No news was good news!

We're alive! I was just thinking, "we've received some news today that people may want to know. Maybe I should send out an e-mail." Then I thought, "wait, you fool! You have a blog!

As most of you know, we are the proud parents of a baby boy we adopted from Florida, named Caleb. He's a great baby with a personality that is already teaching me to be a better person, and he happens to be pretty cute to boot.


So that's probably the biggest news since we last posted.....

...funny how adopting didn't encourage a post on the adoption blog. Frankly I was amazed at how quickly the feeling went from picking him up, to him being family. Hence, all news on Caleb is on Carrie's family blog (follow the link to the left if you are interested).

Today's news is very much about adoption in all its bureaucracy. There's some good news and some bad news.

First the potentially-bad-but-with-some-good-side-effects news. We got word today that the Ethiopian government is leaning towards making adoptive parents present for court hearings. Seems like a pretty rational thing, but it would require Carrie and I to travel to Ethiopia for the court hearing. The courts in Ethiopia seem to be very unpredictable, so the trip would likely take a week or so. The upside is that it would give us a chance to actually see our baby before picking him/her up and we'd be able to visit the country and get to know it better. The downside is that it would take a week or so of vacation time that I've been saving to actually use to pick up the baby and have a couple days at home before having to go back to work. Also, there's the whole business of how expensive a trip for two to Ethiopia is. We've budgeted for one trip, but not a second, so we'll have to figure that one out. This isn't finalized yet, but appears to be the way everything is leaning, and even has an implementation date. I guess we'll do what we need to do!

Second; the good news. Yesterday the judge in Florida signed the order for the termination of parental rights for Caleb. While the whole idea of that sort of order is very sad to me, it also makes me happy to know that in 30 days or so we could finalize Caleb's adoption! Once finalization occurs we are cleared to have him sealed and blessed. Yea!

We are really excited to have him blessed because he'll be blessed with 3 of this cousins! 2 of Carrie's brothers recently had sons and another brother is expecting a son in the next month. How cool is that! If we get a boy from Ethiopia, and he's already born, or is born soon, our family will have an entire basketball team of boys within 9 months of each other!

Oh, and I'm really excited for the end of June to see our above average sized 10 month old black son being blessed with his three 1-3 month old white cousins :o) Should be quite a sight!...oh, and of course, a very special occasion for our blessed family.

In which I'm learning to be more understanding

I like to take a small notebook to church with me. Sometimes I take notes, sometimes I don't. Sometimes those notes are a great reminder to me of how to think and act in tough situations.


As you all are abundantly aware, Zack and I are being made to wait longer than expected for this little one to join our family. It's kind of hard and kind of annoying. And it's most annoying to have to explain to everyone over and over that we are still waiting. When people come up to me in church and say "Sooo, any news?!" I find myself just giving a quick "still waiting" and then I walk on. I've found that the most effective response is, "When you see us with a baby, then there's news. If you see us without a baby, then there's no news." Most people have understood and haven't really asked us about the baby after that. Thank you!

And then there are those people who haven't quite figured out what's appropriate to say in a situation like this.

A few Sundays ago Zack and I were approached by someone in our ward whose name I didn't know, but whom I knew by sight. This well-meaning individual came up to Zack and said "So, did you lose the baby?"

Zack, struggling to recover from such a blunt, insensitive statement, said, "Um no, we're just still waiting." After this nice person walked away Zack turned to me and asked, "Who WAS that?"

My response: "I don't know their name, but I wrote about them in church today."

We both started chuckling and that put an end to any hurt feelings we might have had against that person. You see, they didn't mean to be insensitive. And we were reminded not to take offense.

I think we all have times in our lives when we are going through a hard time. And we'll all encounter well-meaning people whose only desire is to understand us or to make us feel better. Sometimes they fall short of that mark. But they don't mean to offend. So I'm not going to take offense.

*Rule of thumb: If you know someone pretty well and talk to them fairly frequently and are considered a friend, feel free to talk to them about tough times they are having in their life. You know them well enough to know what is appropriate to say and what's not and if your friend says "I don't want to talk about it" you'll understand.

But if you don't know them at all and NEVER talk to them, please, please, please do not pry into their life to find information on tough times they are having. A simple "I'm praying for you" or "I'm sorry for your loss" (if it's a death in the family) will do if you really have to say something. Don't give advice and don't ask questions.

In Summary

In case you are new to the blog, or just haven't visited in a while, welcome! To all you regulars, thanks for coming back!

Here's where we stand, in a nutshell (feel free to click on underlined words, which indicate links to other blog posts).

In early October 2008 we made the decision to adopt a baby, and decided to create a blog as a journal of events. We decided to use the LDS Family Services Agency and were finally approved for adoption on Feb 4, 2009, which basically meant that they deemed us worthy to be adoptive parents and that a birthmother could choose us any time.

At the end of May 2009, we began thinking a little more globally and decided to adopt internationally through Adoption Advocates International (AAI). We had to choose a country, so in Mid-June we decided that we wanted to adopt from Ethiopia. The "approved" date for international adoption is determined by the date your dossier is sent to the country, which happened on Sep 11, 2009. We will hopefully find out next Spring that we have a referral. Then we'd hope to be able to go pick him up in Ethiopia towards the end of Summer or Fall of 2010.

Over the past year we had a few times where we were selected by a birthmother, or gave our information to a birthmother for consideration. There has been a lot of thought, prayers, tears, and joys throughout the process. We recognize that we've been pretty blessed in many ways, and though some times have been difficult, we're grateful that we were led down the current path.

Most recently (early Oct, 2009) we submitted our information to another adoption agency (A Act of Love) for a baby boy in Florida. On Oct 13th we found out that we had been chosen for him! Since he is in State custody there has been a lot of legal red tape to get through. You'd think Carrie and I would be better at being patient by now, but we apparently haven't learned that lesson yet. We thought the last possible delay would end yesterday, but we found out today that it will be 2 or more weeks before we even find out when we can go pick him up. We were sure we'd have him by Halloween, then by my birthday, then for SURE by Thanksgiving. Now we're just praying to have him home by Christmas. We'll keep the door open for him though, no matter when he comes :o).

And We're Getting All Kind of Impatient...Waiting

We are one step closer to picking up our little boy. We're now waiting for a court date wherein the birthfather denies paternity (again) or just doesn't show up, which, in effect, says the same thing.

The theme-song for our adoption has always been this song. The words have never been more true these past 4 weeks.



It's faith that has kept me from going crazy these past few weeks. I can't give any other explanation to the fact that I've remained calm amidst the uncertainty of quitting my job and not knowing for sure if this thing was going to happen. (In effect, feeling like I've jumped off a cliff without a parachute.)

Someday we'll post all the details surrounding this adoption so you can all understand exactly what's been going through our minds but, like I've said to Zack, this is either exactly what Heavenly Father wants us to do and this boy's plan was always to be part of our family...or we've just made the dumbest decision of our lives.
I'm going with the first one.

Teddy Afro

This guy is supposedly the "Michael Jackson" of Ethiopia.
I like it. (Just don't mind the dancing ladies wearing bikinis.)
Now where to find a CD?



Here are the lyrics in case you wanted to sing along.

"Ayinoche ayayu, birhan yelachew
Belijinete, diro atichachew
Liben tesemaw, engida neger
Mirkuz yije new, yemiyawkegn hager
Alem tayechign, be’anchi wist hona
Befikir kuraz, be’lambadina
Ahun aye ayine, ahun aye ayine
Ahun aye ayine, ahun aye ayine
(Lamba-dina, lamba…)
Meshito ayine be’lijinete
Merikagn sitimot enatee
Welell welel alelign
Be’fikir bira endalechign
Anchi lay wesida talechign
(lambadina)
Ye’emiye semiro timbitua
Wedaj agegnehu ke’anjetua
(welel welel aleligne)
Kuraze lik ende’maye
Anchi nesh lambadinaye
(lambadina)
Lambadina, lambadina
Lambadina, lambadina
lambadina honshilet
le’ayine, le’ayine mebrat
(Lamba-dina, lamba…)
Endatikorabet ayinihin
Fikir yalnekaw libihin
(welel welel alelign)
Bemayet silematibelitegn
Na menetsiren lewitegn
(Lambadina)
Fikir yelelew ayinama
Weitotal ena chelema
(welel, welel aleligne)
Sew wedo sew yalwededew
Mikruzen meto yiwsedew
(Lambadina)
Lambadina, lambadina
Lambadina, lambadina
lambadina honshilet
le’ayine, le’ayine mebrat
ye’ayine mekresu
badonewmayet lebichaw
mindinewsayay yamene
siterawey fikir meto siyaberaw
Ahun aye ayine, ahun aye ayine
Ahun aye ayine, ahun aye ayine"

I'm pretty sure I have the chorus down. The rest will need some work.

...In Which Carrie Rants

Three weeks ago, when we "signed up" with this agency and were chosen to adopt this little boy, we talked to the agency and asked them if we needed to be fingerprinted. LDSFS was telling everyone they had to, so we figured this agency would be the same. "Oh no, you don't have to be fingerprinted..." they said.
They said.
Fast forward THREE WEEKS to this week when they call us and let us know that hmmm, I think we actually do need to be fingerprinted. Would we mind taking these fingerprint cards to our local police station, getting fingerprinted, getting two money orders payable to the U.S. Treasury, and then mailing them to them so we can then mail them to the FBI in West Virginia for processing?
Seriously?
Three weeks ago you didn't know that we'd need fingerprinting done? We've been sitting on our thumbs for three weeks waiting for everything to happen and NOW we find out about this? So now, instead of just waiting for our bonehead attorney in Florida to call (us or even make some sort of contact since his initial (and ONLY) call 3 weeks ago) and let us know when we can come out, we are also waiting for the FBI to receive our prints in the mail, process them, and then send them back. I don't have a time-frame on how long that's supposed to take, but it's the FBI in WEST VIRGINIA and the USPS. You do the math. I'm thinking 3 weeks minimum. If it turns out we have to wait another 3 weeks before we can pick up this baby I...well, I can't easily describe how I'll feel or what I'll want to do to certain people. I can't really do anything about it. No one can make up the time we're losing every day we don't have our son with us. He's almost 3 months old. When we started all of this he wasn't even 2 months old. Some things you can pay back. When time with your child is lost, you can't get it back. We're already going to have to deal with lost time when we go to Ethiopia. I was hoping we wouldn't have the same problem with a domestic adoption.
So this morning we got up and headed over to the police station where a friend of ours in our ward (who happens to be a police officer) did our fingerprinting for us. I then headed over to the credit union to get two money orders and then I headed down to the agency's office (I wasn't going to wait for the postal system to send these to Sandy when I have LOADS of free time on my hands.) where they inform me that the policy just changed and now both Zack and I have to sign the letter that goes with our fingerprints to the FBI. It used to be the agency could just sign it. (Are you kidding me? I want to ask. Is this the first adoption you've ever done? I want to ask. But I don't.) So, what do I do? I drive to Zack's work and have him sign the letter. Then I head over to the post office where I try to over-night this letter to West Virginia. The lady there tells me that "over-night" really means it's only guaranteed within 2 days and this letter will get there on Saturday if I over-night it today (since it's going to such a rural part of the country, so she says). If I used priority mail it will get there on Monday. Get there on Saturday and sit until Monday, or just get there on Monday...? I decide to save $15 and just have it sent priority mail.

And that's my day.
It's 4:00 in the afternoon and I haven't done anything I had planned on doing today. But that's okay. My motivation to do anything worthwhile and in preparation for our baby kind of lost steam when we got word from the agency, who talked to our attorney (who's paying this guy, anyway?) who told them that he's trying to see the judge this week to "finalize everything". Whatever that means. And he's at a funeral today but his secretary is working on things. And if he can't see the judge this week he's tempted to drive up to where the baby is and just get him. What in the crap does THAT mean?

My plan for today was to deep-clean the bedroom, trim the roses for winter and do some weeding. I think I'll have time to do that next week now. Instead, I'm going to make cookies, sit on the couch and read the book that I was saving for my flight to Florida.

They say having to go through stuff like this is "labor" for adoptive parents. At least when you're in real labor you can have drugs.

*Update: I could't make cookies because don't have any butter or margarine. Could this day BE any worse? That's it. I'm just eating the chocolate chips.

Time Has a Funny Way...

Call it interesting, or cool, or whatever. There's no REAL meaning to it. I don't think the odds are in our favor, but I just think it would be pretty...something... if we were to find out that we could pick up Caleb this Wednesday. You know, exactly 9 months to the day after this post.