I didn’t type about the adoption for a while because we were cautioned to keep the circle of people “in the know” fairly small, but things have been moving along nicely so I think I’ll go ahead and post an update now.
We received and accepted a referral about a month ago for a sister and brother, ages 2 and 8 months at the time. (The baby would now be about 9 1/2 months.) I’ll share more about them and their full names when things are more finalized, but for now just know that we’ll be calling them Desta and Eli. 🙂
Nothing’s final until the court date, and that hasn’t been set yet. There’s a good chance they’ve been moved to the care center in Addis Ababa, which means that we’re close to having that all-important court date set. I’m hoping we’ll hear definitively today that they’re there. That’ll also mean we’ll be getting new pictures (we have some cute ones of Desta, but all we have of Eli is a grainy little thumbnail from his referral), and they’ll get new medicals done so we’ll have updated medical information. Exciting, exciting!
Once the medicals are done (which is usually quite soon after they arrive at the care center from the orphanage), our agency will petition for a court date. The courts have been much busier recently with increased adoptions throughout the country, so it might be a bit before our case will go to court. I’m hoping it won’t be more than a month, but there’s really no telling. Once the court date is successful (which will hopefully be the first time… it should be as long as all of the paperwork is present and the people who need to be there are there), the children will be legally ours. We just can’t go and get them yet. 😛 That’s the US’s decision, not Ethiopias as far as I can tell. According to the Ethiopian government, the children are ours once the court date is successful, but since they don’t have their visas yet they can’t come to the US. Therefore, after the successful court date, and embassy date is set with the US embassy. That usually takes place about a month after the court date, and that’s what we’ll have to travel to attend.
It feels odd to think that for a whole month we’ll be the legal parents to children halfway around the world. The time will probably go by quickly, though. I’ve already started buying baby boy clothes (what an adventure!) and registering for other things (my friends are planning an adoption shower). I keep thinking of things that we’ll need either for the trip or for afterwards and adding them to the registry or going out and getting them. The shopping is actually wearing me out! I guess I’m not a power shopper. 🙂 Thank goodness there’s online shopping!
I’ll try to post when we find out the court date. After the court date happens, I’ll be able to post pictures and full names. May that day come quickly!