The Best News

We passed court! It finally happened—earlier today, our case was heard and our adoption was granted by a judge in Ethiopia. We are (at least on paper) a family. It feels both weird and amazing that far away, a document has been written, in a language I don't understand... It is sitting on a desk somewhere in Addis Ababa and it says that I am a mother and Sascha is a father...of these three awesome, beautiful children.

I'll post more photos and write again soon, but for now, just wanted to share the glory!

Just a Small Bump

So...our court date in Addis was postponed AGAIN, but this time only two days, so please keep us in your thoughts, visualize, pray, focus, breathe, etc. next Wed. Oct. 28th. (I'm doing all of the above, with special emphasis on the breathing part because lately I've been a bundle of nerves.) Please picture us celebrating that we passed court! At that point, the Ethiopian government considers them our children; a huge milestone and a challenge of logistics...and believe me, we are ready to get on with the next step of making travel plans!

If we pass court as expected, it looks like we may get to travel with those other families I mentioned in my last post-- there are five of us now! One of those families is adopting two sisters, the same ages as our girls, who are their best friends at the orphanage. It is truly amazing to imagine them being able to keep in touch as they grow up.

Earlier this week I had tea at Amanda's with her new friend (and now mine) Elise. Elise and her husband Marc live just a few blocks from us and are waiting for a referral of two siblings from Ethiopia. This will bring the count to five local Ethiopian adoptive families (twelve kids in all) within walking distance of our house. It is a wonderful thing to have such a normalizing context for all of our kids as we blend families and cultures.

The last (and most spectacular) bit of news is that we received updated social reports today from Ethiopia, one large file for each of our children. These were prepared by their nannies and include detailed descriptions of how they are doing socially, emotionally, physically- eating/sleeping/play habits, how they're doing in school, etc. and there are many new photos. It is so, SO good for us to see them looking lighthearted and happy...just being kids.

P.S. Once we're through court, I FINALLY get to share those photos!

Postponement with Purpose

As some of you already know, we received news recently that our court date was postponed from Oct. 9th to Oct. 26th. Our original date was set for the first week the federal courts reopened in Addis Ababa after the month long closure in September which happens every year during the rainy season. As you can imagine, there is a lot of other "country business" that sometimes takes precedence & so all of the families who had adoption hearings scheduled last week were delayed. Peace comes, knowing we are not alone in our waiting, and it is the connection to our larger adoptive community that buoys us most right now. We're finding ways to put a positive frame around it-- more time to prepare, to save a little more money for my time off work... Last week, Amanda wrote a post about our adoption on her blog, along with a link to mine...and some new friendships were born! Thanks to Amanda, a few days later I received a comment here from Sarah & Jeremy, a couple from Minnesota who are adopting another sibling group of three from the same orphanage in Nazret, Ethiopia as our kids. Our youngest girls are the same age & based on photos of the kids playing together, it looks like they might be friends. A second comment came from Ashley (thanks to Sarah) just a few days ago-- Ashley and her family live in Austin, Texas and are also waiting to bring home a young boy from Nazret. It turns out that we have the same court date. We hope to travel at the same time, all of us together, and help our kids stay in touch once we're home. Who knows? With skype and summer roadtrips, this could be the beginning of something extraordinarily meaningful and FUN. It seems that something bigger than all of us is at play, details lining up just so, for the brightest future of our little ones...we're just learning to be with the beauty that comes, even in the waiting. So, if there are any more CHSFS Nazret families out there, we'd love to hear from you too!