Summing up our adoption

OK - All the kids are in bed and Gerald helped me get some pictures on our webpage (of course we don't have a picture with all of us together). I thought I'd start by giving an overview of our adoption so far. G and I had been talking about adopting for a few years - just something far in the future. Then when our youngest turned 2yrs old I really started getting the itch to have another kid. (Thats seems to be the way it works with us -we have a 6yr old, 4yr old and 2yr old) I can't go 2yrs without wanting another one! We started doing a lot of research online and eventually decided we wanted to adopt internationally as we wanted an older child and did not want to deal with the legal uncertanties that go along with the US foster system. Our #1 criteria for choosing a country was that we DID NOT HAVE TO TRAVEL TO COUNTRY TO ADOPT - Obviously from the name of this blog we have had a complete change of heart in that department. We eventually chose Liberia because you don't have to travel and the cost was relatively low. I was never completely comfortable with adopting from Liberia because all of the agencies that deal with them tend to be small very Christian agencies that will only adopt to Christian families. We are Christian but don't like that exclusivity and also were again not completely comfortable with them all being small "ma and pop" type organizations. We in the meantime had to choose an in-state agency to do our home study and discovered our agency, Children's Home Society and Family Services. They have been around for years and are relatively large with a lot of supports available to families and have a good reputation for high ethics. Well it ends up they place children from Ethiopia and thus began our journey to Ethiopia.
Although you do not have to travel to ET to adopt a child, our agency requires that if you adopt a child over the age of 1yr that you do travel. Now for a while we changed our minds and considered adopting an infant because many people suggested we not go out of birth order and our agency generally requires that all children be at least one year apart. We completed our homestudy and decided to request a boy age birth - 18months and expected around a 6 months wait to be matched with a baby.

Shortly after our homestudy was approved our agency sent us a newsletter with the pictures of several boys who were waiting for a home. Most people want infants so the older children don't always find homes right away. This was in December that we go the newsletter and we ended up falling in love with a beautiful smiley 4yr old boy. G and I talked about it decided we wanted to inquire about this little boy. We called the agency the next day and were told we were the first people to inquire about this boy but we had to get permission from our social worker in order to adopt out of birth order and so close together in age with our 4yr old son at home. While we were waiting to hear from our sw we got a call from the agency say "we're very sorry but there was a mistake - several people inquired about this boy after seeing him in the newletter and you were not actually the first in line"!!!!!! How horrible is that!!!!!! This was a Friday and we were obviously upset but decided it wasn't meant to be. We decided to still speak with our sw to see if we had permission to adopt an older child in the future.........then out of nowhere on the following Tuesday we get a phone call from the agency saying that yes we do have permission to adopt an older child and were we still interested in this little boy? I said, "thanks that's good to know but we were told that someone else already had his file". I was then told that wasn't the case, I had always been the first to request him and I should never have gotten that second phone call. It just took them a few days to discuss the situation with our sw and get the appproval!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was a little confused at first and a lot in shock but the rest is history. We accepted his referraland completed out dossier to be sent to Ethiopia. We just found out that our dossier is in the court system in ET and we should have a court date soon. Our case will probably be heard in court in mid-February. 6-8 weeks after that I will be travelling to ET to bring home our son.

Along the way, working with this wonderful agency, we have learned the enormous benefits of traveling to the birth country, both for the short-term transitioning needs of the child but also the long term benefits of having met any extended family and learning about his country and culture. We are also lucky enough to live near a large Ethiopian-American community who is very supportive of the adoptive community. We hope to keep our new son very much involved with Ethiopian culture and plan on revisiting Ethiopia. In ET adoptions are very open in that you meet any family and keep in touch through the agency-what a blessing that is to the child....so I will go to ET for a week (probably in April) and G will stay home with the 3 kids (keep him in your prayers-he'll need it!)

If you're still with me, I apologize for this being so long but I wanted to sum up our story since I'm just starting this blog. I hope to use it to keep everyone updated especially when I'm in Ethiopia. Any future blogs won't be this long. Once our case is finalized in the Ethiopian courts and he is legally ours, I will post a picture. Keep us in your prayers!!!