekend, John and I set out to find something, because we need to get this done! I finally found some fabric for the bedding and window treatment. I am excited to get the fabric ordered and off to be made!

Stay tuned!

Nursery in progress.............

Lets hope for some referrals this week for all the families waiting! It has been two weeks since anyone has received one! I think its about time!

Dear Families,

HAPPY FRIDAY !!!!

As we enter the holiday season, I pray that you will be filled with much joy, love, contentment, peace and a heart of thanksgiving that will carry you not only during this season but in the New Year and beyond.

We are so happy to announce that our first two families with visa appointments since the courts reopened in Ethiopia have returned home.We send our heartfelt congratulations out to the families and to the children who are now have a new mom and dad and a place to call HOME!Also we are thrilled to announce that two of our special needs children have been placed from our special needs/waiting children's site.

We have prayed (as many of you have) that the Lord would send their parents forth, and He has done just that. Thank all of you who prayed for these little angels as well, and God Bless the families who will have the honor of parenting these children.

Currently there are 3 families in country. Two had their visa appointments on yesterday and will be traveling home early next week,and the other family is in country for the IR-3 visa and had successful court date on yesterday.

Congratulations to all of the happy families.

Holey smokes!!!!

2008-11-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

More referrals are coming. I am amazed. This is what I received in my email today! We have to be getting closer....a few other adoption buddies told me today they think we will get the call in 2 weeks! I am thinking, maybe we will get the call in mid to late December. We need to finish the nursery....all we have is the furniture. We cant figure out the colors or what bedding. The House of Hope (where the babies stay in Ethiopia after leaving the orphanage and wait for their forever families to pick them up) has to be getting full. I hope there is some room left, so the referrals can keep coming!!

Here is a photo of the House of Hope. This is where we will go to pick up our baby girl.

Dear Families,

More referrals have come!! Last week it was boys and this week it's raining girl referrals. The Ethiopia team is thrilled to have received 5 new referrals on yesterday. Four girls and 1 boy. The girls are ages 2 months (2) and 3 ½ months (2). The little boy was placed on our waiting children's website today, so please keep your eyes on that site and pray that those children find their forever homes soon.

The children are from 3 different orphanages and the families waited just a little over 7 months. Congratulations to all of the families!!!!!

Sharon M. Turner

Today......

2008-11-17T15:28:00.000-08:00

In my email today.........

Dear Families,
We received another referral in the Ethiopia program today; a little 2month old baby boy. Congratulations to the happy couple.

Sharon M. Turner
Ethiopia Program Director

Its great to hear the that Ethiopia program is going STRONG! So how about some girl referrals!?

IT'S STILL RAINING REFERRALS!

2008-11-13T02:53:00.000-08:00

Things are moving along! Here is the activity that happened yesterday...

Dear Families,

It's still raining referrals in the Ethiopia program. Today we received4 more referrals. All boys, ages 19 months, 7 months and two boys who are were 2 months (unrelated). No siblings this time around. I suspect that there is a whole lot of praying going on out there. :-)Congratulations to all of the families and to the precious children who will find their forever homes.
Hold on to your hats. You could be next.

Many Blessigns,
Sharon M. Turner
Ethiopia Program Director

I left out that one family who has been waiting 11 months for siblings heard on Monday that they are getting twin boys! They are 2 months old right now! Yes...a Lot of boys lately! BUT..that doesn't mean we are staying at the same place in line. Many of the families who are waiting are open to either gender. So depending on how many families chose either, we could have easily moved up 2 or 3 spots. WE could be at 10 or 11!! Hopefully I can find out soon!

SIX months.......still waiting

2008-11-04T07:42:00.001-08:00

We are about to hit the 6 month mark. Waiting is hard, I never thought it would be!!! I think its just the unknown. I hope we get a referral by Christmas! That would be the best present of all! As of yesterday, we were #14 in line waiting for an infant girl. By yesterday afternoon we dropped down to #13! Here is the email I received -

Dear Families,
The Ethiopia team is happy to announce another referral given out today. A 5 ½ month old baby girl. We've sent another family "over the moon" with joy. :-)
Congratulations.!!!!

Sharon M. Turner
Ethiopia Program Director

So we are just doing the math at this point. Every time an infant girl referral comes through then we can subtract one from the list! Lets hope for some more this week!

Here are some photos of our little pumpkin.....

The boys, hanging out... (notice how Bosco always sits on the stairs!)

Exciting news today!

2008-10-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

I recieved this in my email today......

Dear Families,
We are pleased to announce the referral of 5 children today and 1 yesterday.
The children are: 3 girls and 3 boys ranging in age from 6 months to 6years old. Actually - 6 mos, 11 mos, 13mos, 20 mos, 21mos and 6 yrs. Congratulations to all of the families and hopefully this will encourage those that still wait to know that referrals continue to come in and your time will come as well. These families waited between 3 to 7months for their referrals.
Unfortunately no sibling groups were in with these referrals. Pleaseknow that the US staff as well as our Ethiopia staff realize how long several of you have waited for your sibling referrals and we are looking forward to the day when we can call you and offer you your referrals. Keep the faith.

That is very exciting news...I have no idea where we are in line, but I know its getting closer. We are about to hit the 6 month mark. I spent all afternoon thinking about what it will be like to get the call and when we first see her little face in a photo.

All for now....

I know..im a bad blogger!

2008-10-03T11:02:00.001-07:00

We just haven't had any exciting news....but now we do! Its been alittle over 5 months!! It feels good to be moving closer to the front of the line! The last couple of weeks has been awesome for Children's Hope International...our agency. Five referrals during the first week of October. Last week there were a few more, one baby girl was only 7 weeks old!

Its pretty exciting..since these families who received their referrals were in the batch of dossiers that have been waiting since the end of March. So, our referral could be coming soon?! It would depend on how many families started their waiting in April. Those families would be in line in front of us, since we started the wait on May 6th.

So we finally have some baby furniture!! It was delivered last week. Its really cute, and we are excited to get the nursery ready. I will post some photos when we get closer to getting it completed! We waited to get closer to the window of the referral, to start the nursery - just in case it takes longer. We couldn't stand the thought of waiting for months and months with a empty nursery upstairs!

We have had a hard time making a decision on what room to use for the baby! One of our guest bedrooms is painted a deep eggplant color. The dramatic cathedral ceilings makes it a perfect room for the baby, but its so hard to decorate around that color! I even picked out a white crib, chest, dresser and hutch to hopefully lighten it up. SO we are now looking at possibly painting that room, or just using the bedroom next to it. So hard to decide!

Outside of adoption news, John and I have been enjoying our once a month trips. A couple weeks ago we flew to Burlington, Vermont. From Burlington we rented a car and took a beautiful drive into Canada. The leaves were just starting to change! Our destination was Montreal. We spent two wonderful nights in the Hotel Le Palace D'Arms. This hotel was fabulous. This was our room-

And then on to Quebec City!

Its a rainy day in Kansas City today. Definitely fall weather..October will be a busy month for us. We are hosting a get together at our home next week. John was able to get in touch with many old friends from his junior high he attended in Branson, using Facebook. A lot of them ended up in KC! We also have the Big Brother/Big Sister Halloween party that we are taking Lucas to! We need plan our costumes soon! At the end of the month we will be taking another fun trip to Toronto, Canada.

That's all the news for now! We are eagerly waiting for more referrals to come rolling in!

Here is another funny video...taken at work!

Introducing.....................

2008-09-03T17:33:00.000-07:00

Well......we can at least pretend. :) Actually, these cutie pies belong to Shawn and Lisa. We were very lucky to have the opportunity to meet them at the airport when they arrived home from Ethiopia. It was such a neat experience to meet Bethi and Amanuel! They are both such special children! Congrats Shawn and Lisa! It was so nice share a few moments with you and your new family! How fun to meet someone in this crazy adoption world and watch this whole process come full circle! I cant wait until we have some play dates in the future!

So, seeing these two sweeties has me back in the mood to think BABY! Like this adoption really might happen! It gets hard waiting. I know its ONLY been 4 months...but to not have an idea if its going to be 4, 5, or 6 months until you get a call is hard! I think we need to start the nursery. I have been putting it off thinking I will jinx our adoption in some way if I am TOO prepared. Kinda crazy thinking..

John and I have been doing some window shopping for nursery furniture. This is the set I think we are getting ready to order! NOW..if we could only agree on which room to make the nursery!

Does your Dentist do this? Part 2

2008-08-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

Another dental office web cam video. I requested the worm!! :-)
And yes....we DO see patients!!

Almost...

2008-08-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

Its hard to believe that we are approaching the 4 month mark! I used to look at the 4 month mark as the "window" of actually getting a call for a referral. I hope we are getting into the window!! I think we are getting closer, but there hasn't been ANY referrals for the waiting families in quite a few weeks. We need to get a batch or two of referrals given out to move us up in line! When our dossier made it to Ethiopia, there were about 40 dossiers in front of ours. Luckily there were quite a few referrels given out since then, so we are hopefully in the 20's!

What is amazing though, is now there are close to 100 dossiers from our agency in Ethiopia right now. The wait times are getting longer. The wait time estimate used to be 4-6 months. I think right around the time when we completed everything the wait was extended to 6-12 months! Even though we are getting closer, I feel that its still so far away. We havent even started the nursery! The wait its starting to get hard........

But good news is....our adoption friends Shawn and Lisa are in Ethiopia right now!!!! (check out their blog) They left Saturday morning for the long journey to Addis. Right now..its late afternoon in Addis Ababa. So that means, they met there children a few hours ago. I cant wait to get an update from her!!! I cant stop thinking about them and what its been like on their journey!!!

Too funny....

2008-08-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

This was recored with the web cam at the office Does your dentist do this?!

Last weekend!

2008-08-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

Things are WAY to quiet in the adoption world right now. I am really hoping to hear that some families are receiving referrals sometime soon?!?! I think all of us waiting families were getting spoiled that last few months hearing about other familes getting "the call"! Our agency has 2 or 3 families in ET now picking up children and 7 more will travel later this month. It has slowed down a bit...which is making our wait even longer!

So while we wait... John and I drove to the Northwoods of Wisconsin to his parents lake home. We thought it would be fun to take our little brother Lucas. This was a new experience for Lucas. He has never been on a boat or even around a lake! Lucas also did an awesome job on the 12 hour car ride from KC to Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin! I am posting some photos taken over the weekend.

We also had some VERY thoughtful family throw us a baby shower. Hopefully I will have some photos to post soon! Thank you Bob and Mary Kay, for hosting such a nice afternoon!

Lucas on his first ever boat ride - and he's driving!

Johns brother Mike (expert water skier) giving Lucas a lesson

Mike and Lucas

A visit to the hot dog stand

Lucas and our nephew Vlasty

The Boys

BBQ and other fun things.....

2008-08-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

Saturday was fun! Thank you to everyone who came to our home. We enjoyed the company and all the food everyone brought!

It was nice to see everyone again and meet new families who are sharing the experiences were are in this adoption process. I think we need to plan an evening out with everyone to meet up for some Ethiopian Cuisine! Unfortunately..I didn't take ANY photos! What was I thinking?!! Oh well, we just got caught up on chatting away with everyone.

We are also sending a prayer and good thoughts to Shawn and Lisa to make it through court tomorrow so they can be on there way to pick up their little ones. Lisa..you have to let me know as soon as you hear!!

Other thoughts...last week our "little brother" Lucas had a judo tournament. We really enjoyed watching him! John was so excited about it, he decide to participate in a match! I am so proud of him. Its been a few months since he has to his judo club, due to an injury. John was able to borrow a gi and here is the outcome-

(John is a black belt...but since he didn't have his gi with him, he used a competition belt which is red)
****Notice his dance move!

Kansas City Area adopting families! (who might read this blog)

2008-07-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

My husband and I are having a get-together at my home for Ethiopian Adoptive Families! We would like to meet other families in our area!(Families currently in the process of adopting from Ethiopia or those who have adopted from Ethiopia). I have posted this on the CHI Yahoo group and the local KC group

It will be on Saturday, August 2nd at 4:00pm.We can visit about our experiences, offer advice, make contacts, andwatch Ethiopian episode of Adoption Stories which I have recorded if people are interested. Please contact me if you are interested in attending so I can get a head count and we can plan for food. I will be supplying barbecue and baked beans, but will request everyone to bring one item! Please email me if you are interested! amandazabel@gmail.com

Thank you!
John and Amanda

Chicago!!

2008-07-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

Just returned from a fun girls trip in Chicago! We left on Friday and returned Sunday afternoon. I must recommend the Amalfi Hotel. The hotel is a trendy boutique hotel, with great service and fabulous accommodations. The view...well, not the best but the location was great!

Dinner at Smith and Wollensky was awesome. They are very serious about their steaks!

Some shopping on Michigan Avenue...

We also went to the Blue Man Group show....this was my 2nd time. It was even better than the first!

After the show..on to the Hancock Building an up to the 96th floor to the Signature Room for some Champagne and dessert!

Then to Navy Pier to watch a fireworks show on a boat in Lake Michigan....

And before heading home....a quick visit to Johns parents condo where (which is pretty fabulous too) to see the family. Thanks for the brunch and a ride to the airport!

Back in KC.....and back to the real world.

Two Months!

2008-07-06T16:38:00.001-07:00

Two months down! Today marks exactly two months waiting since our dossier has been in Ethiopia! Time is really going by fast! I finally feel like we can start thinking about the nursery. Yesterday, John and I went shopping and browsed for baby furniture. Decorating and shopping for furniture is absolutely one of my most favorite things to do! Now..if John and I could just agree on which room to make the baby's room...I could start painting! Well, or maybe we could hire the painter. Because both of us are horrible at painting and ruined many carpets, ceilings and trim in the past trying to do it ourselves.

We are still hoping for a referral in the fall. We are really wanting to bring home our little girl by Christmas.

Other great things that come in twos?! Our boys...Billy and Bosco. I purchased a new digital camera so I can learn to use it before the little one arrives. Here are some photos of the boys.

Go Royals!

Billy's Passport Photo

Billy with my niece Katy and my cousin Mark

More Referrals in the Ethiopia Program

2008-06-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

Exciting news today on the adoption front! 6 Referrals we given out to families waiting today. I think today is even more special because our local friends Shawn and Lisa received their referral of siblings! We met Shawn and Lisa when we were first started the adoption process in December. I look forward to Lisa's emails and postings everyday! We are so excited for them. They have waited a long 7 months...and it came today!!!Congrats to you Shawn and Lisa! We cant wait to meet them and I'm excited for the day our little ones will have play dates together!

Congratulation to all the other families who received referral's! Just in time before the courts close for a few months in Ethiopia.

If my calculations are right.....there is a possibly we might be getting THE phone call in August or September!?

Ouch!!

2008-06-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

Its time for travel immunizations. John and I both just visited the overseas travel clinic in our county health department. They only get in a few yellow fever vaccines each year and reserved a couple for us! We are hearing so many different list of vaccines that we need, so we just decided better to be safe than sorry and just to get all that are recommended for travel to Ethiopia by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I have to admit I was so nervous and have a horrible fear of shots! (even though I see patients getting injections every day at the dental office!) After it was over with...it wasn't so bad! As soon as our arms feel better, and we make it through the 5-10 day wait for side effects, I will be going back for 5 more!!

Here is some great news! Our adoption agency today announced that its raining referrals again! Its been a few weeks and today 4 families received word on getting their children. Its always so exciting to hear this...that means that we are moving up in line and getting closer to bringing home our baby.

Some other families from our agency recently came home from Ethiopia. We really enjoying reading their blogs and checking out the photos. Go check out Annies blog..her little girl is a doll!! http://www.anniesadoptionadventure.blogspot.com/

Also the McGregors recently returned home with their son! http://mcgregorjourney.blogspot.com/

Cute kids! We cant wait!

Back from LA!

2008-06-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend in California. We are definitely planning and taking some more fun trips while we wait on baby!

John loves Sumo. John loves sumo like a a lot of men love football! I really enjoyed watching John getting star struck when we would run into Sumo wrestlers around LA, before we attended the tournament Saturday night.

We spent Friday at Magic Mountain theme park. We rode roller coaster after roller coaster.....until we couldn't take it anymore! When we were on a roller coaster and I spotted a sumo wrestler below, John would of jumped off just to go meet this wrestler...as soon as we were off the ride, John took off though the park looking for him. Luckily he found him and I was able to get a photo with a disposable camera!

Saturday morning we drove our rented convertible and headed to Beverly Hills and Hollywood and Rodeo Drive. That was so much fun...my kind of thing! We enjoyed seeing the Hollywood sign and driving around the neighborhoods! On Sunday we drove to Malibu and had an awesome brunch with a bottle of champagne overlooking the ocean. I highly recommend Duke's Malibu Restaurant & Barefoot Bar!

Saturday evening was the Sumo tournament. It was pretty entertaining! I haven't always felt that way.....but once I learned about what these wrestlers endure with their rigorous training and lifestyle a sumo wrestler undergoes it totally changed my perspective. Their unique lifestyle is primarily devoted to one thing – gaining as much weight as they can. They do this because sumo wrestling has no weight divisions. So a 200-pound wrestler can compete with a 400-pounder.

The object of the game is to make some part of the opponent's body touch the floor or to push him out of the inner circle of the ring. Speed, agility and special sumo wrestling techniques contribute to winning but the heavier wrestler usually has the upper hand.

A sumo wrestler's lifestyle is composed of three things: training, eating and sleeping. Wrestlers live together in "stables" or training schools where their training, diet, and sleeping regimens are strictly watched and implemented. Sooo..... when you learn about all of the rituals and traditions it changed my view..I used to think, why would I want to watch obese men in diapers wrestling ? Here are a few photos...can you tell that John is just so excited?!?

1 Month down......

2008-06-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

We just haven't posted in a while...nothing really exciting going on now that our dossier is in Ethiopia! I actually miss running home at lunch to see what great surprise will be in the mailbox or trying to figure out how with our schedules can we achieve getting documents completed during our busy work week! I guess now.. the GREAT thing is..its almost been ONE WHOLE month that we have been officially waiting. We have been just trying to keep busy. Taking fun trips each month, entertaining at our home and playing some golf! Last month we went to Chicago, and had a great time with Johns parents. Tomorrow we are leaving for California! We are flying to LA, just to hang out, try some new restaurants, go to Magic Mountain and for Johns excitement of the trip...we are going to a Sumo tournament. (I'll be sure to take some photos to post!)

I'm sure you have heard Google earth......someone told me to look up their house today on Google Earth. After looking up my house and others...I decided to hop on over to Addis Ababa and see what it looked like. I was really amazed! I am going to post the pictures that I took!

This is the Sheraton Hotel....

Larger View of the city!

This view where you see the Blue letter A- is where the House of Hope is located!

(I'm goin there!)

Whoooo hoooo!

2008-05-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

Good news today! I just received word from our case manager with CHI. She just told me that we are "officially waiting"!! Our dossier is on its way to Ethiopia!

It feels good to be one step closer to bringing home our daughter!!

Dossier and other stuff.........

2008-04-29T11:52:00.001-07:00

I am happy to say our dossier is out of our hands! Right now, it should be in DC...I hope we get notification early next week that we are officially waiting! John went to the state office to have all the documents authenticated. It wasn't very much fun to find out that two of the documents were notarized by a Kansas notary. So that means, they cant be authenticated in Missouri. Luckily......John was able to take the afternoon off that day and zip over to Topeka, Kansas and get them taken care of the same day. He was able to get it shipped off to the Children's Hope International office in St. Louis so they can check it and make sure it all looks ok. We did get notified last week that it all looked good and it is going to DC. We cant wait to get the word that we are officially waiting! We are excited to start this next step to wait for a referral, but I know this is going to be hard!

What a process! We officially started right after Christmas. We were able to gather all the documents pretty quickly. I think what took the longest was the 5 weeks and 1 day waiting to hear back from the INS!!!

So now we just need to pass the time....and wait.

We have other great things to keep us busy. Lucas our match from the Big Brother Big sister organization is a lot of fun. Last Saturday he participated in his first judo tournament. We are very proud of him! He placed 2nd in his division. He is very dedicated to going each week to his class and his team and coach were also very proud!

This is Lucas receiving his 2nd place medal

This is us.........

2008-04-12T14:27:00.001-07:00

We are doing the happy dance today!!! I went to the mailbox this morning...and we received our I171H from the Department of Homeland Security!!!! This is what we needed to complete ALL our paperwork!! We waited 5 weeks and 1 day for this form. I started calling this INS office two weeks ago.....just to make sure everything was OK! I had to opportunity talk to a few very rude people to find out nothing! Next step.....dossier goes to St. Louis to be checked..they send it off, and we will officially be waiting for a referral. I have never been so excited to wait!

Arghhhhh!

2008-04-02T10:11:00.000-07:00

3 weeks and 5 days....waiting for the form we need from the INS so we can complete our dossier and get it to Ethiopia so we can start waiting for a referral! Very frustrating! Luckily... my office is very close to my home, so I can stalk the mail man! The INS told us it could take anywhere from 2 weeks to a couple months! I know other adopting families who have used the same office we went to, and it took 2-3 weeks....so we are anxiously waiting, and hoping it will arrive very soon.

No other new exciting news to post....but I was tagged by an adoption blog buddy Lisa..so now I have to list 75 random things about myself (and John!) Here we go.....

1. We love to travel- planning 3 trips, Chicago in May and Los Angeles in June, Wisconsin in Aug!
2. John and I haven't had meat or dairy in almost nine days, we are on a detox diet and have lived on nothing but fruit and vegetables, brown rice and tofu!
3. I have blonde hair
4. John loves Sumo wrestling
5. I have worked in the dental field for almost 15 years
6. John works for Farmland Foods - PORK!
7. We have his and her Boston terriers who demand to sleep in our bed (Johns started it)
8. John is in Houston on business right now and I know he didn't stay on the detox diet!
9. We are very excited to become parents for the first time
10. I already have everything picked out for the nursery and ready to decorate
11. I am a computer nerd and love programming websites
12. John is very good and trivia and can beat just about anyone
13. I am happy that we moved back to Kansas City from Virginia almost 3 years ago
14. John is obsessed with pinball arcade and video games and our basement shows that!
15. We are taking our "little brother" Lucas to his first Judo tournament in a couple weeks
16. A couple weeks ago I had a little accident and backed into another car with my Lexus Suv and it damaged her car but she didn't care and didn't want to report it- Strange?!
17. Our favorite restaurant in Kansas City is Le Fou Frog
18. I would also like to adopt from China or Mongolia
19. Our plans is to have a biological child after the adoption
20. I have always wanted to adopt since I was a child
21. John lived in Japan for one year
22. John has beer on tap in the bar at our house- his dream come true
23. Our house is quite a bit of home to take care of and I sometimes think we should downsize
24. It will be better once we have children, so its not so empty!
25. I think 75 items to list is way to much and I need to get back to work, so I am going to cheat and say thats all for now!

Thanks a lot Lisa! :)

Home Study and Fingerprinting.....Done!

2008-03-16T05:41:00.000-07:00

Our home study is DONE! Our social worker made a visit to our home on Feb 29th. She took a tour of our home, asked if we had a fire extinguisher and smoke detectors (we have nine!) and then we sat down and visited about the next steps. She told us to go ahead and make an appointment with the INS office. This is all done online, I found out that we could go in the following week. So our social worker was so kind to complete the last part of her home study documents and have it ready for us to pick up to take to our INS appt.

Our home study is like a book about us! It covers everything on what our parents and siblings are like, description of our home, parenting skills and even what our financial status is. We use this home study report a few times to submit with the paperwork. We had to have an approved home study to be able to apply with the INS.

Its officially been 8 days since we made our visit to the Department of Homeland Security. It was an interesting experience. I didn't even know we had an office like this in Kansas City, and it was surprisingly close to Johns office..probably less than one mile! The process took less than an hour. We had made an appointment a week before that. After we went through security, our appointment with the INS was actually at a little window! We turned in our documents and application and then were told to wait in line for fingerprinting. Fingerprinting is digital now, so we didn't leave with messy fingers!

We are excited to get our form back from the INS. This will complete EVERYTHING we need to send off in our Dossier to Ethiopia. This could take anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months! From what I am hearing that right now its taking about a month. So the quicker this little paper comes the quicker we will be on our way to Ethiopia to pick up our little girl!

YEP! That's right, we decided to ask for a girl. Originally we were going to leave it open. John really wanted a girl, I was leaning towards a boy. But for some reason, every time I would picture us with our child, I would see a girl! So, the night before the home study was complete, we called our social worker and asked if we could change it. It was no problem!

Other news....our "little brother" Lucas was promoted to a yellow belt in his Judo class. We are very proud of him!! He started Judo just a few months ago, and he is doing so well. We take Lucas to Judo each week, we are hoping to take him to a tournament in the near future. Here are some photos of Lucas during his promotion ceremony.

Homestudy

2008-02-23T05:06:00.000-08:00

So we are moving right along......so far John and I have completed 3 out of 4 homestudy visits. We were interviewed seperatly and as a couple. The last one is scheduled a week from this Friday!! Our social worker will make a visit to our home. Hopefully she has nothing but good things to say about us in her report, and once that is completed we will make an appointment with the INS.

The reason we have to make a visit to our local INS office, we have to recieve permission from the INS for our child to be able to lawfully enter the United States for the purpose of being adopted. After this approval has been given and the child has been adopted and brought to the United States under a visa and/or a green card issued by the INS, then we can then apply to the INS for the child to become a United States Citizen, just as if the child had been born to the adoptive parents as their biological child. This process could take up to 60 days...just waiting! The exciting part once we get the OK...then all of the documents we have been working on will be bundled and this will complete our Dossier. The Dossier will then go to Ethiopia, and we will sit back and just wait for a child referell!

John and I have to decide before next Friday on if we are just going to ask for a girl or a boy, or just be suprised!! We are definitley asking for a baby 18 months and under.

All for now!

Lucas

2008-02-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

Lucas is our 10 year old "little brother" . He is the one in the photo holding the red guitar! John and I became what Big Brothers and Big Sisters call a "Big Couple". We decided to donate some time each week, and looked in to seeing if we could join Big Brothers Big Sisters. Once it was decided we would be ok to apply. The next step was filling out an application online. After about a week, our case manager called us. He told us he would be our case manager and they he would make a visit to our home. He then told us about a new program called Big Couple. This allows us to be match with a child and do this as a couple!

So this past September we were matched with Lucas! Lucas lives right outside of downtown KC. We spend a few hours each week hanging out with Lucas. Dorian is his 9 year old brother.....Dorian currently does not have a Big Brother or a Big Couple to hang out with, so we had him over with Lucas on Sunday. We had great time playing video games, guitar hero and doing Karaoke!

We are especially excited about this evening. Since we have met Lucas, John has enrolled him in a weekly judo class. Lucas is getting promoted from a white belt to a yellow belt. He will be really suprised tonight! We will take some photos and post them soon!

This is Dorian playin some video games!

John and Lucas playin some Guitar Hero!

2008-02-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

John reporting here (though Amanda is hovering nearby)...

We both took the day off of work yesterday to take care of some of the documentation we need to get our homestudy started. We both had physicals and we got our police reports from the Kansas City police department. Fortunately, both things came off without incident (looks like that embezzlement rap from '98 has been expunged from my record). In our 75 step process, we are through step 16. We are awaiting our marriage certificate from the state of Nevada and we will have everything we need to submit paperwork to the agency to start our homestudy. Next steps are to get our reference letters.

With our extra time yesterday, Amanda and I took in Juno at the local theatre. Highly recommended and exceptional performances by everyone in the cast.

Tonight, we will be taking Amanda's Grandmother Betty out to dinner at Stroud's (Famous for Fried Chicken) for her 86th birthday! I should sleep like a baby tonight after falling into a food coma.

I guess that's all for now.

75 Little Steps...

2008-01-21T14:24:00.000-08:00

John here...
I decided to make a timeline of every conceivable step along the way to help me quantify this process. So much information was thrown our way on Friday and not in chronological order, I needed to do the guy thing and organize and evaluate each step, so I can reasonably track our process. Simple task, eh? Going through the reams of instruction that we have accumulated to date, I have identified a mere 75 steps (4 of which we have complete) that will get us home with our new baby! I then scientifically estimated the time it would take for each step. I color-coded the steps to identify steps that can be completed simultaneously (Blue and aqua), interviews (peach), things we have no control of the time (green), and arrival back home baby in tow-the ultimate goal (Gold). If I'm right, we will be coming home with little schnickelbritches on Wednesday, October 22nd (about 6:26 PM). Using our timeline, hopefully Amanda and I can identify places where we can expedite the process and hopefully finish this process a little earlier. My system is darn-near fool-proof.

We have been informed that the Ethiopian courts shut down from mid-August until the first week of October. If we are lucky we may be able to get a referral early enough that the court date can occur before this summer break. I think we may be running up against it, though. My scientific timeline gives us a referral on Thursday, July 31 (about 11:43 AM).

Anyway, Amanda and I can knock out 11 steps tonight. Away we go!

Orientation!

2008-01-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

John and I just returned from Children's Hope Agency in Overland Park, Kansas. We had our orientation today with Jill. She is the Ethiopian Program Coordinator. We are officially starting our home study. Nikki will be our social worker..she will be making a visit to our home sometime soon to check us and our home out...not to mention everything that has happened in our past!

We have so many things to get together to complete what they call our dossier. Its basically a collection of documents that will be sent to Ethiopia. We are hoping to move through this stage pretty quickly....we have already started ordering copies of our birth certificates and marriage license.

All for now!

Starting the journey.......

2008-01-17T09:03:00.000-08:00

Its time......we have decided to adopt!! After a lot of research about international adoption, we submitted our application to Childrens Hope International. We have asked to be considered for the Ethiopian adoption program.

So, as of December 28th, our application was mailed. Yesterday we were notified that we have our application has been accpeted and we are ready to roll!

Next step is to complete our home study and all that paperwork...........

Stay tuned!