I never thought I would hate Fridays....

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 Weeks

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

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

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

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

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

3 Weeks....

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


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


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

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

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

Just stuff....

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

Yesterday, I did receive this bit of news,


Dear All:

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

· Kebebe Tsehay Orphanage
· Ketchene Orphanage
· Kolfe Youth Center


I hope this information is helpful.
Regards,

Paul Cantrell
Consular Section Chief


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

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

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







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

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

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

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

Update......

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

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.....

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.