Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Quick Update (and a promise for more soon!)
I don't want anyone to think we've fallen off the planet, so I wanted to post a quick update that things are going AMAZINGLY well! Gabby has adjusted better and faster than we ever dreamed, and we are all getting along fabulously. Honestly, I must say to myself two or three times a day that I can't believe how lucky we've been. There are so many things to update on...her big first birthday party, Halloween, her visit to the International Adoption Clinic, all of the skills and tricks she is learning. I promise that will come soon (along with pictures!). Life with three kids is a whole lot busier than I was prepared for, but I really want to get back into the blogging swing of things, so I'm putting this at the top of my to-do list!!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
We're Home!!
Truthfully, we've been home for almost a week, but man, life is busy with a new baby in the house! No one told me how much more work a third child would be...I'm pretty sure that's a secret moms of three or more keep to themselves to fool unsuspecting moms of two who are contemplating expansion of the family.
I don't have more than a minute (because I'm exhausted, and sleep outweighs pretty much everything right now!) but I wanted to tell you how amazing our sweet girl is. She is doing WONDERFULLY! She's adjusting even better than we'd hoped for so far. She seems to realize already that Chad and I are special people in her world, and prefers us to everyone else...this is all we had hoped for by this point. She loves her big brothers. Griffin can make her smile and laugh all the time, and he has been an amazing helper. Cooper says he likes her, and plays with her a little, but has been mostly indifferent-it's been a big adjustment to give up being the baby!
The things we're working on right now are eating and sleeping. Given the huge changes she's undergone over the past week, she is doing great at sleeping. She wakes up anywhere from 1-5 times a night, but seems to be getting a little more consistent at only waking once or twice. Naps have been harder, and very inconsistent. We are trying not to let her cry, so we've been rocking her to sleep, but a lot of times she wakes up when we try to transfer her to the bed. In the long term, we'd love to get away from that, but for right now, we just want her to feel loved and secure. She loves her bottle, but we're having a hard time with solids. Although she ate them at the transition home, we've had trouble finding foods she likes, and a way to feed them to her. For right now we're relying mostly on the bottle, and continuing to offer solids to her. I figure as we settle in and she gets more comfortable, she'll eat them more.
Other things we've learned about our Gabbers: she LOVES bath time, HATES having her diaper and/or clothes changed, hates the car seat, loves being tickled, loves the Exersaucer, loves to be held, and is smiley pretty much all of the time (seriously), unless she is tired or hungry. We are so blessed!
I don't have more than a minute (because I'm exhausted, and sleep outweighs pretty much everything right now!) but I wanted to tell you how amazing our sweet girl is. She is doing WONDERFULLY! She's adjusting even better than we'd hoped for so far. She seems to realize already that Chad and I are special people in her world, and prefers us to everyone else...this is all we had hoped for by this point. She loves her big brothers. Griffin can make her smile and laugh all the time, and he has been an amazing helper. Cooper says he likes her, and plays with her a little, but has been mostly indifferent-it's been a big adjustment to give up being the baby!
The things we're working on right now are eating and sleeping. Given the huge changes she's undergone over the past week, she is doing great at sleeping. She wakes up anywhere from 1-5 times a night, but seems to be getting a little more consistent at only waking once or twice. Naps have been harder, and very inconsistent. We are trying not to let her cry, so we've been rocking her to sleep, but a lot of times she wakes up when we try to transfer her to the bed. In the long term, we'd love to get away from that, but for right now, we just want her to feel loved and secure. She loves her bottle, but we're having a hard time with solids. Although she ate them at the transition home, we've had trouble finding foods she likes, and a way to feed them to her. For right now we're relying mostly on the bottle, and continuing to offer solids to her. I figure as we settle in and she gets more comfortable, she'll eat them more.
Other things we've learned about our Gabbers: she LOVES bath time, HATES having her diaper and/or clothes changed, hates the car seat, loves being tickled, loves the Exersaucer, loves to be held, and is smiley pretty much all of the time (seriously), unless she is tired or hungry. We are so blessed!
Thursday, September 8, 2011
She is coming HOME!!!
Finally, the words I have longed to write for 7 long months, since the moment we first saw her face! Our baby girl is coming home. We had a scary few days over the weekend when I realized that we in fact never did have a newspaper ad run, and I worried that the document we did submit was not going to be enough. And of course it was the holiday weekend, so we had an extra long time to wait! I had to take a little sleep "help" Monday night, because I knew I would be up every hour checking my e-mail for a message from the Embassy. I'm so glad I did take it though, because I slept for a solid eight hours and woke up to an e-mail bearing the much hoped for, prayed for, cried over subject line "Hennessy Family, Cleared Case"!! My birthday was the next day, and I can say without a doubt that is the best present I have ever gotten.
Our Embassy appointment is scheduled for September 19th. On top of finding out that we cleared, we got two other great pieces of news. First was that my good friend Jessica cleared as well, and her appointment is the same day. We have been chatting back and forth since January, and I am so, so excited that we get to bring our girls home together. We've even arranged to travel from DC to Addis and back together. The other piece of great news, the icing on the cake, is that because of how our embassy date fell, we were able to get in on a sale Ethiopian Airlines is having for BOGO tickets!! I can't believe it. Chad was very nervous about how much our tickets might cost for this trip, since we didn't have very much notice. He had prepped me for the idea that if they were too expensive, I'd have to go alone, which I was dreading. So now not only did we clear, but we are paying WAY less than we did less trip, and traveling with a good friend...God is in the details!
We booked our tickets this morning! We'll be in Ethiopia for 5 days, and I'm excited to see our daughter's homeland again. Even more important, I can't believe I will be holding her in my arms FOR GOOD in about 200 hours!! (I have to say, calculating that has brought on new, greater panic as I work on 4 different to do lists, plan for the boys to be taken care of while we are gone, and get us ready to leave!)
Even as we celebrate and run around like chickens with our heads cut off getting ready, my heart breaks for my friend Ashley. They keep hitting delay after delay in their efforts to clear the Embassy. They live only two hours from us, and our girls were born 6 days apart, and Ashley might be one of the sweetest people I have ever met. It's not fair. So please, if I haven't exhausted my prayer requests, would you keep the Baker family and their daughter Zoe in your prayers?
Our Embassy appointment is scheduled for September 19th. On top of finding out that we cleared, we got two other great pieces of news. First was that my good friend Jessica cleared as well, and her appointment is the same day. We have been chatting back and forth since January, and I am so, so excited that we get to bring our girls home together. We've even arranged to travel from DC to Addis and back together. The other piece of great news, the icing on the cake, is that because of how our embassy date fell, we were able to get in on a sale Ethiopian Airlines is having for BOGO tickets!! I can't believe it. Chad was very nervous about how much our tickets might cost for this trip, since we didn't have very much notice. He had prepped me for the idea that if they were too expensive, I'd have to go alone, which I was dreading. So now not only did we clear, but we are paying WAY less than we did less trip, and traveling with a good friend...God is in the details!
We booked our tickets this morning! We'll be in Ethiopia for 5 days, and I'm excited to see our daughter's homeland again. Even more important, I can't believe I will be holding her in my arms FOR GOOD in about 200 hours!! (I have to say, calculating that has brought on new, greater panic as I work on 4 different to do lists, plan for the boys to be taken care of while we are gone, and get us ready to leave!)
Even as we celebrate and run around like chickens with our heads cut off getting ready, my heart breaks for my friend Ashley. They keep hitting delay after delay in their efforts to clear the Embassy. They live only two hours from us, and our girls were born 6 days apart, and Ashley might be one of the sweetest people I have ever met. It's not fair. So please, if I haven't exhausted my prayer requests, would you keep the Baker family and their daughter Zoe in your prayers?
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Ethiopia-Day 4
It's been so long since we were there, I worry I've forgotten so many details, but I really want to document our first trip, both to share and as a record for Gabrielle one day. So...on to day 4!!
If you remember back to our previous day in Ethiopia, we had arrived back at the guest house just in time for the power to go out. I had debated taking a sleeping pill to see if I could finally get a decent night's sleep, but thought that I was so tired I would surely sleep well. Wrong...
At about 12:45 am, the power came back on and so did our overhead light. I woke up to turn it off and couldn't go back to sleep for two hours. I finally fell back to sleep only to be woken up at 3:30 by chanting coming over the loudspeaker of the church next door. The prayers continued every 30 minutes for the rest of the night. Chad and I both wanted to die.
However, there was no time for wallowing in sleepiness...today was the whole reason we had come-court! We went downstairs for breakfast and chatted with Woudneh while we ate. We asked him if there was anything we needed to bring for court, and he told us no (remember that!). We took quick pictures with the babies since we were all dressed nicely, and then headed to court at 8 am. After driving through Addis, we arrived at the courthouse at 8:40 and made our way through the streets, metal detector, and then up to the 4th floor. As we arrived at our floor, JW off-handedly asked Woudneh, "We didn't need our passports or anything, right?" Woudneh's face sank and he told us that yes, we would need them. Woudneh stayed back at the courthouse to try to stall our appearance while we drove back with our driver. He was so awesome, totally flooring it to get us there and back as fast as possible. We arrived back at the courthouse at 10 am and were told we hadn't been called yet. I had to go to the bathroom so bad, and we found one I could use, but it was the MOST disgusting bathroom ever. You do what you gotta do, but I'm glad to never see that one again! We had raced up the stairs, and I felt weak and shaky. It was hot and crowded in the room, and I worried I would pass out, so I found an empty seat and looked around. The room was filled with such opposite ends of the spectrum-all these white families there to adopt, and so many Ethiopian people there to give up the rights to their children. It was a sad room to be in, especially because not even the adoptive families were happy, as they weren't passing court (no MOWA letters). The window blinds fell off the wall at one point and hit an Ethiopian woman...it was an interesting experience.
After a little while they called both us and the Godwins back. It was a small room, maybe 8"x16", with the judge's desk at one end, chairs for the families on the other end, and a long desk for her assistants in the middle. We were the furthest away from the judge, and it was difficult to hear her, especially as there was construction going on outside. She asked 5-6 questions, then told us that we didn't yet have MOWA's recommendation, so she couldn't approve us yet. It was what we were expecting, but still disappointing.
We left the courthouse and began to drive to Ambo, a town about 2 and a 1/2 hours from Addis where the Godwins' daughter was from. We were driving through the busy streets when we witnessed our first car accident. The driving there was the craziest we had seen anywhere we've ever been, and we had asked about accidents, but never thought we'd see one! A truck and a motorcycle collided, and the motorcycle driver was injured. I was so impressed with Chad, who immediately hopped out of our van to see if he could help. They brought water to the man, but a huge crowd had formed so they left after that. Woudneh said the other driver would bring the man to the hospital himself, and then pay him off to keep from going to jail. Pretty exciting stuff!
We continued on to Ambo. We stopped to eat at a hotel, where Chad had a “fish sandwich” and Jana had a “cheeseburger.“ JW had a club sandwich with beef and egg in it. Then we went on to Bright Vision Orphanage. We got to see all the kids and hold the babies. The director is very young, 26, and Muslim (Muslims are typically anti-adoption). They have a nurse and clinical room, but no medicines or supplies. Chad spoke with local doctor to get list of what is needed, and we are going to try to get them. We had another coffee ceremony, but it was not as good, and once again I had to get Chad to drink mine! The toddlers all try to pee on tiny pots. We took pics of all the kids there to send to parents because all the kids are referred. We passed out candy to the kids and workers (this was the first time it occurred to me that the workers probably don't get candy a whole lot either, and they were so grateful and happy to get a piece). It was a nicer and newer facility than Gabby's orphanage, and with only 10-14 kids, but they had less supplies.
We began the two and a half hour drive from Ambo back to Addis. It was around 3 pm, and Woudneh told us we might be able to shop when we got back. He had also been trying to arrange a visit between the Godwins and their daughter's birth mother. It began to rain on the way back, and all of us napped a little bit, read, or listened to music. We were all exhausted, and for the first time did not stare out the window at the countryside. We got into Addis and went to a part we hadn’t been to before, so we assumed it was to shop. All of the sudden we heard Woudneh say, “Oh, she is here,” and the van stopped. We thought we were getting out to shop, but instead a young woman and an older woman got into the van with us. It was the Godwins’ daughter’s birth mother and her employer. Very awkward. The Godwins were completely caught off-guard, but did a great job asking all the questions they had prepared. We stopped to get pictures of her with them. It was starting to get dark after that, so we decided to go straight to eating dinner instead of trying to shop a little. We ate at an Italian restaurant. Chad had lasagna, and I had cheese pizza. We stopped at a gas station to get drinks and cookies, and laughed hysterically while Woudneh tried to teach JW and Chad to speak Amharic.
It was about 8 or 8:30 when we got back to the transition home. We went upstairs to try to Skype, but the kids and Sue had gone to the Children's Museum. We met JW and KC and watched The Hangover downstairs while we ate snacks-we really ”partied it up” on our last night in Ethiopia! We headed up to bed around 11 pm. This time we both wised up and took sleeping pills, and got a really decent 7 hours of sleep. One more day to go!
If you remember back to our previous day in Ethiopia, we had arrived back at the guest house just in time for the power to go out. I had debated taking a sleeping pill to see if I could finally get a decent night's sleep, but thought that I was so tired I would surely sleep well. Wrong...
At about 12:45 am, the power came back on and so did our overhead light. I woke up to turn it off and couldn't go back to sleep for two hours. I finally fell back to sleep only to be woken up at 3:30 by chanting coming over the loudspeaker of the church next door. The prayers continued every 30 minutes for the rest of the night. Chad and I both wanted to die.
However, there was no time for wallowing in sleepiness...today was the whole reason we had come-court! We went downstairs for breakfast and chatted with Woudneh while we ate. We asked him if there was anything we needed to bring for court, and he told us no (remember that!). We took quick pictures with the babies since we were all dressed nicely, and then headed to court at 8 am. After driving through Addis, we arrived at the courthouse at 8:40 and made our way through the streets, metal detector, and then up to the 4th floor. As we arrived at our floor, JW off-handedly asked Woudneh, "We didn't need our passports or anything, right?" Woudneh's face sank and he told us that yes, we would need them. Woudneh stayed back at the courthouse to try to stall our appearance while we drove back with our driver. He was so awesome, totally flooring it to get us there and back as fast as possible. We arrived back at the courthouse at 10 am and were told we hadn't been called yet. I had to go to the bathroom so bad, and we found one I could use, but it was the MOST disgusting bathroom ever. You do what you gotta do, but I'm glad to never see that one again! We had raced up the stairs, and I felt weak and shaky. It was hot and crowded in the room, and I worried I would pass out, so I found an empty seat and looked around. The room was filled with such opposite ends of the spectrum-all these white families there to adopt, and so many Ethiopian people there to give up the rights to their children. It was a sad room to be in, especially because not even the adoptive families were happy, as they weren't passing court (no MOWA letters). The window blinds fell off the wall at one point and hit an Ethiopian woman...it was an interesting experience.
After a little while they called both us and the Godwins back. It was a small room, maybe 8"x16", with the judge's desk at one end, chairs for the families on the other end, and a long desk for her assistants in the middle. We were the furthest away from the judge, and it was difficult to hear her, especially as there was construction going on outside. She asked 5-6 questions, then told us that we didn't yet have MOWA's recommendation, so she couldn't approve us yet. It was what we were expecting, but still disappointing.
We left the courthouse and began to drive to Ambo, a town about 2 and a 1/2 hours from Addis where the Godwins' daughter was from. We were driving through the busy streets when we witnessed our first car accident. The driving there was the craziest we had seen anywhere we've ever been, and we had asked about accidents, but never thought we'd see one! A truck and a motorcycle collided, and the motorcycle driver was injured. I was so impressed with Chad, who immediately hopped out of our van to see if he could help. They brought water to the man, but a huge crowd had formed so they left after that. Woudneh said the other driver would bring the man to the hospital himself, and then pay him off to keep from going to jail. Pretty exciting stuff!
We continued on to Ambo. We stopped to eat at a hotel, where Chad had a “fish sandwich” and Jana had a “cheeseburger.“ JW had a club sandwich with beef and egg in it. Then we went on to Bright Vision Orphanage. We got to see all the kids and hold the babies. The director is very young, 26, and Muslim (Muslims are typically anti-adoption). They have a nurse and clinical room, but no medicines or supplies. Chad spoke with local doctor to get list of what is needed, and we are going to try to get them. We had another coffee ceremony, but it was not as good, and once again I had to get Chad to drink mine! The toddlers all try to pee on tiny pots. We took pics of all the kids there to send to parents because all the kids are referred. We passed out candy to the kids and workers (this was the first time it occurred to me that the workers probably don't get candy a whole lot either, and they were so grateful and happy to get a piece). It was a nicer and newer facility than Gabby's orphanage, and with only 10-14 kids, but they had less supplies.
We began the two and a half hour drive from Ambo back to Addis. It was around 3 pm, and Woudneh told us we might be able to shop when we got back. He had also been trying to arrange a visit between the Godwins and their daughter's birth mother. It began to rain on the way back, and all of us napped a little bit, read, or listened to music. We were all exhausted, and for the first time did not stare out the window at the countryside. We got into Addis and went to a part we hadn’t been to before, so we assumed it was to shop. All of the sudden we heard Woudneh say, “Oh, she is here,” and the van stopped. We thought we were getting out to shop, but instead a young woman and an older woman got into the van with us. It was the Godwins’ daughter’s birth mother and her employer. Very awkward. The Godwins were completely caught off-guard, but did a great job asking all the questions they had prepared. We stopped to get pictures of her with them. It was starting to get dark after that, so we decided to go straight to eating dinner instead of trying to shop a little. We ate at an Italian restaurant. Chad had lasagna, and I had cheese pizza. We stopped at a gas station to get drinks and cookies, and laughed hysterically while Woudneh tried to teach JW and Chad to speak Amharic.
It was about 8 or 8:30 when we got back to the transition home. We went upstairs to try to Skype, but the kids and Sue had gone to the Children's Museum. We met JW and KC and watched The Hangover downstairs while we ate snacks-we really ”partied it up” on our last night in Ethiopia! We headed up to bed around 11 pm. This time we both wised up and took sleeping pills, and got a really decent 7 hours of sleep. One more day to go!
No Real News
Just in case anyone out there doesn't have the opportunity to see my frequent updates (read: whining) on facebook, I wanted to fill you in on where we are in our ever-present waiting game. (And warning...there is more whining ahead!)
If you recall, we were having an ad run in the newspaper to hopefully satisfy the Embassy's requests. We believe this began running around the 16th or 17th, and it is supposed to run for two weeks, meaning it may be done as of today. If not, then definitely within the next day or so. Once the ad has run its course, a new letter is written by the police, then translated, and eventually submitted to the Embassy. I am hopeful this will be done by the end of this week or early next week. At that point, they will (once again) review everything and either clear us or ask for something else. Our agency tells us they really think this should be it. I am trying to believe that, while preparing my heart for the possibility that there could be more. I have e-mailed with the embassy a little bit, and from what they have told me, I have a glimmer of hope that this will satisfy them. It seems there has been just one real "hole" in our documentation, and the ad should fill it. Please pray with us that this is true!
So...it is possible that by the end of next week, we could be cleared to travel. I am trying to walk a fine line between positive energy and faith AND pragmatism and realism and all those other unfun -isms. I honestly don't know what I will do if they ask for something else, so I'm trying not to worry about that possibility too much. At this point, 12 families have been submitted to the Embassy from our agency that I know of over the past two months. Six before us, one with us, and four after us. Of all of those, one family submitted before us remains (and has been dealing with many of the same issues we have), one family after us remains, and then us. The other nine have all cleared, some with no issues at all. I have been really struggling with WHY these delays and problems have happened to us. I don't think we've done anything wrong. I don't think we love Gabby one bit less than those families love their children. There is not thing about this process that is fair, or easily understood, or routine. And that is really hard for a type-A, control freak, impatient person like myself to understand. I fight everyday to be happy for those families instead of just sad and bitter for myself.
So...that's where we're at. I'm hanging out at the corner of whiny and bitter. I'm trying to make my way up the street to the intersection of hopeful and faithful! :) So many of you tell me that you are praying for us, or thinking of us, and I want you to know just how much that means to me. Please, keep us in your prayers just a little while longer. I really hope this whole thing is behind us in another week or so!
If you recall, we were having an ad run in the newspaper to hopefully satisfy the Embassy's requests. We believe this began running around the 16th or 17th, and it is supposed to run for two weeks, meaning it may be done as of today. If not, then definitely within the next day or so. Once the ad has run its course, a new letter is written by the police, then translated, and eventually submitted to the Embassy. I am hopeful this will be done by the end of this week or early next week. At that point, they will (once again) review everything and either clear us or ask for something else. Our agency tells us they really think this should be it. I am trying to believe that, while preparing my heart for the possibility that there could be more. I have e-mailed with the embassy a little bit, and from what they have told me, I have a glimmer of hope that this will satisfy them. It seems there has been just one real "hole" in our documentation, and the ad should fill it. Please pray with us that this is true!
So...it is possible that by the end of next week, we could be cleared to travel. I am trying to walk a fine line between positive energy and faith AND pragmatism and realism and all those other unfun -isms. I honestly don't know what I will do if they ask for something else, so I'm trying not to worry about that possibility too much. At this point, 12 families have been submitted to the Embassy from our agency that I know of over the past two months. Six before us, one with us, and four after us. Of all of those, one family submitted before us remains (and has been dealing with many of the same issues we have), one family after us remains, and then us. The other nine have all cleared, some with no issues at all. I have been really struggling with WHY these delays and problems have happened to us. I don't think we've done anything wrong. I don't think we love Gabby one bit less than those families love their children. There is not thing about this process that is fair, or easily understood, or routine. And that is really hard for a type-A, control freak, impatient person like myself to understand. I fight everyday to be happy for those families instead of just sad and bitter for myself.
So...that's where we're at. I'm hanging out at the corner of whiny and bitter. I'm trying to make my way up the street to the intersection of hopeful and faithful! :) So many of you tell me that you are praying for us, or thinking of us, and I want you to know just how much that means to me. Please, keep us in your prayers just a little while longer. I really hope this whole thing is behind us in another week or so!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Delayed. Again.
Or as Chad would say (and did say when I told him), "Surprise, surprise!"
Apparently, our agency tried to submit the document the Embassy wanted again (second try), and they still weren't happy. So they have asked for an ad to be run in the newspaper there for 2 weeks. The theory is that at the end of the two weeks, the police can then sign off on that being done, and the Embassy will be happy. Our caseworker told me she can't think of anything else they could want. I'm sure the Embassy can! But I am choosing to believe that this will be it. The ad hopefully started running today (fingers crossed), so it will be right around Labor Day that the letter is written, signed, translated, and submitted. The Embassy then needs to review it. My birthday is September 7th, and the ONLY thing I want is to be cleared to travel. I had really hoped to be with Gabby for my birthday, and I realize now there is no way that will happen.
Another family from our agency is about a week ahead of us in the "ad running" process, so seeing how things go for them will be a good indicator for us. We desperately want to travel with them-the mom has become one of my very best adoption buddies. There is another family, with another wonderfully supportive mom, who lives just a couple hours from us, and they are also mired in paperwork gathering. I would love to travel with them as well, so I am hoping that perhaps God has orchestrated all this so that we can all go together and meet in person. That would be a nice silver lining to all this waiting!
I'm not going to lie, when our caseworker called to tell me the update yesterday, I was devastated. I was a sniffly mess on the phone with her, and promptly had a really good cry once I was off the phone. I don't understand WHY this has taken so long. It has been over six months since we first saw Gabby's picture. We were referred a 3 month old, and she will (hopefully, assuming no more delays) be almost 11 months old when we bring her home. That's crazy to me. I have struggled, and struggled, with how much of her first year we have missed. It breaks my heart that I won't have all the baby stories to share with her that I do with the boys.
And then that wonderfully supportive mom (Hi Ashley!), going through the same thing, linked me to a blog post at Kisses from Katie. Katie is a hero in the adoption community. She is a 22 year old woman who left her entire world behind in the US to move to Uganda, where she is in the process of adopting 13 (yes, 13) children. She is amazing. As she lamented the other day about missing out on the moments of one of her children's early life, she wrote this: "He did not choose me for those moments, He chose me for these." Wow. I have been repeating this to myself for the last 30 hours, every time I start to get sad all over again.
So I am choosing joy. Or trying to, anyway. I have two beautiful kids here to keep me busy and happy and laughing. And I know that the moments in Gabby's life that God did choose me for are coming. Now to keep remembering that...
Apparently, our agency tried to submit the document the Embassy wanted again (second try), and they still weren't happy. So they have asked for an ad to be run in the newspaper there for 2 weeks. The theory is that at the end of the two weeks, the police can then sign off on that being done, and the Embassy will be happy. Our caseworker told me she can't think of anything else they could want. I'm sure the Embassy can! But I am choosing to believe that this will be it. The ad hopefully started running today (fingers crossed), so it will be right around Labor Day that the letter is written, signed, translated, and submitted. The Embassy then needs to review it. My birthday is September 7th, and the ONLY thing I want is to be cleared to travel. I had really hoped to be with Gabby for my birthday, and I realize now there is no way that will happen.
Another family from our agency is about a week ahead of us in the "ad running" process, so seeing how things go for them will be a good indicator for us. We desperately want to travel with them-the mom has become one of my very best adoption buddies. There is another family, with another wonderfully supportive mom, who lives just a couple hours from us, and they are also mired in paperwork gathering. I would love to travel with them as well, so I am hoping that perhaps God has orchestrated all this so that we can all go together and meet in person. That would be a nice silver lining to all this waiting!
I'm not going to lie, when our caseworker called to tell me the update yesterday, I was devastated. I was a sniffly mess on the phone with her, and promptly had a really good cry once I was off the phone. I don't understand WHY this has taken so long. It has been over six months since we first saw Gabby's picture. We were referred a 3 month old, and she will (hopefully, assuming no more delays) be almost 11 months old when we bring her home. That's crazy to me. I have struggled, and struggled, with how much of her first year we have missed. It breaks my heart that I won't have all the baby stories to share with her that I do with the boys.
And then that wonderfully supportive mom (Hi Ashley!), going through the same thing, linked me to a blog post at Kisses from Katie. Katie is a hero in the adoption community. She is a 22 year old woman who left her entire world behind in the US to move to Uganda, where she is in the process of adopting 13 (yes, 13) children. She is amazing. As she lamented the other day about missing out on the moments of one of her children's early life, she wrote this: "He did not choose me for those moments, He chose me for these." Wow. I have been repeating this to myself for the last 30 hours, every time I start to get sad all over again.
So I am choosing joy. Or trying to, anyway. I have two beautiful kids here to keep me busy and happy and laughing. And I know that the moments in Gabby's life that God did choose me for are coming. Now to keep remembering that...
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Update...
Well, the document the embassy requested was indeed submitted earlier this week. And they promptly rejected it and asked for it to be redone. Of course. I am assuming the redo will take about the same amount of time as the first attempt, though I have no idea. If that's accurate, it will be submitted early next week. Then it has to be accepted (not rejected), and then they will either clear us or ask for yet more documentation. The biggest downside right now is that the Embassy is not going to see appointments the week of the 29th, so even if we do clear next week, it will be a miracle if we travel before Labor Day. Of course, I believe that God is bigger than calendars, so my prayer is for a miracle to occur and for us to pass early next week and get an appointment for the week of the 22nd still. This seems unlikely, but I'm praying for it anyway!
In other news, Gabby's room is officially complete, and adorable if I do say so myself :) Now, I just need her home to look adorable in it!
In other news, Gabby's room is officially complete, and adorable if I do say so myself :) Now, I just need her home to look adorable in it!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
I'm a slacker, I know...
I know, I know...I've pretty much fallen off the face of the earth! This summer has been INSANELY busy (a wonderful thing, because it's kept us busy and given me lots of distraction from missing my girl). Just to give you an idea what we've been up to, we left for Ethiopia the day after Griffin's last day of school, and things haven't let up for a second. We've had:
-a week of basketball camp for Griffin
-a week of soccer camp for Griffin/VBS for Cooper
-a week of VBS for both boys
-summer reading programs and activities at our library
-3 weeks of swim lessons for both boys
-class picnics and birthday parties for Griffin
-the 4th of July and block parties and fireworks at the lake
-Cooper's 4th birthday and his big party
-a weekend away for Chad and I to celebrate our 10th anniversary
-lots of trips to the zoo and Children's Museum
-afternoons at the Y pool
-a week in the Outer Banks
-camping trips
Whew! We have 10 more days before Griffin's first day of 1st grade (my baby is a 1st grader...boo hoo!), and we're still trying to pack in a day at the State Fair, one more camping trip, two days at Holiday World, a day trip to see my high school best friend and her kids, another birthday party, one more trip to the lake, and getting haircuts and new shoes and all that other "back to school" stuff! Seriously, I have never enjoyed a summer more, and as much as I miss Gabby every minute, it's been really enjoyable having two older kids who can play all summer long! They even gave me the great gift of getting along most of the time (although all bets have been off the last week or so...pretty sure it's time for school to start back up!)
So that's what has been keeping us going. And like I said, it is a wonderful blessing that we have been so busy, because we've spent the last 2 months just kind of biding our time, adoption-wise. We returned from Ethiopia two months ago today. We got the news that our MOWA recommendation was in on June 17th, and since then we've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, to be submitted to the US Embassy.
I am not an expert on the process by any means, but my rough understanding is that after passing court, we needed a court decree, birth certificate with her "new" name (her Ethiopian first name and then Chad's full name), passport, and medical exam in order to be submitted to the US Embassy in Addis. Every adoption agency has their own day of the week to submit families, and ours is Wednesday. Last Monday we were told that everything was pretty much ready, we were just waiting on translating, and odds were good we could sneak in. Then we were told on Wednesday that it didn't happen. I was SO disappointed. There was a lot of crying and despair and being mean to Chad because the poor man is stuck with me.
Then the next day, my best friend Jen gave me a gift. It's a beautiful silver bracelet, hand-stamped with "so blessed" on the inside. She gave it to me to cheer me up, and it did. I began thinking of all the blessings I have in my life. Three wonderful children, a stellar husband, great friends and family... And I began thinking in bigger terms too. I am so blessed that I have never had to face the heart-wrenching choice to give up a child because I can't afford to care for them. And as much as I mourn how much of Gabby's first year I am missing, I know that I will have the rest of her life with her. And her birthmother can't say that. Blessed...
And right as I was all proud of myself and my newfound maturity, I got an e-mail on Tuesday morning from the US Embassy, requesting additional documentation for Gabby. I was so confused and excited, and after some clarification, it turns out that we somehow were submitted last week after all-a miscommunication between our agency's in-country staff and US staff. It wasn't the best news we could have gotten (that we were approved to travel), but given where I thought we were at, it was a great surprise! The document they requested is pretty straight-forward, and is expected to be there early next week. At that point, we will either be approved, or the embassy will ask for still more documents. The embassy staff changed in July, and they seem to be requesting TONS more info from everyone, so we'll see what happens. I am trying to be patient and calm, and convince myself that even if there are more weeks of embassy review it won't be too bad. We'll see how long I keep that up :) If, by a miracle, we are approved next week, we could be traveling in the next few weeks. That would be amazing!! My birthday is September 7th, and ALL I want for my birthday is to celebrate with my baby girl.
Hopefully this update makes up for the total slacker I've been over the past couple months. I still have two days of our trip left to write up, and I do still plan to do that. I better get on it, since I KNOW :) we will be going back in just a few weeks!!
-a week of basketball camp for Griffin
-a week of soccer camp for Griffin/VBS for Cooper
-a week of VBS for both boys
-summer reading programs and activities at our library
-3 weeks of swim lessons for both boys
-class picnics and birthday parties for Griffin
-the 4th of July and block parties and fireworks at the lake
-Cooper's 4th birthday and his big party
-a weekend away for Chad and I to celebrate our 10th anniversary
-lots of trips to the zoo and Children's Museum
-afternoons at the Y pool
-a week in the Outer Banks
-camping trips
Whew! We have 10 more days before Griffin's first day of 1st grade (my baby is a 1st grader...boo hoo!), and we're still trying to pack in a day at the State Fair, one more camping trip, two days at Holiday World, a day trip to see my high school best friend and her kids, another birthday party, one more trip to the lake, and getting haircuts and new shoes and all that other "back to school" stuff! Seriously, I have never enjoyed a summer more, and as much as I miss Gabby every minute, it's been really enjoyable having two older kids who can play all summer long! They even gave me the great gift of getting along most of the time (although all bets have been off the last week or so...pretty sure it's time for school to start back up!)
So that's what has been keeping us going. And like I said, it is a wonderful blessing that we have been so busy, because we've spent the last 2 months just kind of biding our time, adoption-wise. We returned from Ethiopia two months ago today. We got the news that our MOWA recommendation was in on June 17th, and since then we've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, to be submitted to the US Embassy.
I am not an expert on the process by any means, but my rough understanding is that after passing court, we needed a court decree, birth certificate with her "new" name (her Ethiopian first name and then Chad's full name), passport, and medical exam in order to be submitted to the US Embassy in Addis. Every adoption agency has their own day of the week to submit families, and ours is Wednesday. Last Monday we were told that everything was pretty much ready, we were just waiting on translating, and odds were good we could sneak in. Then we were told on Wednesday that it didn't happen. I was SO disappointed. There was a lot of crying and despair and being mean to Chad because the poor man is stuck with me.
Then the next day, my best friend Jen gave me a gift. It's a beautiful silver bracelet, hand-stamped with "so blessed" on the inside. She gave it to me to cheer me up, and it did. I began thinking of all the blessings I have in my life. Three wonderful children, a stellar husband, great friends and family... And I began thinking in bigger terms too. I am so blessed that I have never had to face the heart-wrenching choice to give up a child because I can't afford to care for them. And as much as I mourn how much of Gabby's first year I am missing, I know that I will have the rest of her life with her. And her birthmother can't say that. Blessed...
And right as I was all proud of myself and my newfound maturity, I got an e-mail on Tuesday morning from the US Embassy, requesting additional documentation for Gabby. I was so confused and excited, and after some clarification, it turns out that we somehow were submitted last week after all-a miscommunication between our agency's in-country staff and US staff. It wasn't the best news we could have gotten (that we were approved to travel), but given where I thought we were at, it was a great surprise! The document they requested is pretty straight-forward, and is expected to be there early next week. At that point, we will either be approved, or the embassy will ask for still more documents. The embassy staff changed in July, and they seem to be requesting TONS more info from everyone, so we'll see what happens. I am trying to be patient and calm, and convince myself that even if there are more weeks of embassy review it won't be too bad. We'll see how long I keep that up :) If, by a miracle, we are approved next week, we could be traveling in the next few weeks. That would be amazing!! My birthday is September 7th, and ALL I want for my birthday is to celebrate with my baby girl.
Hopefully this update makes up for the total slacker I've been over the past couple months. I still have two days of our trip left to write up, and I do still plan to do that. I better get on it, since I KNOW :) we will be going back in just a few weeks!!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Ethiopia-Day 3
Our 3rd day in country was Wednesday, June 1st. It was by far our busiest day, so I'll warn you now that the photo slideshow is a long one! :)
After a terrible night's sleep filled with rock-hard mattresses and gunshots, we woke up to our alarm and headed down for breakfast. The hotel had a buffet, and although it had a good bit of "interesting" items, we found plenty to eat-potatoes, eggs, crepes, and we tried some of the other things without success. We saw the eye clinic volunteers at breakfast, and learned we would be heading to the clinic for our first stop of the day.
We packed up and headed to Dehra, about 30 minutes away from Nazareth. As we drove, we saw people waiting on the side of the road with big yellow containers for water. Woudneh told us that they had probably been waiting since sunrise, and that they may have to wait until midnight for water to arrive. This was one of the hardest things we saw the whole week, and we saw it over and over. The fact that people have to wait for hours, or even days, for something that is NEEDED to survive, and we can just turn on our faucet and watch it flow...it's not fair. The first time I took the boys to the pool after we came back, I just watched all the kids wasting water (including my own), and had trouble reconciling what we have here with what I saw there. It's heart breaking.
We arrived at the community center where the eye clinic was being held, we saw a huge group of people pushing up at a gate, and realized they were all trying to be allowed in. Inside was a huge line as well, and then there were more people waiting near the rooms where things were set up. At one point they opened the gate to let a van with supplies inside, and people began pushing and shoving to try to get in. The people in charge tore a branch off a tree and began beating people back...yikes! I couldn't believe how many people had come...word spread quickly! Chad, KC, and I were quickly put to work matching people's prescriptions with the hundreds of donated pairs of glasses, then helping them try them on and test them out. It was an amazing experience! My eyes are terrible (like legally blind), so I think I especially appreciated the difference these glasses would make for them. There were 5 of us in a hot, small room, and we quickly got sweaty, but it was such an amazing experience. After a while I really had to go to the bathroom, so Chad helped me find the hole in the ground out back...always an adventure!
After a couple of hours there, Woudneh came in and told us it was time to move on to our next stop. I was so glad we had the opportunity to help with the clinic. Out of everything we did while we were there, it was my favorite experience (next to being with Gabby of course!!). We headed from there to Woudneh's parent's home a short drive away. We were invited to stay for some food, and wonderfully cold bottled Cokes :) I was amazed at how many people were in the house-parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces, cousins...lots of people! Their home was very nice, and they were very gracious hosts. We passed out some of the candy I had brought along to the kids on the street, who came running when they saw white people with goodies!
From there we stopped and got some bananas, then made a stop at a resort where we got to feed wild monkeys. Chad and I had done that in Thailand, with very aggressive monkeys, so we were a little nervous this time. But these monkeys were much more mellow, and although I still refused to feed them, Chad, KC, and JW had a blast (I took pictures!).
On our way to our next stop, we stopped on the street to see a young boy who had caught a wild chicken. He was so proud of himself, and Woudneh told us he would probably get 40 birr (about $2.50 US) for it. Finally we made the stop Chad and I had been hoping for-we went to Gabby's original orphanage. It was very surreal to walk through the gates and know that our sweet baby girl had been brought here several months before. It was really neat to see how self-sufficient they were. They had cows, chickens, coffee trees, banana trees. Then we had a chance to meet with the director of the orphanage and hear some of Gabby's story, which was a wonderful surprise and blessing. After talking with her, a woman came out to do a coffee ceremony for us. This was one of my biggest fears! I HATE coffee, but I didn't want to offend anyone by not drinking it. I finally took a few sips, then slipped my mostly full cup to Chad and he traded me for his mostly empty one! While we drank the coffee and ate popcorn, some of the older kids came out and sang for us. We toured the orphanage, then passed out candy and left them a soccer ball before leaving.
We headed back toward Addis, and stopped for dinner along the way at a beautiful resort. We sat at an outside patio on a lake, and enjoyed some good pasta (after finding out they were out of the first things we ordered-same thing happened with our desserts!). Salads were included with our meals, but we had been told not to eat raw fruits and veggies we didn't peel ourselves, so we weren't going to eat them. But they sounded SO good, so we all broke down and ate them. We also all had stomach issues later in the week...not sure if that's why! JW, KC, and I tried to get massages or pedicures at the attached spa, but they were all booked up. Chad did get to go kayaking, which he enjoyed, even though he got soaked.
We weren't too upset that we couldn't get spa treatments, since we thought we'd get back early enough to see the babies. However, literally as we pulled up to the gate surrounding the guest house around 7:30 pm, the power went out everywhere. Boo! The house was pitch black, but luckily we had a small, hand-crank flashlight to try to see while we got ready for bed. I was miserable and cranky, but go-with-the-flow Chad just took it all in stride (which of course made me crankier!). I debated taking a sleeping pill, but decided that after sleeping on the rock mattress the night before and being up half the night, I was surely so tired I wouldn't need it (can you sense the foreshadowing?!).
After a terrible night's sleep filled with rock-hard mattresses and gunshots, we woke up to our alarm and headed down for breakfast. The hotel had a buffet, and although it had a good bit of "interesting" items, we found plenty to eat-potatoes, eggs, crepes, and we tried some of the other things without success. We saw the eye clinic volunteers at breakfast, and learned we would be heading to the clinic for our first stop of the day.
We packed up and headed to Dehra, about 30 minutes away from Nazareth. As we drove, we saw people waiting on the side of the road with big yellow containers for water. Woudneh told us that they had probably been waiting since sunrise, and that they may have to wait until midnight for water to arrive. This was one of the hardest things we saw the whole week, and we saw it over and over. The fact that people have to wait for hours, or even days, for something that is NEEDED to survive, and we can just turn on our faucet and watch it flow...it's not fair. The first time I took the boys to the pool after we came back, I just watched all the kids wasting water (including my own), and had trouble reconciling what we have here with what I saw there. It's heart breaking.
We arrived at the community center where the eye clinic was being held, we saw a huge group of people pushing up at a gate, and realized they were all trying to be allowed in. Inside was a huge line as well, and then there were more people waiting near the rooms where things were set up. At one point they opened the gate to let a van with supplies inside, and people began pushing and shoving to try to get in. The people in charge tore a branch off a tree and began beating people back...yikes! I couldn't believe how many people had come...word spread quickly! Chad, KC, and I were quickly put to work matching people's prescriptions with the hundreds of donated pairs of glasses, then helping them try them on and test them out. It was an amazing experience! My eyes are terrible (like legally blind), so I think I especially appreciated the difference these glasses would make for them. There were 5 of us in a hot, small room, and we quickly got sweaty, but it was such an amazing experience. After a while I really had to go to the bathroom, so Chad helped me find the hole in the ground out back...always an adventure!
After a couple of hours there, Woudneh came in and told us it was time to move on to our next stop. I was so glad we had the opportunity to help with the clinic. Out of everything we did while we were there, it was my favorite experience (next to being with Gabby of course!!). We headed from there to Woudneh's parent's home a short drive away. We were invited to stay for some food, and wonderfully cold bottled Cokes :) I was amazed at how many people were in the house-parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces, cousins...lots of people! Their home was very nice, and they were very gracious hosts. We passed out some of the candy I had brought along to the kids on the street, who came running when they saw white people with goodies!
From there we stopped and got some bananas, then made a stop at a resort where we got to feed wild monkeys. Chad and I had done that in Thailand, with very aggressive monkeys, so we were a little nervous this time. But these monkeys were much more mellow, and although I still refused to feed them, Chad, KC, and JW had a blast (I took pictures!).
On our way to our next stop, we stopped on the street to see a young boy who had caught a wild chicken. He was so proud of himself, and Woudneh told us he would probably get 40 birr (about $2.50 US) for it. Finally we made the stop Chad and I had been hoping for-we went to Gabby's original orphanage. It was very surreal to walk through the gates and know that our sweet baby girl had been brought here several months before. It was really neat to see how self-sufficient they were. They had cows, chickens, coffee trees, banana trees. Then we had a chance to meet with the director of the orphanage and hear some of Gabby's story, which was a wonderful surprise and blessing. After talking with her, a woman came out to do a coffee ceremony for us. This was one of my biggest fears! I HATE coffee, but I didn't want to offend anyone by not drinking it. I finally took a few sips, then slipped my mostly full cup to Chad and he traded me for his mostly empty one! While we drank the coffee and ate popcorn, some of the older kids came out and sang for us. We toured the orphanage, then passed out candy and left them a soccer ball before leaving.
We headed back toward Addis, and stopped for dinner along the way at a beautiful resort. We sat at an outside patio on a lake, and enjoyed some good pasta (after finding out they were out of the first things we ordered-same thing happened with our desserts!). Salads were included with our meals, but we had been told not to eat raw fruits and veggies we didn't peel ourselves, so we weren't going to eat them. But they sounded SO good, so we all broke down and ate them. We also all had stomach issues later in the week...not sure if that's why! JW, KC, and I tried to get massages or pedicures at the attached spa, but they were all booked up. Chad did get to go kayaking, which he enjoyed, even though he got soaked.
We weren't too upset that we couldn't get spa treatments, since we thought we'd get back early enough to see the babies. However, literally as we pulled up to the gate surrounding the guest house around 7:30 pm, the power went out everywhere. Boo! The house was pitch black, but luckily we had a small, hand-crank flashlight to try to see while we got ready for bed. I was miserable and cranky, but go-with-the-flow Chad just took it all in stride (which of course made me crankier!). I debated taking a sleeping pill, but decided that after sleeping on the rock mattress the night before and being up half the night, I was surely so tired I wouldn't need it (can you sense the foreshadowing?!).
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Ethiopia-Day 2
First off, I should warn everyone that the slide show for this day is pretty much entirely photos of Gabby. Sorry, but we don't ever get tired of looking at her beautiful face!! There are some pictures from our drive to Nazareth at the end :)
I woke up this morning feeling pretty good after a very decent night's sleep. Poor Chad hadn't fared so well, and his stomach was feeling pretty awful. The plan for the day was to spend the morning with our girls, and then Woudneh was picking us up at 11 am to drive about 2 hours away to Nazareth, which is where Gabby is from.
We headed down for breakfast and the guys went to get the babies right away. We headed outside to the courtyard with them and enjoyed the sunshine. The best part about the guest house and transition house is that the transition home (where all of the kids waiting stay until we are able to bring them home) makes a U-shape, and in the middle sits the guest house. We were never more than a hundred feet from Gabby's room, which was super convenient and made it easy for us to spend some quiet time with her in our room. This picture is of the transition home-where we stayed was right behind where I was standing to take the picture.
I had brought the Ergo my girlfriends gave me at my shower to try out, and Gabby and I both LOVED it! Highly recommend one for anyone adopting a baby-I think it will be awesome for travel, and it was super comfy. We played with the older kids for a while as well. There was a swingset, and Chad taught them Ring Around the Rosie :) They were all so sweet, and just wanted some attention and love. It made it much easier to know that they all have loving families anxious to get them home and give them just that!
It was getting close to 11 am, so we took the girls up to the front porch and waited with them for Woudneh, trying to get as much time as possible with them. We waited and waited, and used the time to get tons of photos of the babies with us. After a while, Gabby got fussy and we realized she was hungry. I got a bottle from the nanny and got to feed her-it was wonderful! She fell asleep while she was eating, so we took turns holding her while she slept. Around 12:30 the staff told us lunch was ready, so we ate (we still aren't sure what it was!). After lunch Chad went upstairs for a nap. Poor thing, he was feeling SO lousy (and he never lets on when he's sick, so I knew it was bad). We hung out with the girls in the main room of the guest house (pictured below).
After a while the nannies came to take the babies for their baths and the rest of us rested on the couches. Then they brought them back and we snuggled some more. It was such a wonderful chance to just relax with them and really soak in tons of time with them. Such a blessing! Chad came down from his nap feeling a little better and spent some time snuggling with Gabby as well. We finally asked someone to check on Woudneh, and were told he would be there at 5 pm. We thought it seemed odd that we wouldn't leave until then, but just nodded along.
Woudneh arrived around 5:30 with tons of apologies. The donated eyeglasses he was trying to get Customs to release so they could be used with the eye clinic mission had taken all day (and quite a bit of money) to ransom! Luckily he was able to get them, and now had 1,351 pairs of glasses to pass out to people who desperately needed them. He explained that we would be driving to Nazareth and then staying overnight, so we quickly ran upstairs and packed an overnight bag. Always an adventure!!
It was really neat to get out of the city and see a different part of the country. It took about 2 hours to get to Nazareth, and we saw some interesting things along the way. We saw a huge crash site where a river of gasoline was spewing and hundreds of people were bringing their gas cans to stock-quite the risk, but gas is over $5 a gallon there, so I imagine you do what you have to!
We arrived in Nazareth around 9 pm and checked into our hotel. Woudneh had told us that it was very luxurious, and only $24 a room, and it was very nice (much nicer than the guest house). We went to a hotel down the street for dinner and ate by the pool. We were excited to see many American-friendly options on the menu. Chad got pasta, and I chose a cheeseburger. Imagine my surprise when it arrived and looked like a huge hunk of meatloaf (very spicy meatloaf-they put peppers on top!) between two pieces of bread with mozzarella cheese on top. Different. We headed back to the hotel and enjoyed the vastly superior shower. We hopped into bed (two double beds), ready to enjoy a good night's sleep. Well, we attempted to hop. The mattresses were like bricks. Seriously. I was almost convinced that they were actually box springs (we had that happen on a Chinese cruise, it was awful). I attempted to put the comforter on top of it to soften it, but it helped not at all.
We eventually fell asleep, but I woke up at 1 am and could not get comfortable. Chad was awake as well, as he had heard a gun shot outside and was on the balcony investigating! We laid awake for most of the night, but around 4 am we fell asleep until we needed to awake at 7:30. Poor Chad, two bad nights in a row!!
I woke up this morning feeling pretty good after a very decent night's sleep. Poor Chad hadn't fared so well, and his stomach was feeling pretty awful. The plan for the day was to spend the morning with our girls, and then Woudneh was picking us up at 11 am to drive about 2 hours away to Nazareth, which is where Gabby is from.
We headed down for breakfast and the guys went to get the babies right away. We headed outside to the courtyard with them and enjoyed the sunshine. The best part about the guest house and transition house is that the transition home (where all of the kids waiting stay until we are able to bring them home) makes a U-shape, and in the middle sits the guest house. We were never more than a hundred feet from Gabby's room, which was super convenient and made it easy for us to spend some quiet time with her in our room. This picture is of the transition home-where we stayed was right behind where I was standing to take the picture.
I had brought the Ergo my girlfriends gave me at my shower to try out, and Gabby and I both LOVED it! Highly recommend one for anyone adopting a baby-I think it will be awesome for travel, and it was super comfy. We played with the older kids for a while as well. There was a swingset, and Chad taught them Ring Around the Rosie :) They were all so sweet, and just wanted some attention and love. It made it much easier to know that they all have loving families anxious to get them home and give them just that!
It was getting close to 11 am, so we took the girls up to the front porch and waited with them for Woudneh, trying to get as much time as possible with them. We waited and waited, and used the time to get tons of photos of the babies with us. After a while, Gabby got fussy and we realized she was hungry. I got a bottle from the nanny and got to feed her-it was wonderful! She fell asleep while she was eating, so we took turns holding her while she slept. Around 12:30 the staff told us lunch was ready, so we ate (we still aren't sure what it was!). After lunch Chad went upstairs for a nap. Poor thing, he was feeling SO lousy (and he never lets on when he's sick, so I knew it was bad). We hung out with the girls in the main room of the guest house (pictured below).
After a while the nannies came to take the babies for their baths and the rest of us rested on the couches. Then they brought them back and we snuggled some more. It was such a wonderful chance to just relax with them and really soak in tons of time with them. Such a blessing! Chad came down from his nap feeling a little better and spent some time snuggling with Gabby as well. We finally asked someone to check on Woudneh, and were told he would be there at 5 pm. We thought it seemed odd that we wouldn't leave until then, but just nodded along.
Woudneh arrived around 5:30 with tons of apologies. The donated eyeglasses he was trying to get Customs to release so they could be used with the eye clinic mission had taken all day (and quite a bit of money) to ransom! Luckily he was able to get them, and now had 1,351 pairs of glasses to pass out to people who desperately needed them. He explained that we would be driving to Nazareth and then staying overnight, so we quickly ran upstairs and packed an overnight bag. Always an adventure!!
It was really neat to get out of the city and see a different part of the country. It took about 2 hours to get to Nazareth, and we saw some interesting things along the way. We saw a huge crash site where a river of gasoline was spewing and hundreds of people were bringing their gas cans to stock-quite the risk, but gas is over $5 a gallon there, so I imagine you do what you have to!
We arrived in Nazareth around 9 pm and checked into our hotel. Woudneh had told us that it was very luxurious, and only $24 a room, and it was very nice (much nicer than the guest house). We went to a hotel down the street for dinner and ate by the pool. We were excited to see many American-friendly options on the menu. Chad got pasta, and I chose a cheeseburger. Imagine my surprise when it arrived and looked like a huge hunk of meatloaf (very spicy meatloaf-they put peppers on top!) between two pieces of bread with mozzarella cheese on top. Different. We headed back to the hotel and enjoyed the vastly superior shower. We hopped into bed (two double beds), ready to enjoy a good night's sleep. Well, we attempted to hop. The mattresses were like bricks. Seriously. I was almost convinced that they were actually box springs (we had that happen on a Chinese cruise, it was awful). I attempted to put the comforter on top of it to soften it, but it helped not at all.
We eventually fell asleep, but I woke up at 1 am and could not get comfortable. Chad was awake as well, as he had heard a gun shot outside and was on the balcony investigating! We laid awake for most of the night, but around 4 am we fell asleep until we needed to awake at 7:30. Poor Chad, two bad nights in a row!!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Ethiopia-Day 1
Okay, I am going to try something different. It seems like uploading all the pictures and putting them in the right spots is taking me forever, and keeping me very unmotivated to document the trip. So I am going to make a slide show quickly for each day and post it along with a description of our day (all the photos in the slide show will go in order throughout the day, so you should be able to follow along). I know it's not ideal, but I promise to move faster now!!
When I left off, we were on our way to the guest house and transition house. The drive was LONG, and we got our first taste of Ethiopian driving. We've traveled quite a bit, and have experienced Thai driving, which we thought was crazy, but we both agree Ethiopia wins! The exhaust was immense, the roads were bumpy, and it takes forever to get anywhere. By the end of the week we were totally used to it though! After about 50 minutes, we arrived and I saw the sign for our agency's home that I had seen in other blogs. My heart began to beat faster when I realized our daughter was right behind the gate!
We got out and the staff took all of our luggage inside for us. We had only one suitcase plus our carry-ons that were our things, and the rest were filled with donations, so we had them leave them downstairs, and they went through and sorted all the items to distribute. It was about 11 am at this point, and they brought out some breakfast for us to eat. They had told us they'd bring the babies out right away, so we tried to quickly freshen up and then picked at the food. I think we were all bundles of nerves!! We were so happy to see the rest of the eye clinic mission group hanging out in the room, and they sweetly offered to film and take pictures for us, which was a huge help. As we were eating, we spotted two nannies carrying two babies towards us through the window, and knew the moment had come!
The first nanny asked for the family of the other baby, and then we heard a nanny holding a baby covered in a soft pink blanket ask for "Lina's family." That's us! She handed her to me and I just drank her in, crying and smiling. She was even more beautiful than her pictures. She seemed a little unsure, but content. After hogging her for a few minutes, I let Chad have a turn. She got a bit upset, but calmed down after a minute. We took her upstairs to our room, where she got fussy again, but I quickly realized that she was tired. I rocked her for a few minutes and she fell asleep easily in my arms. I got to nap with her on the bed for a while, which was wonderful!! Chad hung out with us and also tried to get the internet to work on the computer so we could e-mail home and tell them we'd made it.
At some point a couple of hours in, they came to tell us lunch was ready (yes, about an hour and a half after the breakfast they'd made!), and we brought Gabby downstairs with us. Chad was going to hold her and we'd take turns eating-neither of us minded missing a meal to hold her! But then the nannies came in and took her back to her bed, so we ate and took a nap to recover a little. After we woke up we grabbed the babies back and spent some more time with them. It was a wonderful way to start our trip to get to spend so much with her the first day. We were totally and completely head over heels in love!!
Woudneh came back at dinner time to take us out to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant. We ate a bit, and Chad was thrilled to get Tej, a honey wine we've had at our local Ethiopian restaurant here. As we ate the dancers came out and started to perform. They also pulled us up to dance throughout the evening-it was fun! We were all SO tired, but Woudneh kept telling us the best part was still to come. He also told us we needed to stay awake until 10 pm or so, so that we'd end our jetlag. I thought I was going to fall asleep sitting at the table!! The big number was a dance re-enacting a marriage ceremony. They brought JW, KC, and Chad and I up on stage and sat us in chairs with the happy couple in between. They brought out another plate of injera and a pot of spicy meat, and then began feeding us, and encouraging us to feed each other. It was funny, but the meat was spicy, we were tired, and they just kept shoveling it in!! We had a great time, but were thrilled to head back to the guest house.
We were disappointed to learn that our shower totally stunk. It was a bit like having someone squirt you with a water gun while they stood directly overhead. After our long travel and first day, we were happy to take whatever kind of shower we could get, but it was kind of funny! At least it was hot! We were also surprised to learn that our bed pillows didn't have pillowcases, rather they had the decorate shams that came with the comforter. Again, it wasn't a huge deal, just kind of funny! Despite a lot of noise outside, I slept for a blissful 8 hours, but poor Chad got only about 4 hours of sleep and woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pain :(
When I left off, we were on our way to the guest house and transition house. The drive was LONG, and we got our first taste of Ethiopian driving. We've traveled quite a bit, and have experienced Thai driving, which we thought was crazy, but we both agree Ethiopia wins! The exhaust was immense, the roads were bumpy, and it takes forever to get anywhere. By the end of the week we were totally used to it though! After about 50 minutes, we arrived and I saw the sign for our agency's home that I had seen in other blogs. My heart began to beat faster when I realized our daughter was right behind the gate!
We got out and the staff took all of our luggage inside for us. We had only one suitcase plus our carry-ons that were our things, and the rest were filled with donations, so we had them leave them downstairs, and they went through and sorted all the items to distribute. It was about 11 am at this point, and they brought out some breakfast for us to eat. They had told us they'd bring the babies out right away, so we tried to quickly freshen up and then picked at the food. I think we were all bundles of nerves!! We were so happy to see the rest of the eye clinic mission group hanging out in the room, and they sweetly offered to film and take pictures for us, which was a huge help. As we were eating, we spotted two nannies carrying two babies towards us through the window, and knew the moment had come!
The first nanny asked for the family of the other baby, and then we heard a nanny holding a baby covered in a soft pink blanket ask for "Lina's family." That's us! She handed her to me and I just drank her in, crying and smiling. She was even more beautiful than her pictures. She seemed a little unsure, but content. After hogging her for a few minutes, I let Chad have a turn. She got a bit upset, but calmed down after a minute. We took her upstairs to our room, where she got fussy again, but I quickly realized that she was tired. I rocked her for a few minutes and she fell asleep easily in my arms. I got to nap with her on the bed for a while, which was wonderful!! Chad hung out with us and also tried to get the internet to work on the computer so we could e-mail home and tell them we'd made it.
At some point a couple of hours in, they came to tell us lunch was ready (yes, about an hour and a half after the breakfast they'd made!), and we brought Gabby downstairs with us. Chad was going to hold her and we'd take turns eating-neither of us minded missing a meal to hold her! But then the nannies came in and took her back to her bed, so we ate and took a nap to recover a little. After we woke up we grabbed the babies back and spent some more time with them. It was a wonderful way to start our trip to get to spend so much with her the first day. We were totally and completely head over heels in love!!
Woudneh came back at dinner time to take us out to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant. We ate a bit, and Chad was thrilled to get Tej, a honey wine we've had at our local Ethiopian restaurant here. As we ate the dancers came out and started to perform. They also pulled us up to dance throughout the evening-it was fun! We were all SO tired, but Woudneh kept telling us the best part was still to come. He also told us we needed to stay awake until 10 pm or so, so that we'd end our jetlag. I thought I was going to fall asleep sitting at the table!! The big number was a dance re-enacting a marriage ceremony. They brought JW, KC, and Chad and I up on stage and sat us in chairs with the happy couple in between. They brought out another plate of injera and a pot of spicy meat, and then began feeding us, and encouraging us to feed each other. It was funny, but the meat was spicy, we were tired, and they just kept shoveling it in!! We had a great time, but were thrilled to head back to the guest house.
We were disappointed to learn that our shower totally stunk. It was a bit like having someone squirt you with a water gun while they stood directly overhead. After our long travel and first day, we were happy to take whatever kind of shower we could get, but it was kind of funny! At least it was hot! We were also surprised to learn that our bed pillows didn't have pillowcases, rather they had the decorate shams that came with the comforter. Again, it wasn't a huge deal, just kind of funny! Despite a lot of noise outside, I slept for a blissful 8 hours, but poor Chad got only about 4 hours of sleep and woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pain :(
Sunday, June 19, 2011
First Trip-Travel
Alright, time to relive our trip!!
Sunday, May 29th-Our flight plan was to leave Indy at 6 am, arrive in DC at 7:33 am, and then depart DC for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at noon, arriving into Ethiopia the next morning at 7:45 am (their time). I had petitioned unsuccessfully to take a flight the evening before so we didn't have to get up super early and start our trip sleep-deprived, but my husband (being the cheapskate that he is) felt strongly we shouldn't pay for a hotel room if we didn't have to. Boo! So up we were at 3:30 am...yuck (but totally worth it, of course!). We'll see if I can't win that battle for the next trip :)
We had almost everything packed up the night before. Three of our pieces of checked luggage were full of donations, and then we had one big suitcase with our personal things to check, plus a laptop bag (thanks Ben and Shari!), camera bag, rolling suitcase, and backpack all to carry-on. Here are our 3 donation bags:
We got up, dressed, and headed to my parents' house. My wonderful mother had stayed at our house the night before so the boys were all set, and my wonderful father had offered to drive us to the airport so we wouldn't have to park our car in long-term parking. We got to the airport at 4:30 am, unloaded, and got ready to begin our journey!! We were able to check our baggage without problems (I'd been a little worried they wouldn't check it all the way through to Ethiopia, which was completely wasted worry), and headed to our gate. Here we are waiting to start boarding:
Our plane ride to Dulles was short and sweet. We had about 4 1/2 hours to kill until our flight to Addis, so we found some nice, long, deserted benches and both laid down and took naps for an hour or so. Then we got up and navigated a maze of a tram, shuttle bus, and about 40 escalators to get to the terminal we'd be leaving out of. We walked around for a while to find breakfast, and finally settled on Max and Erma's. Yum! We had been waiting for the Godwins, the other family traveling with us, to arrive, and luckily they did just as we picked our restaurant, so they joined us and we had a nice meal together. We were all excited and happy to finally meet after months of e-mails and phone calls!
Apparently they began boarding the flight way earlier than the 30 minutes ahead of time that we're used to, and by the time we got on, most of the plane was full. We weren't able to get much overhead space, so unfortunately most of our carry-ons went under the seats. We learned a lesson for the return trip!
We sat next to a woman going on a mission trip to Zimbabwe, and although she wasn't very talkative, she was quiet and didn't take up a lot of space...good enough! Our flight was uneventful, but the poor Godwins weren't so lucky and got bitten up by some kind of bug throughout the flight, and had people vomiting on all sides of them. We each watched a couple of movies, read a little, and slept a little. The meals were pretty "eh". Don't we look awesome?
After only 13 hours (!) we finally arrived in Addis, 30+ minutes after we were supposed to.
We disembarked outside and took a bus to the terminal, where we met up with the Godwins and stood in a VERY long line to get our Visas. While we were waiting, JW and I exchanged money and got loads of birr. We all met another adoptive family with a different agency who was there to pick up their new child and bring him home, so we asked them tons of questions. We got our Visas after waiting 30-45 minutes in line, and headed off to find our luggage. There was momentary panic when we had only 3 of our 4 pieces, and the one missing was the one with all of our personal items. We had plenty of soccer balls, children's clothes, formula, and candy, but none of our clothes or toiletries. After a little while of searching Chad was able to track it down. Whew!
We were unprepared for our luggage to be x-rayed before we could leave the airport, but it was, and it was an ordeal. I think the person running it was looking for laughs, so he kept purposely running the belt back and forth to dump all the luggage onto the floor on each end. Fabulous. A porter jumped in and grabbed all of our things before we could tell him not to, and promptly broke the handle off of our brand-new suitcase. Awesome. Then he got angry with us for not tipping him enough! Luckily we loaded up our cart and headed out of the baggage claim, where our agency's in country director, Woudneh, was waiting for us. He was with an eye doctor who was there for a medical mission trip, also through our agency, and was trying to get a ton of eyeglasses he had brought released from customs. So he got us to our van, we met our driver, and then he left and we headed to the guest house. We were on our way to the guest and transition house, and even better, our daughter!!
Sunday, May 29th-Our flight plan was to leave Indy at 6 am, arrive in DC at 7:33 am, and then depart DC for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at noon, arriving into Ethiopia the next morning at 7:45 am (their time). I had petitioned unsuccessfully to take a flight the evening before so we didn't have to get up super early and start our trip sleep-deprived, but my husband (being the cheapskate that he is) felt strongly we shouldn't pay for a hotel room if we didn't have to. Boo! So up we were at 3:30 am...yuck (but totally worth it, of course!). We'll see if I can't win that battle for the next trip :)
We had almost everything packed up the night before. Three of our pieces of checked luggage were full of donations, and then we had one big suitcase with our personal things to check, plus a laptop bag (thanks Ben and Shari!), camera bag, rolling suitcase, and backpack all to carry-on. Here are our 3 donation bags:
We got up, dressed, and headed to my parents' house. My wonderful mother had stayed at our house the night before so the boys were all set, and my wonderful father had offered to drive us to the airport so we wouldn't have to park our car in long-term parking. We got to the airport at 4:30 am, unloaded, and got ready to begin our journey!! We were able to check our baggage without problems (I'd been a little worried they wouldn't check it all the way through to Ethiopia, which was completely wasted worry), and headed to our gate. Here we are waiting to start boarding:
Our plane ride to Dulles was short and sweet. We had about 4 1/2 hours to kill until our flight to Addis, so we found some nice, long, deserted benches and both laid down and took naps for an hour or so. Then we got up and navigated a maze of a tram, shuttle bus, and about 40 escalators to get to the terminal we'd be leaving out of. We walked around for a while to find breakfast, and finally settled on Max and Erma's. Yum! We had been waiting for the Godwins, the other family traveling with us, to arrive, and luckily they did just as we picked our restaurant, so they joined us and we had a nice meal together. We were all excited and happy to finally meet after months of e-mails and phone calls!
Apparently they began boarding the flight way earlier than the 30 minutes ahead of time that we're used to, and by the time we got on, most of the plane was full. We weren't able to get much overhead space, so unfortunately most of our carry-ons went under the seats. We learned a lesson for the return trip!
We sat next to a woman going on a mission trip to Zimbabwe, and although she wasn't very talkative, she was quiet and didn't take up a lot of space...good enough! Our flight was uneventful, but the poor Godwins weren't so lucky and got bitten up by some kind of bug throughout the flight, and had people vomiting on all sides of them. We each watched a couple of movies, read a little, and slept a little. The meals were pretty "eh". Don't we look awesome?
After only 13 hours (!) we finally arrived in Addis, 30+ minutes after we were supposed to.
We disembarked outside and took a bus to the terminal, where we met up with the Godwins and stood in a VERY long line to get our Visas. While we were waiting, JW and I exchanged money and got loads of birr. We all met another adoptive family with a different agency who was there to pick up their new child and bring him home, so we asked them tons of questions. We got our Visas after waiting 30-45 minutes in line, and headed off to find our luggage. There was momentary panic when we had only 3 of our 4 pieces, and the one missing was the one with all of our personal items. We had plenty of soccer balls, children's clothes, formula, and candy, but none of our clothes or toiletries. After a little while of searching Chad was able to track it down. Whew!
We were unprepared for our luggage to be x-rayed before we could leave the airport, but it was, and it was an ordeal. I think the person running it was looking for laughs, so he kept purposely running the belt back and forth to dump all the luggage onto the floor on each end. Fabulous. A porter jumped in and grabbed all of our things before we could tell him not to, and promptly broke the handle off of our brand-new suitcase. Awesome. Then he got angry with us for not tipping him enough! Luckily we loaded up our cart and headed out of the baggage claim, where our agency's in country director, Woudneh, was waiting for us. He was with an eye doctor who was there for a medical mission trip, also through our agency, and was trying to get a ton of eyeglasses he had brought released from customs. So he got us to our van, we met our driver, and then he left and we headed to the guest house. We were on our way to the guest and transition house, and even better, our daughter!!
Friday, June 17, 2011
Best E-mail EVER!!!
This is what I woke up to this morning: "MOWA LETTER IS IN......IT IS FINAL!!!!!!"
Are those not the best words ever written?!?!
She is ours. We knew this in our hearts already, of course, but to know that (as far as the Ethiopian government is concerned) it's official is the best feeling in the world.
More to come later, including a day by day travelogue (I didn't forget, I just didn't want to post it without pictures!), but for now, let me introduce our daughter (!!!), Gabrielle Elise Hennessy.
Are those not the best words ever written?!?!
She is ours. We knew this in our hearts already, of course, but to know that (as far as the Ethiopian government is concerned) it's official is the best feeling in the world.
More to come later, including a day by day travelogue (I didn't forget, I just didn't want to post it without pictures!), but for now, let me introduce our daughter (!!!), Gabrielle Elise Hennessy.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
We're Back!
Just a quick note to say that we are back from Ethiopia! Our trip was all that we expected and more. Meeting Gabby was one of the best moments of my life, and we are completely and totally in love. She is the most beautiful little girl, full of smiles and giggles. We did not pass court, as our MOWA letter wasn't there, but we are hopeful it will just be another 1-3 weeks until it makes it to court. As soon as it does, I will post roughly 342 pictures of her :) For now, we will just say that we left a huge part of our hearts in Africa, but we know that she is being loved and well-cared for until we can bring her home. I promise to share all the details and do a complete, day by day, travel log soon! Thanks so much for all of the love and support while we were gone. We would appreciate prayers for our letter to arrive SOON!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Leaving On a Jet Plane
Only a few (very few) more hours until we get on our first flight. AHHHH!!! We leave Indy bright and early at 6 a.m., which means we literally will be getting up at the crack of dawn. Although 3:30 is not my normal wake up time, I will happily rouse myself to get this show on the road!!
Tonight we kissed the boys and tucked them into bed, and it was super sad knowing we won't be here when they wake up in the morning (my mom will be, for those who worry about child protection or want to rob us). I hate leaving them, but I am so excited to meet our other child. Griffin asked me to take 40 pictures of Gabby, 20 for him and 20 for Cooper. Oh, melt my heart!! I know they will have a blast with their grandparents, and we will probably miss them more than they miss us. :)
So, this is it. I can't believe that about 30 hours from now, we will be holding our sweet girl. It is unbelievable to me. God is GOOD!!!
Tonight we kissed the boys and tucked them into bed, and it was super sad knowing we won't be here when they wake up in the morning (my mom will be, for those who worry about child protection or want to rob us). I hate leaving them, but I am so excited to meet our other child. Griffin asked me to take 40 pictures of Gabby, 20 for him and 20 for Cooper. Oh, melt my heart!! I know they will have a blast with their grandparents, and we will probably miss them more than they miss us. :)
So, this is it. I can't believe that about 30 hours from now, we will be holding our sweet girl. It is unbelievable to me. God is GOOD!!!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Good News/Bad News (But mostly good!!)
Let me just say that in all of the weeks of worry I had leading up to our preliminary hearing, the one worry that never crossed my mind was whether we wouldn't even hear the results all day. Ethiopia is seven hours ahead of us, so I assumed that we would know for sure by early afternoon (late evening there). Well, the whole day came and went. By 6 pm, I was going crazy. I had been virtually useless all day, too nervous and on edge to get anything done. I started to realize that since it was 1 am there, odds were good we weren't going to hear anything, and I was beyond bummed. Luckily, we got a phone call shortly after that, and had our answer...whew!
The good news is that we do indeed get to travel for our court hearing. The judge didn't see any problems with our paperwork or our case. Praise God! The not so good news is that the MOWA letter we need for our hearing was not there. There is still a chance it will be there by Thursday, which is when we really need it. Someone just posted on a message board I frequent that 6 families with her agency who did not have the letter at that first hearing, DID have it at the second. So prayers are definitely still needed that our letter makes it!!
If our letter isn't there in time, we will still go to court, and our passing it will just be pending the letter arriving. We expect that would add a few weeks to a month onto our timeline. It's a little bittersweet to go, not knowing whether we will officially be Gabby's parents by the time we leave. But we'll take what we can get!! At this point, I just want to meet her, kiss her all over, smell her sweet baby smell, and hold her as much as possible to make up for all the months we weren't able to. Plus we are thrilled to finally SEE the country we have been reading and dreaming about for all these months!
It is sooooo surreal to me that after all this time of dreaming of her, the moment we will finally meet her is a very short ways away. We are coming, sweet girl!!!
The good news is that we do indeed get to travel for our court hearing. The judge didn't see any problems with our paperwork or our case. Praise God! The not so good news is that the MOWA letter we need for our hearing was not there. There is still a chance it will be there by Thursday, which is when we really need it. Someone just posted on a message board I frequent that 6 families with her agency who did not have the letter at that first hearing, DID have it at the second. So prayers are definitely still needed that our letter makes it!!
If our letter isn't there in time, we will still go to court, and our passing it will just be pending the letter arriving. We expect that would add a few weeks to a month onto our timeline. It's a little bittersweet to go, not knowing whether we will officially be Gabby's parents by the time we leave. But we'll take what we can get!! At this point, I just want to meet her, kiss her all over, smell her sweet baby smell, and hold her as much as possible to make up for all the months we weren't able to. Plus we are thrilled to finally SEE the country we have been reading and dreaming about for all these months!
It is sooooo surreal to me that after all this time of dreaming of her, the moment we will finally meet her is a very short ways away. We are coming, sweet girl!!!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tonight
Tonight, while we are sleeping, or very early tomorrow morning, a judge in Ethiopia will be looking over our case (along with our new friends, the Godwins) and making a preliminary decision about our case. She (I think it's a woman, though I may be wrong) will look at Gabby's paperwork and at ours. She will make sure there are no errors, mistakes, or omissions. She will look to see if the letter we need from MOWYCA is there. She will decide if we get to travel or not.
We are feeling very hopeful that this hearing will go just fine. We don't expect there to be any paperwork problems-as long as it took to get us ready to be submitted for court, our agency surely had plenty of time to check for problems! We don't know if our letter will be there. It seems likely that it will not, but we are still praying and hoping that it is, despite what logic says. Even without the letter, we are still very optimistic we will get to travel. If we don't have the letter, we'll still meet Gabby, go to court, and testify that we want to adopt her. Then the decree will just be pending the letter arriving, and when it does, it will be finalized. Obviously, we want the letter there tomorrow (or at least by our hearing on June 2nd), because then there will be no ambiguity or wait...Gabby will be ours (after going and passing court)!! I have been repeating for many days now, "We are going to pass court and our letter will be there." Let's see if positive thinking works!
Several families with our agency are in Ethiopia now for their hearings, and a new, great friend e-mailed me after meeting our sweet girl. She said she is "a CHUNK!!!," and that she is almost sitting up by herself, is a beautiful, giggly little girl, and is a favorite of the nannies and they don't want to see her go. That made our day to hear!!
We would very much appreciate everyone's prayers tonight and tomorrow as we await the outcome of the first hearing. Please pray that we are given clearance to travel, and that our MOWYCA letter is there. Thank you!!
We are feeling very hopeful that this hearing will go just fine. We don't expect there to be any paperwork problems-as long as it took to get us ready to be submitted for court, our agency surely had plenty of time to check for problems! We don't know if our letter will be there. It seems likely that it will not, but we are still praying and hoping that it is, despite what logic says. Even without the letter, we are still very optimistic we will get to travel. If we don't have the letter, we'll still meet Gabby, go to court, and testify that we want to adopt her. Then the decree will just be pending the letter arriving, and when it does, it will be finalized. Obviously, we want the letter there tomorrow (or at least by our hearing on June 2nd), because then there will be no ambiguity or wait...Gabby will be ours (after going and passing court)!! I have been repeating for many days now, "We are going to pass court and our letter will be there." Let's see if positive thinking works!
Several families with our agency are in Ethiopia now for their hearings, and a new, great friend e-mailed me after meeting our sweet girl. She said she is "a CHUNK!!!," and that she is almost sitting up by herself, is a beautiful, giggly little girl, and is a favorite of the nannies and they don't want to see her go. That made our day to hear!!
We would very much appreciate everyone's prayers tonight and tomorrow as we await the outcome of the first hearing. Please pray that we are given clearance to travel, and that our MOWYCA letter is there. Thank you!!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Choosing to Believe
Wow, well that post yesterday was kind of a downer, huh? I want to be honest on here about the feelings we've had along the way. I don't mean to sound whiny, just scared. But today, I am changing my tune. I am choosing to believe that everything is going to work out just fine.
A very dear friend, who has been one of our biggest supporters throughout this process, suggested to me that we simply choose to believe that things will work out. She told me lots more than that, but that's the main focus. Another great new adoption friend reminded me that, ultimately, faith comes down to simply having it, or not. So, why not believe? In that vein, we are getting ready to go! I washed some clothes and a soft, cozy blanket that we want to bring for Gabby today, and I decided what I'm going to wear on the plane. I've also been working on one massive packing list!
Hand in hand with believing that we are going (and not only that, but that we are going to pass court while we are there!), I want to take a minute to share the gratitude I have for the many blessings in my life.
I am grateful for:
-a husband who agreed to jump on board with this whole adoption idea, who loves me even when I freak out about EVERYTHING, and who is going to be the best daddy to Gabby, just like he is to our boys.
-two little boys who bring joy and laughter to my every day, who can't wait for their little sister to come home, and who make me happier and prouder to be their mommy than I ever imagined.
-friends and family who have stood by and supported us through this process, who are praying for us now, and who can't wait to love Gabby when she comes home.
-for where we are in the process. However hard this step is, every step we've gone through has been tough, but we made it through them, just as we'll get past those remaining.
-for the many, many lessons I am learning every single day from this journey. I could fill a book with the things I have learned about myself, my faith, and the people around us.
-for the little girl waiting for us halfway around the world, and for the fact that we will be kissing her chubby cheeks and holding her little hands in just 13 more days.
There...that's better, isn't it?
A very dear friend, who has been one of our biggest supporters throughout this process, suggested to me that we simply choose to believe that things will work out. She told me lots more than that, but that's the main focus. Another great new adoption friend reminded me that, ultimately, faith comes down to simply having it, or not. So, why not believe? In that vein, we are getting ready to go! I washed some clothes and a soft, cozy blanket that we want to bring for Gabby today, and I decided what I'm going to wear on the plane. I've also been working on one massive packing list!
Hand in hand with believing that we are going (and not only that, but that we are going to pass court while we are there!), I want to take a minute to share the gratitude I have for the many blessings in my life.
I am grateful for:
-a husband who agreed to jump on board with this whole adoption idea, who loves me even when I freak out about EVERYTHING, and who is going to be the best daddy to Gabby, just like he is to our boys.
-two little boys who bring joy and laughter to my every day, who can't wait for their little sister to come home, and who make me happier and prouder to be their mommy than I ever imagined.
-friends and family who have stood by and supported us through this process, who are praying for us now, and who can't wait to love Gabby when she comes home.
-for where we are in the process. However hard this step is, every step we've gone through has been tough, but we made it through them, just as we'll get past those remaining.
-for the many, many lessons I am learning every single day from this journey. I could fill a book with the things I have learned about myself, my faith, and the people around us.
-for the little girl waiting for us halfway around the world, and for the fact that we will be kissing her chubby cheeks and holding her little hands in just 13 more days.
There...that's better, isn't it?
Monday, May 16, 2011
Waiting and Worrying...Again
Boy, does it seem like almost everything I post is about how freaked out/worried/nervous I am about something? It sure feels like that to me! No sooner did we get the wonderful news of our court date than our excitement was tempered by a follow-up from our agency telling us not to book our travel until after that first court hearing I briefly mentioned in the previous post. For those of you keeping track, that hearing is Thursday, May 26th. The hearing that we need to come for is Thursday, June 2nd. We plan to leave Sunday, May 29th. Do the math and you will see that at this point, everything is up in the air until 3 days before we would leave. Is it just me, or does that sound stressful?
I understand completely the reasoning behind our agency encouraging us not to book travel until then. The whole "MOWA only writing 5 letters thing" did actually start about two weeks ago, so it is not likely that our MOWA letter will be done by court. And now, at that first hearing, the judge is looking for that letter, whereas before it was okay if it wasn't there until after the adoptive family had come. So if our letter isn't there at the first hearing (very possible), there is concern that the judge will not grant us travel clearance to come for our hearing either. Since all of the MOWA stuff is so new, no one has a real frame of reference on how things will go. So far, our agency had 6 families have their first hearing last Friday, and all 6 not only were given travel clearance, their MOWA letters were there! Praise God! I have heard from other adoption "friends" with different agencies, and they are reporting that over the last week or so, families they know of either had their letter or didn't, but all were still allowed to travel, so that's good news too. None of the people from other agencies are being told not to book their travel until after the first hearing, so I guess our agency is just being much more cautious. Still though, I feel like our trip is very, very much up in the air, and it is heartbreaking not to be able to just get excited about it!
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to not know how much to plan when you are talking about a trip to another continent? This is no weekend away! I don't want to pack everything up before the first hearing, because the idea of having to unpack it if we don't get to go kills me. We have a plan worked out for who's caring for the boys while we're gone, but I don't know how in depth to worry about that right now. We did get our travel vaccinations, since we'll need those whenever we go, and we are collecting donations for the orphanages, since we'll take those whenever we go. But I can't bring myself to go out and buy travel sized shampoo and soap, since I just feel sick when I think about this trip, not excited. When people congratulate us on it, I make sure to let them know that it's not a done deal yet. My poor friend brought champagne to our girls' night this weekend to toast our court date and trip, and I felt the need to clarify that we didn't know whether we get to celebrate or not...pretty sure I ruined that toast! :)
I have literally been sick to my stomach about the changes with the Ethiopian adoption system since early March. Everyday, worried sick with nerves. I wake up doing the math in my head of how many families are ahead of us for court, times 5 letters per day, times the number of days before our hearing. I know with every fiber of my being that our sweet Gabby will be worth every moment of worry and heartache we've had. I also know that sometimes the best things in life require the most work. But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't love catching just a little break sometime soon!
I understand completely the reasoning behind our agency encouraging us not to book travel until then. The whole "MOWA only writing 5 letters thing" did actually start about two weeks ago, so it is not likely that our MOWA letter will be done by court. And now, at that first hearing, the judge is looking for that letter, whereas before it was okay if it wasn't there until after the adoptive family had come. So if our letter isn't there at the first hearing (very possible), there is concern that the judge will not grant us travel clearance to come for our hearing either. Since all of the MOWA stuff is so new, no one has a real frame of reference on how things will go. So far, our agency had 6 families have their first hearing last Friday, and all 6 not only were given travel clearance, their MOWA letters were there! Praise God! I have heard from other adoption "friends" with different agencies, and they are reporting that over the last week or so, families they know of either had their letter or didn't, but all were still allowed to travel, so that's good news too. None of the people from other agencies are being told not to book their travel until after the first hearing, so I guess our agency is just being much more cautious. Still though, I feel like our trip is very, very much up in the air, and it is heartbreaking not to be able to just get excited about it!
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to not know how much to plan when you are talking about a trip to another continent? This is no weekend away! I don't want to pack everything up before the first hearing, because the idea of having to unpack it if we don't get to go kills me. We have a plan worked out for who's caring for the boys while we're gone, but I don't know how in depth to worry about that right now. We did get our travel vaccinations, since we'll need those whenever we go, and we are collecting donations for the orphanages, since we'll take those whenever we go. But I can't bring myself to go out and buy travel sized shampoo and soap, since I just feel sick when I think about this trip, not excited. When people congratulate us on it, I make sure to let them know that it's not a done deal yet. My poor friend brought champagne to our girls' night this weekend to toast our court date and trip, and I felt the need to clarify that we didn't know whether we get to celebrate or not...pretty sure I ruined that toast! :)
I have literally been sick to my stomach about the changes with the Ethiopian adoption system since early March. Everyday, worried sick with nerves. I wake up doing the math in my head of how many families are ahead of us for court, times 5 letters per day, times the number of days before our hearing. I know with every fiber of my being that our sweet Gabby will be worth every moment of worry and heartache we've had. I also know that sometimes the best things in life require the most work. But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't love catching just a little break sometime soon!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Gabby's Shower
I know, almost a full month late, but life has been busy lately!
I wanted to make sure to do a post about the wonderful, wonderful shower my friends threw me for Gabby. My best friend Jen had told me way back when, back when Gabby was a mere twinkle in our eyes, that she wanted to throw me a shower whenever we got further into the process. I kid you not, two minutes after I called to tell her about our referral, she reminded me that now we could have a shower! So sweet! We decided to do it in April because at that point (back in February) we really thought we would be traveling for court in early May. Ha!
Sarah, my adoption BFF, helped Jen a ton by making the gorgeous cake, designing the super cute invitations, and generally being her right hand lady. I am so grateful to have such amazing friends who love me enough to go to all this work for me! I love you guys!
Since Gabby's nursery theme is a whimsical "birds and trees" theme, they picked that for the shower theme. Oh, and lots of pink! Just look at this gorgeous cake!
So many great friends came out to help me celebrate. Thanks to everyone who came! We had delicious food, played a couple of fun games (I love games!), and of course opened presents. Our friends were so sweet and generous...we are now fully decked out with pink, pink, and more pink!
Someday I hope Gabby can look back and feel how much love people had for her before she ever even got here :)
I wanted to make sure to do a post about the wonderful, wonderful shower my friends threw me for Gabby. My best friend Jen had told me way back when, back when Gabby was a mere twinkle in our eyes, that she wanted to throw me a shower whenever we got further into the process. I kid you not, two minutes after I called to tell her about our referral, she reminded me that now we could have a shower! So sweet! We decided to do it in April because at that point (back in February) we really thought we would be traveling for court in early May. Ha!
Sarah, my adoption BFF, helped Jen a ton by making the gorgeous cake, designing the super cute invitations, and generally being her right hand lady. I am so grateful to have such amazing friends who love me enough to go to all this work for me! I love you guys!
Since Gabby's nursery theme is a whimsical "birds and trees" theme, they picked that for the shower theme. Oh, and lots of pink! Just look at this gorgeous cake!
So many great friends came out to help me celebrate. Thanks to everyone who came! We had delicious food, played a couple of fun games (I love games!), and of course opened presents. Our friends were so sweet and generous...we are now fully decked out with pink, pink, and more pink!
Someday I hope Gabby can look back and feel how much love people had for her before she ever even got here :)
Friday, May 6, 2011
COURT DATE!!
Finally, after almost 6 weeks of waiting, the call we have been waiting for came today. We have a court date!! We will be in Ethiopia the first week of June to meet the baby girl we have been wishing for, thinking about, and loving from afar for the last three months.
Everytime the phone has rung over the past few weeks, I've said a little prayer it was THE call and been disappointed. This morning, I was out doing errands. Chad had called me on my cell phone a few times already, and when it rang again I assumed it was him. When I saw the area code, I got butterflies and knew it was Lesley from our agency. After saying hello, I said, "Please, PLEASE tell me you have a court date for us!!!" and she did! (I am sure she thinks I am a complete loon, fyi, but she does a good job hiding it). I then called Chad, who was equally excited. We are so thrilled to finally know the day we will see our sweet girl's face! Oh, the kisses I will smother her with! She has the most gorgeous chubby cheeks, and I can't wait to just eat them up! Ahhhh!
We aren't completely out of the woods yet. There will be a preliminary hearing where the judge looks through all the paperwork to make sure it's okay, and that's when we'll get our official clearance to travel. But because that hearing is only a week before ours, we're going ahead and booking our travel soon and planning that we will be there! If all goes well, we will be on a plane in just a few short weeks. I can't believe it!
Everytime the phone has rung over the past few weeks, I've said a little prayer it was THE call and been disappointed. This morning, I was out doing errands. Chad had called me on my cell phone a few times already, and when it rang again I assumed it was him. When I saw the area code, I got butterflies and knew it was Lesley from our agency. After saying hello, I said, "Please, PLEASE tell me you have a court date for us!!!" and she did! (I am sure she thinks I am a complete loon, fyi, but she does a good job hiding it). I then called Chad, who was equally excited. We are so thrilled to finally know the day we will see our sweet girl's face! Oh, the kisses I will smother her with! She has the most gorgeous chubby cheeks, and I can't wait to just eat them up! Ahhhh!
We aren't completely out of the woods yet. There will be a preliminary hearing where the judge looks through all the paperwork to make sure it's okay, and that's when we'll get our official clearance to travel. But because that hearing is only a week before ours, we're going ahead and booking our travel soon and planning that we will be there! If all goes well, we will be on a plane in just a few short weeks. I can't believe it!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Prayer Request
I'm having a cruddy day today. There is still all kinds of talk about MOWYCA really going to only 5 letters per day, and this makes me so sad I can't even put it into words. I'm trying really hard to try to have faith that things will work out fine, but it's hard to remember that sometimes.
But more importantly for us right now, we still haven't heard our court date. We know they must be getting really close to us. We were submitted March 28th (5 weeks ago today), and I have heard of people with various agencies submitted on March 22nd and March 29th getting dates over the last week, so I know we have to be close. But nothing yet, and it is so unbelievably difficult to sit and wait, never knowing the day we will finally get to meet our sweet girl. Everytime the phone rings, my heart jumps with the hope that it's going to be our program coordinator Lesley calling with good news, and when it isn't, I get sad all over again. As I have mentioned a few times, I am a total control freak, so being this much out of control of the situation stinks.
We got new pictures of Gabby (have I mentioned on here that we have chosen the name Gabrielle Elise?) over the weekend, and while we were so happy to see her looking happy and healthy and well-cared for, they break our heart at the same time because we just want her to be here with us. It's been almost 3 months since our referral, and we still don't even have a court date yet. So I am asking, if you are the praying kind, for prayers for us (and another family with our agency, the Godwins, whose new daughter is almost the same age and who was submitted the same day as us for court). Please pray that we hear a court date soon (today would be great!). Please pray for us to have patience and calm while we wait. And if you are into praying for the long term, a little prayer that whenever we do go for court our letter is there would be nice too.
We waited a good long time just to be submitted for court, and at one point in the process, I really felt we had hit a point where progress just wasn't going to be made without prayers of intercession on our behalf. Shortly after that, we learned we had been submitted. I feel like that again now. So prayers are greatly appreciated. If you aren't the praying type, we'd happily take speedy, happy thoughts! :)
Not much else to report...Chad is done training for the mini and is resting his legs until Saturday. I am working on a very noticeable shirt for him to wear during the race, and the kids and I can't wait to cheer him on! We painted Gabby's room last week and I just painted the chair rail today, so progress is being made there. Hopefully soon she will be here to enjoy it!
But more importantly for us right now, we still haven't heard our court date. We know they must be getting really close to us. We were submitted March 28th (5 weeks ago today), and I have heard of people with various agencies submitted on March 22nd and March 29th getting dates over the last week, so I know we have to be close. But nothing yet, and it is so unbelievably difficult to sit and wait, never knowing the day we will finally get to meet our sweet girl. Everytime the phone rings, my heart jumps with the hope that it's going to be our program coordinator Lesley calling with good news, and when it isn't, I get sad all over again. As I have mentioned a few times, I am a total control freak, so being this much out of control of the situation stinks.
We got new pictures of Gabby (have I mentioned on here that we have chosen the name Gabrielle Elise?) over the weekend, and while we were so happy to see her looking happy and healthy and well-cared for, they break our heart at the same time because we just want her to be here with us. It's been almost 3 months since our referral, and we still don't even have a court date yet. So I am asking, if you are the praying kind, for prayers for us (and another family with our agency, the Godwins, whose new daughter is almost the same age and who was submitted the same day as us for court). Please pray that we hear a court date soon (today would be great!). Please pray for us to have patience and calm while we wait. And if you are into praying for the long term, a little prayer that whenever we do go for court our letter is there would be nice too.
We waited a good long time just to be submitted for court, and at one point in the process, I really felt we had hit a point where progress just wasn't going to be made without prayers of intercession on our behalf. Shortly after that, we learned we had been submitted. I feel like that again now. So prayers are greatly appreciated. If you aren't the praying type, we'd happily take speedy, happy thoughts! :)
Not much else to report...Chad is done training for the mini and is resting his legs until Saturday. I am working on a very noticeable shirt for him to wear during the race, and the kids and I can't wait to cheer him on! We painted Gabby's room last week and I just painted the chair rail today, so progress is being made there. Hopefully soon she will be here to enjoy it!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
One Last Fundraiser
Y'all, have I mentioned how amazing my husband is? 'Cause he is pretty much the bee's knees. He works so hard to support our family, and then comes home and is about the best father I have ever seen. He gives every last drop of himself to his family and his patients, and there is not one ounce of selfishness in him. I think he's pretty cute too!
What does this have to do with the title of this post, you ask? Well, my husband is so wonderful that when I came up with the bright idea for him to run the 13.1 mile Indy 500 Mini-Marathon and try to get family and friends to sponsor him per mile as a fundraiser, he didn't say, "If that's such a good idea, why don't you do it?" (Probably because he knew I would die prior to the finish-possibly prior to the one mile mark-and leave all of our children motherless). Nope, he said, "Sure! I would love to run it!" So he has been training his legs off, and next Saturday is the big day!
This is what we sent out to select family and friends:
Dear Family and Friends,
As most of you probably are aware, our family began a journey to adopt a child from Ethiopia last August. After months of gathering documents, proving ourselves capable parents, petitioning the government to allow us to bring a child home, and waiting to be matched, we received a referral for a gorgeous baby girl in February. We have decided to name her Gabrielle Elise, and she is turning 6 months old today! We are waiting for our court date in Ethiopia, at which time we will become her legal parents. We hope to hear in the next week or so when that will be, and anticipate traveling there in early to mid-June. After our court date, we will have to leave Gabby for 6-10 weeks while we wait for her paperwork to be approved by the US Embassy. Once it is, we will travel one more time and finally get to bring her home!
As you might imagine, the process of adopting internationally is not inexpensive. This is something we believe we were called to do, and so far, the money we have needed has been there. We estimate we have spent $17,000 so far, and expect our travel expenses for the two trips to be another $11,000. While we have a good chunk of that money saved, we do not have enough to complete both trips at this time. We are writing today to ask if you might consider helping us.
As a fundraiser, Chad will be running in the Indianapolis 500 Mini-Marathon on May 7th. This 13.1 mile race is the largest half-marathon in the country, with 35,000 participants. We are asking you to consider sponsoring him in this race. Would you be willing to give a donation of $1, $2, or $5 per mile run? Or perhaps a flat donation? Every penny raised will go towards the remainder of our adoption expenses, and if we raise more money than we still need for our travel, we will use it to buy supplies to be donated to the orphanages in Ethiopia. To contribute, you can donate through PayPal (see the Donate button to the right), or if you would prefer to mail a check, please message me at janasolomon@hotmail.com.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration. Even if you aren’t able to contribute at this time, we would appreciate your prayers as we complete this journey. We can’t wait to introduce Gabby to all of you SOON!
Love,
Chad and Jana
Asking people to help support us in this endeavor has been the most humbling thing I've ever done. I HATED sending that e-mail. But we still believe that all of us are called to do something to help the orphans in this world, although we know not all are called to adopt. I am very glad to announce that this will be our last fundraiser and I can stop hitting people up for money! If you did not receive this letter but would like to sponsor Chad, please follow either of the ways mentioned above. Thank you!
What does this have to do with the title of this post, you ask? Well, my husband is so wonderful that when I came up with the bright idea for him to run the 13.1 mile Indy 500 Mini-Marathon and try to get family and friends to sponsor him per mile as a fundraiser, he didn't say, "If that's such a good idea, why don't you do it?" (Probably because he knew I would die prior to the finish-possibly prior to the one mile mark-and leave all of our children motherless). Nope, he said, "Sure! I would love to run it!" So he has been training his legs off, and next Saturday is the big day!
This is what we sent out to select family and friends:
Dear Family and Friends,
As most of you probably are aware, our family began a journey to adopt a child from Ethiopia last August. After months of gathering documents, proving ourselves capable parents, petitioning the government to allow us to bring a child home, and waiting to be matched, we received a referral for a gorgeous baby girl in February. We have decided to name her Gabrielle Elise, and she is turning 6 months old today! We are waiting for our court date in Ethiopia, at which time we will become her legal parents. We hope to hear in the next week or so when that will be, and anticipate traveling there in early to mid-June. After our court date, we will have to leave Gabby for 6-10 weeks while we wait for her paperwork to be approved by the US Embassy. Once it is, we will travel one more time and finally get to bring her home!
As you might imagine, the process of adopting internationally is not inexpensive. This is something we believe we were called to do, and so far, the money we have needed has been there. We estimate we have spent $17,000 so far, and expect our travel expenses for the two trips to be another $11,000. While we have a good chunk of that money saved, we do not have enough to complete both trips at this time. We are writing today to ask if you might consider helping us.
As a fundraiser, Chad will be running in the Indianapolis 500 Mini-Marathon on May 7th. This 13.1 mile race is the largest half-marathon in the country, with 35,000 participants. We are asking you to consider sponsoring him in this race. Would you be willing to give a donation of $1, $2, or $5 per mile run? Or perhaps a flat donation? Every penny raised will go towards the remainder of our adoption expenses, and if we raise more money than we still need for our travel, we will use it to buy supplies to be donated to the orphanages in Ethiopia. To contribute, you can donate through PayPal (see the Donate button to the right), or if you would prefer to mail a check, please message me at janasolomon@hotmail.com.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration. Even if you aren’t able to contribute at this time, we would appreciate your prayers as we complete this journey. We can’t wait to introduce Gabby to all of you SOON!
Love,
Chad and Jana
Asking people to help support us in this endeavor has been the most humbling thing I've ever done. I HATED sending that e-mail. But we still believe that all of us are called to do something to help the orphans in this world, although we know not all are called to adopt. I am very glad to announce that this will be our last fundraiser and I can stop hitting people up for money! If you did not receive this letter but would like to sponsor Chad, please follow either of the ways mentioned above. Thank you!
Monday, April 25, 2011
I Want...
a court date already!!!!! Still waiting. Feeling impatient. Glad that two other children, two dogs, and all the other "stuff" that fills our lives is keeping us busy. Ready to know the day we will get to meet our sweet girl. Dying to get a court date, preferably one that is not TOO far away.
That is all.
That is all.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Pictures from the Dance
I want to write a post about the wonderful baby shower I was thrown this past weekend, but first I must post some pictures from our fundraiser. I've been so busy I just finally found time to upload them!
One of Griffin's many girlfriends from school came with her family, and she and Griffin danced quite a bit. He had a blast!
Most of our dancers were kids, though some brave adults got out on the floor too!
Cooper was simply exhausted from busting the moves :)
The dessert buffet about halfway through the night. We had so many wonderfully delicious treats made for the event by friends and family. Everything was awesome! One of the youth from the church is super into making cupcakes, and she made the most gorgeous (and delicious) cupcakes with fondant hearts with "Love Makes a Family" written on them. They were AMAZING! And of course I totally forgot to get a picture :(
The winners of a beautiful pear tree donated for the silent auction! That was such a huge success. Sarah and I really didn't know what to expect from the auction, but it raised a ton of money and people seemed to really enjoy it as well.
Again, we are so thankful to everyone who supported the event in any way. We had a lot of fun planning it, and were so glad that everyone seemed to have fun at it. It was especially neat that it was such a "family" event, since that's kind of what this whole thing is all about! :)
One of Griffin's many girlfriends from school came with her family, and she and Griffin danced quite a bit. He had a blast!
Most of our dancers were kids, though some brave adults got out on the floor too!
Cooper was simply exhausted from busting the moves :)
The dessert buffet about halfway through the night. We had so many wonderfully delicious treats made for the event by friends and family. Everything was awesome! One of the youth from the church is super into making cupcakes, and she made the most gorgeous (and delicious) cupcakes with fondant hearts with "Love Makes a Family" written on them. They were AMAZING! And of course I totally forgot to get a picture :(
The winners of a beautiful pear tree donated for the silent auction! That was such a huge success. Sarah and I really didn't know what to expect from the auction, but it raised a ton of money and people seemed to really enjoy it as well.
Again, we are so thankful to everyone who supported the event in any way. We had a lot of fun planning it, and were so glad that everyone seemed to have fun at it. It was especially neat that it was such a "family" event, since that's kind of what this whole thing is all about! :)
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Success!
Well, our dance was a success!! All of that worrying was indeed for nothing, as it went better than we had ever expected! I don't have exact numbers, but we sold around 200 tickets, and then our silent auction was a much bigger success than we ever dreamed. When all is said and done, I think the total raised will be over $3,000, to be split between the Taylor family and ours. We are thrilled, and excited that the cost of one plane ticket was almost paid for in one night!
So many thank you's to hand out: to the friends and family who came out to support us and show their love, to the friends and family who bought tickets even though they couldn't be there, to the people who bid like crazy on the silent auction items, to those who baked delicious treats for the dessert buffet, to my dad for helping us find auction items, to our church for allowing us to have the event there, to all of the donors of silent auction items, and especially to Sarah Taylor for asking us to do the fundraiser with them and for being such an awesome partner throughout the process!
AND, not only was the night a financial success, but I think it was a lot of fun! There was dancing (mostly by the under age 10 set :), doorprizes, a dessert buffet so huge that despite everyone's best efforts to clean it out, there were a lot of leftovers, and a silent auction room constantly crowded with people stalking their bids!
Thank you, thank you, thanks for your support and love!
So many thank you's to hand out: to the friends and family who came out to support us and show their love, to the friends and family who bought tickets even though they couldn't be there, to the people who bid like crazy on the silent auction items, to those who baked delicious treats for the dessert buffet, to my dad for helping us find auction items, to our church for allowing us to have the event there, to all of the donors of silent auction items, and especially to Sarah Taylor for asking us to do the fundraiser with them and for being such an awesome partner throughout the process!
AND, not only was the night a financial success, but I think it was a lot of fun! There was dancing (mostly by the under age 10 set :), doorprizes, a dessert buffet so huge that despite everyone's best efforts to clean it out, there were a lot of leftovers, and a silent auction room constantly crowded with people stalking their bids!
Thank you, thank you, thanks for your support and love!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Why So Glum, Chum?
I'm having another one of those "woe is me" kind of days today :( It's not any one thing, but a few different things all kind of combining to make me feel glum.
I have a tendency to completely freak out whenever I have a party or event, and convince myself that no one is going to come. Every birthday party I have for one of the boys, every Pampered Chef/Discovery Toys/etc. party, even (if you remember back to last October) our big garage sale fundraiser. It's embarassing to admit what a freak I am, but hey, why not share that with the world, right?! What I should have learned by now is that usually people do indeed come, and in fact more often I am blown away by the attendance and success of the event. Witness the $2,500 raised at that garage sale I was convinced no one was coming to! So now we are having this dance fundraiser on Saturday, and I am getting myself all worried again that not many people will come, that all the hard work Sarah and I have put into it will be for naught, and on and on... I really am my own worst enemy! Combine that with the shower my BFF is having for me just one week later, which only a very small percent of guests have RSVPed for, and I think I've decided to throw my very own pity party freak out instead. Sigh... I am sure both events will be fantastic, but I still always seem to need to worry first. I wish I could skip that step!
I think part of my feeling weird about the shower is that when she asked to have one for me and started looking at dates, we were so hopeful we would be traveling in May, so we decided on April to make sure our court date didn't interfere with it. And now here we are almost to mid-April, and not only are we not close to traveling, we don't even have our court date yet. I feel a little awkward, I guess. And things still seem to be very much up in the air in Ethiopia right now.
If you remember my posts from early March, there was much worry about a proposal from MOWA, the ministry in Ethiopia that must send a letter to the court approving all matches between parents and child. They claimed they were going to start writing only 5 letters per day instead of 40-50, everyone freaked out (me most definitely included), and we worried about significant delays. But then we kept hearing great things about progress being made and things seeming to stay as they had been, so I quit worrying about it. Well, a few days ago the US State Department posted a new notice, saying that although MOWA had been working quite quickly over the past few weeks, that was just to clear the backlog of cases, and all new cases submitted for court would probably be processed at the 5 per day plan. Ouch. Since they are still working on the old cases at a fast pace, it remains to be seen how all of this plays out for real, but understandably, I am freaking out a bit and very nervous about what this means for us. It sounds like it won't be as bad as we feared originally, since they are clearing out the huge backlog and cases with court dates through early May will most likely be taken care of. But there will still be a bunch of cases before ours (assuming they even handle them in a "first come, first served" order-never a guarantee). Our main concern right now is that courts close for most of August and September, and we really, really, really want to pass court before that. It seemed like it would be easy to do. Several families with our agency who were submitted for court on March 9th (so 19 days before us) got their May 25th court date on Monday. Following that logic, we were/are hopeful that we might get a date for mid-June by the end of April. Even if our MOWA letter were missing at the court date, we figured having a 6-7 week cushion before the court closed would be plenty of time to pass. But if this slowdown really occurs, even if we have a June court date (Please God!), there is no guarantee our letter will come before August. Sigh... And of course, this could all worry us and make us crazy and then everything could still be fine. I would happily take the worry now for that to be the case later! :)
Oh, and, although we are hoping and praying more than anything that we do receive a June court date, we also just learned that June starts the peak travel season, and our plane tickets will probably be $500 each more than we had been thinking. So, you see, pretty much everything is designed to make me completely bonkers right now!
I tell you, this adoption process is a remarkable one. It is so filled with the highest of highs, and then just as quickly come the lowest of lows. I feel like I have been worried and anxious for more than a month now. Here's hoping some good and reassuring news comes soon.
I have a tendency to completely freak out whenever I have a party or event, and convince myself that no one is going to come. Every birthday party I have for one of the boys, every Pampered Chef/Discovery Toys/etc. party, even (if you remember back to last October) our big garage sale fundraiser. It's embarassing to admit what a freak I am, but hey, why not share that with the world, right?! What I should have learned by now is that usually people do indeed come, and in fact more often I am blown away by the attendance and success of the event. Witness the $2,500 raised at that garage sale I was convinced no one was coming to! So now we are having this dance fundraiser on Saturday, and I am getting myself all worried again that not many people will come, that all the hard work Sarah and I have put into it will be for naught, and on and on... I really am my own worst enemy! Combine that with the shower my BFF is having for me just one week later, which only a very small percent of guests have RSVPed for, and I think I've decided to throw my very own pity party freak out instead. Sigh... I am sure both events will be fantastic, but I still always seem to need to worry first. I wish I could skip that step!
I think part of my feeling weird about the shower is that when she asked to have one for me and started looking at dates, we were so hopeful we would be traveling in May, so we decided on April to make sure our court date didn't interfere with it. And now here we are almost to mid-April, and not only are we not close to traveling, we don't even have our court date yet. I feel a little awkward, I guess. And things still seem to be very much up in the air in Ethiopia right now.
If you remember my posts from early March, there was much worry about a proposal from MOWA, the ministry in Ethiopia that must send a letter to the court approving all matches between parents and child. They claimed they were going to start writing only 5 letters per day instead of 40-50, everyone freaked out (me most definitely included), and we worried about significant delays. But then we kept hearing great things about progress being made and things seeming to stay as they had been, so I quit worrying about it. Well, a few days ago the US State Department posted a new notice, saying that although MOWA had been working quite quickly over the past few weeks, that was just to clear the backlog of cases, and all new cases submitted for court would probably be processed at the 5 per day plan. Ouch. Since they are still working on the old cases at a fast pace, it remains to be seen how all of this plays out for real, but understandably, I am freaking out a bit and very nervous about what this means for us. It sounds like it won't be as bad as we feared originally, since they are clearing out the huge backlog and cases with court dates through early May will most likely be taken care of. But there will still be a bunch of cases before ours (assuming they even handle them in a "first come, first served" order-never a guarantee). Our main concern right now is that courts close for most of August and September, and we really, really, really want to pass court before that. It seemed like it would be easy to do. Several families with our agency who were submitted for court on March 9th (so 19 days before us) got their May 25th court date on Monday. Following that logic, we were/are hopeful that we might get a date for mid-June by the end of April. Even if our MOWA letter were missing at the court date, we figured having a 6-7 week cushion before the court closed would be plenty of time to pass. But if this slowdown really occurs, even if we have a June court date (Please God!), there is no guarantee our letter will come before August. Sigh... And of course, this could all worry us and make us crazy and then everything could still be fine. I would happily take the worry now for that to be the case later! :)
Oh, and, although we are hoping and praying more than anything that we do receive a June court date, we also just learned that June starts the peak travel season, and our plane tickets will probably be $500 each more than we had been thinking. So, you see, pretty much everything is designed to make me completely bonkers right now!
I tell you, this adoption process is a remarkable one. It is so filled with the highest of highs, and then just as quickly come the lowest of lows. I feel like I have been worried and anxious for more than a month now. Here's hoping some good and reassuring news comes soon.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
I Want to Dance With Somebody...
With somebody who loves me! (I really hope you heard that in your head a la Whitney Houston, otherwise I bet it was just weird :) What are you doing a week from tonight? Nothing? Trying to find something fun to do with bored kids? Looking to support two nice families as they bring sweet Ethiopian babies home? Well, you are in luck! I have a great way to spend a Saturday night!
Next Saturday from 6:30-9 pm, please consider joining us at our "Love Makes a Family" Spring Dance. It's being held at our church, Mt. Auburn United Methodist at SR 135 and Stones Crossing in Greenwood. All money raised goes directly to our adoption travel expenses and the adoption expenses of our awesome friends, the Taylor family. They adopted their beautiful daughter Mia in 2009 from Ethiopia, and are in the process of adopting a baby boy this time. Tickets are $5 per person, with a maximum of $25 per family. There will be dancing (but it is NOT required!!), a huge dessert buffet full of cakes, cookies, pies, and other treats, activities for the kids, and a silent auction filled with great items to bid on.
Some of the goodies we have, just to tempt you:
*A private wine tasting for 20 people at Mallow Run Winery
*A private suite for an Indiana Fever game
*Photo packages from 3 different Indianapolis photographers
*gift certificates for restaurants, salons, and other area businesses
*beautiful handmade items
*and lots more!
If you haven't already purchased your tickets, you can do so by using the link to the right, or by emailing taylor-hennessyadoption@hotmail.com. If you'd like to help us out by bringing a dessert of any kind, just send us an email letting us know what you'd like to bring. Tickets will be available at the door as well. Please, please share this info with friends and family who might enjoy a night of family entertainment while supporting a good cause. Thanks so much for supporting us!
Next Saturday from 6:30-9 pm, please consider joining us at our "Love Makes a Family" Spring Dance. It's being held at our church, Mt. Auburn United Methodist at SR 135 and Stones Crossing in Greenwood. All money raised goes directly to our adoption travel expenses and the adoption expenses of our awesome friends, the Taylor family. They adopted their beautiful daughter Mia in 2009 from Ethiopia, and are in the process of adopting a baby boy this time. Tickets are $5 per person, with a maximum of $25 per family. There will be dancing (but it is NOT required!!), a huge dessert buffet full of cakes, cookies, pies, and other treats, activities for the kids, and a silent auction filled with great items to bid on.
Some of the goodies we have, just to tempt you:
*A private wine tasting for 20 people at Mallow Run Winery
*A private suite for an Indiana Fever game
*Photo packages from 3 different Indianapolis photographers
*gift certificates for restaurants, salons, and other area businesses
*beautiful handmade items
*and lots more!
If you haven't already purchased your tickets, you can do so by using the link to the right, or by emailing taylor-hennessyadoption@hotmail.com. If you'd like to help us out by bringing a dessert of any kind, just send us an email letting us know what you'd like to bring. Tickets will be available at the door as well. Please, please share this info with friends and family who might enjoy a night of family entertainment while supporting a good cause. Thanks so much for supporting us!
Monday, March 28, 2011
GREAT News!!!!!
Well, we just had the best night in a looooong time! We were out all afternoon and evening, and when we got home around 8:30, there was a message on the machine from Lesley, our program coordinator, saying she had an "update" for us. I knew this either meant really good news or really bad news, so I didn't even wait until the kids were in bed to call her back! Luckily, it was even better than I had hoped (I was hoping to hear that we were ready to be submitted for court this week), and she said that we were actually submitted for court today!!!! YAY! It will still be 4-6 weeks before we find out our court date, and then a while after that before we get to go, but this is a major hurdle to jump. We are really getting closer! Based on court dates that have been passed out recently, we are thinking our court date will be sometime in June, but we really don't know. We also found out that a family we have become close to was also submitted today, so we are excited and hopeful that we may get to travel together, which would be extra fun!
As if that wasn't good enough news for the night, I hung up the phone, opened my e-mail, and found a message from a wonderful new adoption friend who was just in Ethiopia bringing her new son home. While there, she realized our daughter was at the same place as her son! They didn't know this until their last day just before they flew home, but she was able to snap 3 quick pictures for us of our beautiful girl while she slept. She was also able to tell us that she looks "very healthy and chunky"!! :) Oh, she looks even more gorgeous than she did in her referral picture!
So, wow, what a wonderful night we've had. I now have a few new pictures to ooh and aah over, and hope that our end really may be in sight!!
As if that wasn't good enough news for the night, I hung up the phone, opened my e-mail, and found a message from a wonderful new adoption friend who was just in Ethiopia bringing her new son home. While there, she realized our daughter was at the same place as her son! They didn't know this until their last day just before they flew home, but she was able to snap 3 quick pictures for us of our beautiful girl while she slept. She was also able to tell us that she looks "very healthy and chunky"!! :) Oh, she looks even more gorgeous than she did in her referral picture!
So, wow, what a wonderful night we've had. I now have a few new pictures to ooh and aah over, and hope that our end really may be in sight!!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
I Got Nothin'...
No news, no facts, no idea what is going on, either in Ethiopia with the system as a whole, or with our case specifically. A little frustrating, to be sure!
Last Wednesday, several other prospective adoptive parents with various agencies began reporting that their agencies were saying lots of positive things about the whole letter writing decrease. Three different agencies all said essentially the same thing, which is that the government had fired the entire staff at MOWA (those who had decided to implement the 5 letter rule), the new staff is committed to eliminating a backlog of 800+ cases over the next few weeks (this seems difficult, but obviously we want it to be true!), and they aren't going to be tied down to a certain number of letters per day, but rather, would try to work as thoroughly and efficiently as possible. This all sounds great, but at this point it's still been just a handful of agencies (and ours is not one of them) reporting this, and there's been no official word from the US Dept. of State or the Ethiopian government. So we wait, but feel more encouraged and hopeful than we have over the past few weeks.
As far as our case goes, we are getting a little down. We were referred almost 6 weeks ago, and were told that our daughter needed to be in the orphanage a while longer before we could be submitted for court, but that it would give everyone time to get our paperwork gathered and ready. Great! However, the date we were eligible came and went, and we still have no idea if we are anywhere close to being submitted for court. I know there are lots of different papers that must be acquired and translated, and some of them involve travel across the country. And of course our case is not the only one they are working on! Once we are submitted, it will probably take a month, maybe longer, before we find out when we go. We naively hoped it would be May, but are now thinking it will be more like June. This is disappointing, but there's not much we can do about it. We would wait forever if we had to, we're just hoping the wait is quite a bit shorter than that!! We are also hoping and praying that we get an update on her soon...we are anxious beyond words to see her beautiful face again and learn anything we can about her development and personality.
So that's what's going on here...not a whole lot! We know that everything will work out, we're just excited to meet her and can't wait to travel!
Last Wednesday, several other prospective adoptive parents with various agencies began reporting that their agencies were saying lots of positive things about the whole letter writing decrease. Three different agencies all said essentially the same thing, which is that the government had fired the entire staff at MOWA (those who had decided to implement the 5 letter rule), the new staff is committed to eliminating a backlog of 800+ cases over the next few weeks (this seems difficult, but obviously we want it to be true!), and they aren't going to be tied down to a certain number of letters per day, but rather, would try to work as thoroughly and efficiently as possible. This all sounds great, but at this point it's still been just a handful of agencies (and ours is not one of them) reporting this, and there's been no official word from the US Dept. of State or the Ethiopian government. So we wait, but feel more encouraged and hopeful than we have over the past few weeks.
As far as our case goes, we are getting a little down. We were referred almost 6 weeks ago, and were told that our daughter needed to be in the orphanage a while longer before we could be submitted for court, but that it would give everyone time to get our paperwork gathered and ready. Great! However, the date we were eligible came and went, and we still have no idea if we are anywhere close to being submitted for court. I know there are lots of different papers that must be acquired and translated, and some of them involve travel across the country. And of course our case is not the only one they are working on! Once we are submitted, it will probably take a month, maybe longer, before we find out when we go. We naively hoped it would be May, but are now thinking it will be more like June. This is disappointing, but there's not much we can do about it. We would wait forever if we had to, we're just hoping the wait is quite a bit shorter than that!! We are also hoping and praying that we get an update on her soon...we are anxious beyond words to see her beautiful face again and learn anything we can about her development and personality.
So that's what's going on here...not a whole lot! We know that everything will work out, we're just excited to meet her and can't wait to travel!
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