Court Date!

We've received our court date! Our case will be presented to MOWA in Ethiopia on January 4! Please pray that we pass court on that date.

We should be receiving a physical update on our daughter in a few days and then a developmental update toward the end of the month. Please pray that she will continue to gain weight and that we will all be prepared for her homecoming.

Alex

Conference Call

I just listened to the conference call recording, and it looks like we should receive a court date sometime in December. The great news is that on average the court dates are being scheduled no longer than a month out. So our court date could be scheduled as early as January. That leaves us traveling in February or early March. Please remember these are just our best guesses based on the averages we have been given.

We always appreciate your prayers. Please continue to pray:

That we will have no major issues passing court.

That our baby girl will continue to grow and gain weight.

That we, and Vaughn, will be prepared for her homecoming.

Alex

We have a daughter!

We received our referral November 5th. I'm so sorry that I didn't post sooner. I'll be honest. It has taken all of my brain capacity to remember to update Facebook and attempt to get our "announcement" email out to every person I can think of. I promise to try and do better in the future. ;)

Our referral came much sooner than we expected - just over 7 months into our wait. So I was in complete shock when I checked my messages and heard, "Hi Alex, this is Sara from Gladney. I have your referral. Call me back when you can." What?!?! I completely freaked out. I hung up the phone before listening for her extension. Called 411 to get the number to Gladney. My hands were shaking, Vaughn was cackling in the background wondering what I was so excited about and why I kept saying, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh."

I went and picked Doug up from work and we headed home. We listened as a virtual stranger described our daughter to us. (Our original caseworker moved recently and I'm pretty sure neither of us had ever spoken on the phone with our new caseworker before this point.) She told us that she is 10.5 months old - now 11 months on Monday. She is the most beautiful little girl with big, studious eyes and beautiful pouty lips. Sara said that her caregivers describe her as quiet and reserved. In the pictures she showed us we saw this strong and curious little girl. She looks so old in her pictures - much like Vaughn did. Not much of a babyface and with a lot of thought behind her sweet eyes and not so much as one smile. Exactly like her big brother.

We are now waiting for our court date. We hope to receive one in about 2-6 weeks. We have an update on Monday and I will post something further at that point. I will definitely post when we receive our court date.

Thank you for praying and supporting us through our wait,

Alex

It's about time...

For another update. Unfortunately we have no news. The current wait hasn't changed. It is still 8 months and we are 6.5 months in. However, I think it will be closer to 9 months and we will hit the 9-month mark the day after Christmas. So I think there is a good chance that it will be January before we receive our referral.

At this point, there is a very good chance that our daughter is born and is in the care of an orphanage. Once we receive and accept our referral she will be transferred to one of Gladney's foster care home in Addis.

Please pray for patience for us as we get closer and closer to seeing a picture of our sweet baby girl. The wait has actually been much easier than I had anticipated, which has been a huge blessing. I was definitely thinking that I would be a complete and total basket case for our entire time on the waitlist. :)

Thank you for going through this journey with us. We appreciate all of the support.

Alex

August Conference Call

I realized I posted the new wait time on Facebook, but neglected to mention it on our blog. Sorry!

The current average wait time for our age range is still 8 months. We are so excited. We realize that it will likely increase to 9 months before we receive our referral, but that still means that we are over halfway through our wait. Praise God!

He is good... all the time.

Alex

One of those days...

Today I am struggling with patience. Occasionally I become aware of milestones before they arrive and then waiting for them is torturous. On Wednesday I realized that we were one week away from our 5 month mark on the waitlist. That day also happens to be our monthly conference call with the updated wait times. Last month was such a great report. I'm just praying that the wait time remains the same. It's all I can think about. This is really the first month that I have been really concerned about the wait times increasing. The first two times it was a total shock and then last month, when it actually went back down, I was completely prepared for another increase.

We have booked up the rest of our year with well spread out trips, so we have a lot to look forward to. I'm hoping that will keep us occupied for the next few months. Plus some structure is about to return to our week as the school year approaches and we start Bible study up again.

Please continue to pray for Vaughn and his understanding of the adoption process. He understands so much more than I thought he would and for that I am SO grateful. Also, we are planning on moving soon, so please pray for wisdom for us as we make that decision. And, as always, please pray for the health of our baby girl and for peace for her sweet birth mother.

Love and thanks for all of your prayers and support,

Alex

Old Video

Here is a funny video that I completely neglected to post earlier this year. It is from February... but better late than never!

Wait Time Update

Today was our July update from Gladney. The numbers improved slightly for the wait times, which was great news. Honestly I was bracing myself for another increase in our wait. Of course, I feel obligated to say, the times will most likely change multiple times from now until we receive our referral and pass court.

For the time being, the current average wait time for adoptive parents waiting for children in our age range is 8 months. Last month this number went up to 9 months so this update was a huge relief. Also, it looks like the wait time from acceptance of a referral to receiving a court date is still hovering around 1-2 months. So that is very encouraging as well. The court dates are currently being scheduled about 3 weeks out and then parents typically travel about 2-5 weeks after passing court.

So this was all (much needed) good news.

I will end with some lyrics from a song we sang on Sunday that always makes me think of our baby girl...

I have decided I have resolved
To wait upon you Lord
My rock and redeemer shall not be moved
I'll wait upon you Lord

Please keep our baby girl and her birth mother in your prayers,

Alex

Is she born yet?

I probably get this question more often than any other. I wish I had an answer. However many times we've been asked, Doug and I have asked ourselves that same thing ten times over. Vaughn the other day was walking around and mumbling to himself, "Baby Esther not born yet. She still not born yet." (I love that he thinks of her without us bringing her up!)

Last week on vacation I had the realization that it is now very likely that she has been born. I guess we will have to quit praying for Baby Esther "in her birth mommy's womb." Unfortunately I think that was the easy part to explain. How are we going to explain that she is born and she is ours, but that she just can't come home quite yet? Or maybe, if I'm being honest, it is me and Doug that will struggle most with that.

Thanks for hangin' in there with us,

Alex

Vaughn in Nov - Did anyone else not realize how much Vaughn has grown up in the last six months?

Still waiting.

Hi Everyone,

I have to apologize about not posting more often. I find it very hard to come up with anything worthwhile to write about right now.

It has been almost 8 weeks since we got on the wait list. I think this is the first time it has not felt "real" during this process. Sometimes I feel like she will never come home. I talk about the adoption, but I don't really feel like she is out there. It's kind of weird. It felt more real during all of the paperwork.

So just as a reminder - as much to myself as to y'all... We are almost eight weeks in to our wait. Which means that we still have about another six and a half months to go. (According to Gladney's most recent estimations.) That means we will be coming up on Christmas before we receive our referral. Then it will take another 4-6 months before we are able to travel to bring her home. So it could easily be June before we travel.

Please continue to pray for:
- the health of our sweet baby girl
- peace for her birth mother
- patience for us

Thank you all for caring so much about us and our family and for sharing in this experience with us,

Alex

I have no words...

We have been on the wait list for about a week now. I keep thinking that I will be inspired to write some amazing blog entry about how I'm feeling. The relief, the anxiety. Yes, both. Really I've just been deep in thought lately. Wondering what our daughter's name is. Wondering if her mother is at peace with the decision she is going to make - or has already made. Our daughter might even be born already. Is she already in the orphanage? Can't they get her into Gladney's foster care sooner?

I don't know which is harder: Waiting to receive our referral with all of these questions in mind, or having a picture of our sweet daughter who is across the world whom we just can't bring home yet. I think being on the wait list will get harder as we approach the end - when we know we might receive a picture of our beautiful girl any day. But then we will know where she is. We will know that she is safe and healthy. That she is being loved on and carefully looked after. Now I just sit and wonder and pray for her and her birth mother. I just pray that I will get to sit down with her birth mother someday and ask her about her story. To ask her what was going on during these tough months. To tell her thank you.

Alex

We Received Our CIS Approval Letter!!!

We had a great day today! We received our CIS approval letter just 9 days after our fingerprinting! Our spirits are lifted. Praise God!

Alex

Hello All,

We received our notice to get fingerprinted by CIS, but they did not include all of the adults in the household. So we have to call them tomorrow - when they open for the week - and get everything straightened out. I am hoping that they can simply send another notice tomorrow and everyone can get fingerprinted this week. We will see.

Please continue praying that our CIS approval will come quickly. According to Gladney's best estimates we still have another 6-10 weeks before receiving approval.

Alex

Good News!

We have made some new progress! Last Thursday we sent in our last few pieces of remaining paperwork that was needed to complete the homestudy. Today we received an email from our program assistant telling us that she is processing all of it today. So... what that means is that our homestudy should be sent to CIS very soon. Hopefully this week. The way I understand it, the packet has to be approved by our assistant's manager before it can be sent off to CIS. Then once it is approved at CIS we will get fingerprinted. I am not really sure when we will hear from them next. I think once our packet is sent off we will be able to work with our case worker on completing our dossier.

I will write again when we hear something.

Alex

New Wait Times

Hi Everybody,

Gladney has this new thing where we can listen in on a conference call once a month and get an update on current wait times and any new changes to the Ethiopia program. So I thought I would share with you our latest guess as to when our baby girl might be coming home.

As I shared last time, our estimated time of getting on the waitlist has been pushed back quite a bit. Initially we thought we might be placed on the waitlist this week or next and that is definitely not the case. Right now sometime in April is our best guess. We still have to complete a small amount of paperwork, get CIS approval, complete our dossier and then get the dossier authenticated. We will work as fast as we can, but some of this stuff is simply out of our control.

It looks like the average time on the waitlist is 6 1/2 months right now. And I guessing that since we are waiting for a girl it will be at least 7 months - though there are many other factors. So if we get on the waitlist in April that means we might get a referral in November, but probably more like December. Then after that it looks as if it will take 1-3 months to get a court date and the court dates are usually scheduled for 10 weeks out from that point. All that adds up to us possibly not traveling for another 14 to 15 months. Maybe April or May of next year.

Please continue to pray for our developing patience with this process. Everytime we hear that it will be a little longer it is very discouraging. We really wanted to bring her home this year. It just isn't looking like that will happen. I just have to keep reminding myself that we started this journey in September and it is already February. Then I realize how quickly this will all pass by and we will be holding our baby before we know it.

Alex

A little bit of progress...

So it looks like our home study is complete. However, we don't have all of the paperwork for the new babies finished so we will have to wait until we receive all of that to send it off. Basically we are waiting for birth certificates to arrive in the mail. I really don't have any idea how long it will take to receive them. Maybe a month? Hopefully less.

Once everything is sent off, we wait for CIS approval and then we get fingerprinted. Please be praying that our living situation doesn't hold up the approval process. I guess we are now hoping that we will get on the wait list sometime in March.

I will let you know when we make any more progress. Thanks for seeing us through all of this.

Alex

Guess Who??

No News

Hey everybody,

I have absolutely nothing to update you on. Our homestudy was conducted 7 weeks ago and it still hasn't been fully written up. We can't move on at all until it is completed.

Needless to say, we are extremely disappointed. We are most likely looking at March or April now for getting on the wait list. This is will not affect the age she will be when she comes home, but it means that we will probably not be traveling to Ethiopia before December.

Wish I had something more exciting to share. We will write again as soon as some progress is made.

Thanks for all of your prayers!