It's better than bad, it's Good!

I think that adoptions are to judges what tithing settlement is for LDS Bishops - Happy moments in the midst of often...stressful moments, though chances are good and hopes are high that I'll never be able to ratify either claim.  As it turns out, the happiest events in my family have taken place in temples and courts (and once in our living room, but we were a skyped extension of a courtroom that day!).

If there is anything that can strike more terror into your soul than a court summons, it's a court summons in another country.  I took Carrie to Tijuana with me on a business trip once, and one evening while we were driving around El Centro we got pulled over by the police.  They asked me to get out of the car.  I had terrible visions of them taking me away on unfounded charges while the other officer yelled at my wife in Spanish as though that would help her understand what he was saying, and then leaving her there all alone at night in a place she didn't know with a language she didn't speak and, well...Tijuana (shudder).  Luckily they were just verifying that I had purchased Mexican car insurance for my rental car, but in that moment I was as grateful as I've ever been to have the less than perfect USA law enforcement and judicial system.

Today we found out that we have a court date in Ethiopia!  We don't know what the date is, thanks to some e-mail confusion, but we know that it is towards the end of February, and we know we'll still get to go pick my Dad up like we've been planning for 13 years...  Needless to say, we are super excited to go to Court in Ethiopia, and we aren't the least bit terrified that one of us will be Tijuana'd.

Actually I just checked the dates that Carrie and I guessed the day we went off hold. Carrie guessed 10/21 as our referral date and that was within a week of our actual referral date.  I guessed 2/21 as our court date, and it looks like that will be within a week of our actual court date.  Here's hoping that Carrie's Embassy date guess is right (3/21)!

Update on Ethiopia

Now that I've finally blogged about bringing Noah home, I can get back to talking about all the inaction that's been going on with our Ethiopian adoption!

When we started the process to adopt from Ethiopia we didn't have any children. NONE. Our dossier was sent in September of 2009. We found out about Caleb in early October 2009 and then we brought him home in December 2009. Caleb and our Ethiopian baby can be twins! ...we thought.

Fast forward to August 2010. We need to adopt a baby NOW! was the thought we got. October 2010 Noah enters the world and finds his place in our family. Noah and our Ethiopian baby can be twins! ...we think.

Who knows when we will get a referral for this little one? We thought he was going to be our first child. ...then we thought he was going to be our second child. ...now we're almost positive she'll be our third child.

Did you catch that? I said SHE. We are officially going to wait for a girl! Yea for girls! We called our agency and told them that, even though it says we'd take either gender, we really only want a girl. It just feels right. What also feels right is increasing our age range from 0-18 months to 0-24 months. Not a big deal, but when you feel prompted to do something, you best just go ahead and do it. We are also now open to mild to moderate special needs. That also may or may not be a big deal. But you never know.

We are also in the process of updating our dossier. Turns out that the Ethiopian government has decided that if your paperwork is older than 18 months then it's too old. So you have to redo it. Basically, we've had to re-apply all over again. That means getting reference letters, police reports, bank statements, power of attorney, medical statements, employment letters, etc. ALL over again. And ALL notarized. So we've been busy these past few weeks getting all that stuff done. Turns out it IS easier the second time around. All we have left is updating our homestudy. And, as of this morning, we are almost done with that! Yea!

Where are we in terms of waiting now? Well, if we were okay with getting a boy, then we'd be about #2 on the list. That means we could get a referral in the next month or so. However, since we are now waiting for our little girl, the wait will be longer. And we are totally okay with that. Noah is only 4 months old and I would be lying if I said I'd be okay with adding another child by summer. As it is, hopefully we'll get a referral by summer. Then the REAL wait begins.

So, that's where we are in a nutshell. Happily waiting for a girl! I'm excited! Hopefully, someday I will be able to do cool things like THIS to her hair. :)

I guess I need to start practicing.