Week of Insanity

This has been one CRAZY week!  On Monday we learned that because our paperwork had already been submitted to court for processing we would be exempt from having to travel twice, no matter what the ET courts decided about that ruling.  Whew!  Very happy about that one. 

On Tuesday night we had tickets to a Detroit Pistons game at the Palace that was part of a school fundraiser event.  Brian's mom and dad came with us and we had a great time, but we were up til pretty late.

Then on Wednesday morning we learned that we had been given a court hearing date of April 1, with the caveat that it may or may not actually happen on that date.  However, it's definitely scheduled and totally happening soon.  IF they have electricity, and IF the judge is there, and IF the legal representatives for MOWA appear, and IF all our paperwork is perfect and IF all the kids' paperwork is perfect, then Tinsaye and Solomon will be legally our children as of that date.  So there are many hurdles yet to come.  Many times cases must be heard a second or third time, so we're prepared for that. 

Whenever it happens, once we have a final adoption decree from the court, that paperwork is submitted to the US Embassy in Addis Ababa and we wait for them to issue us an Embassy appointment.  That is when we must appear with the children at the embassy, so the embassy appointment determines our travel date.  It is usually at least 8 weeks after the date it's requested.  So theoretically we could travel as early as the first part of June. 

Now I know that God has a plan for all this, but I really hope he has looked at my June calendar!  I have a concert and an overnight trip scheduled with my choirs during the first week of June, and I'm supposed to lead the music for VBS during the last week of June, and we can't get our final Hepatitis A & B vaccines until June 21.  Plus there's field day and honors night and the kids' have baseball playoffs and Camp Invention and my sister Laura's family will be here for two weeks.  Of course, we'd drop everything and go if that is how it works out, but I'm just saying that EVERYTHING would be much easier as of July 1. 

So we're super happy on Wednesday morning when we get the court date news from the agency...

...then I came home and got the mail and found a letter from Immigration.  They said that they would not accept our addendum to our home study saying we were approved for "special needs" kids (even though it is exactly what they asked for previously).  Instead they were requiring us to resubmit an entirely new home study document with the new information incorporated.  By the way, "the new information" was literally two sentences.   Unless we get them the documentation they are requesting now, they won't issue us visas for the kids and we can't travel, no matter when we get court approval and an embassy appointment. 

So this stupid letter now required a frantic phone call to the agency, a long conversation with the documents specialist, much impotent rage, the realization that there was nothing else to do except exactly what they said, a frantic phone call to the social worker (who had left for the day), a frantic email to the social worker (who wasn't going to get it until the next morning anyway, so why was I so frantic??).  While this was all happening, Thomas and Meredith got off the bus, came home and realized Mom was in Turbo Adoption Freak Out Mode, quietly made themselves a snack and ran off to play at some neighbor kids houses where the parents weren't flipping out.  Because of my freak out, dinner crashed and Thomas totally missed his swim lesson and Meredith only made it to her swim lesson because of the kindness of my wonderful friend Sue who picked her up, took her, and even helped her shower afterwards and bought her an ice cream cone!

Thursday was my massive concert event at school that involved two middle schools, three clinicians, 250 kids, a catered dinner for 500, and a standing-room only concert at the high school.  So I was a little preoccupied with that.  In case anyone was thinking, "Why doesn't Brian help out?" (which you probably weren't thinking because he's so wonderful) he was working a million hours this week too, including a shoot on Thursday night that ran until 1am!   While we were nuts on Thursday, our amazing social worker redid the home study documents, had them notarized and left me a voice mail to let me know they were done and I could come get them asap. 

Friday I worked in the morning, then left to get the new documents.  I'm Fed Exing them to the Detroit USCIS office today.  On Friday afternoon I had the time to just breathe and sit there not wound up about anything.  As of now, everything slows down for the next two weeks.  I'm going to try really hard to relax physically and mentally.  As Lent comes to a close and we enter Easter season, I'm excited about what comes next and grateful that we've made it through the hardest part of the adoption paperwork, the busiest time of my school year, and the crappiest Michigan weather.   And I firmly resolve to not have any more Turbo Adoption Freak Outs... (I can hear Thomas right now saying, "Yeah, right, Mom!")

Stalled out

Well, we're stuck in kind of a rut right now.  Several roadblocks have come up and nothing is happening at all.

First, we were approved for visas, but not for "special needs" kids, so we had to re-submit everything and haven't heard anything back.  That's been a couple weeks with no word and no way to follow up.  We just have to wait.

Secondly, and more importantly, the Ethiopian government suddenly stuck a sign in the window of the courthouse that said that effective immediately, families can no longer use a proxy at the court hearing, they must appear in person.  This is a big problem because a) we may have to travel twice now which means lots more money and b) they are not issuing new court hearing dates right now and c) the agencies are working to resolve this but no one knows anything and the whole court process is in limbo.   I expected to get a court hearing date by now and it's just not happening.

I can't do anything about any of this and I'm just feeling really helpless.  I check my email and voice mail compulsively.  I would check the mail compulsively if it came more than once a day.  I know that I've been very spoiled up til now because things have moved so quickly and smoothly.  Until this point, I've had something new happening pretty much every week.  Now we're just in a holding pattern and it's kind of depressing me.  I know it will all work out and happen in His time, but for now I'm pretty bummed. 

News this week...

We received our 171H approval to adopt from USCIS this week, except they apparently ignored the addendum requesting approval to adopt special needs children.  In fact, they returned the addendum to us in the envelope along with the approval.  It was probably too difficult to read the addendum and facilitate the request the first time, and clearly too difficult to enclose a note explaining why or what to do.  Annoying, but what can we do?  So we resubmitted the addendum with a copy of the approval.  Hopefully it will be redone quickly.  The approval generates a visa approval which gets sent to the US embassy in Addis Ababa. 

Still waiting on an Ethiopian court hearing date... we should hear any day now. 

We learned this week that Solomon and Tinsaye were told that they have a family waiting for them in America.  We don't know how much they were told or if they've seen our photo, but we do know that they know.  Thomas said, "I bet they couldn't sleep at all that night!"  It's really interesting (and mostly impossible) to imagine what they are thinking.  Everyone's natural assumption is that they are happy and excited... they won the Rich American Family lottery, right?  And yet they must be terrified about so many things... leaving everything and everyone that they've ever known in this world to go with this loud white family to a loud white place where no one speaks Amharic.  I wish I could tell them that we completely feel the same way... happy, excited and terrified. 

Sadness, Joy, and Awe

Yesterday when I got home from work, I had a package and a letter from AAI, the agency.  In the package was a big, gorgeous coffee table book called "Faces of Layla".  This book is available for purchase from their webstore and all profits go to benefit Layla House, the orphanage where our kids are.  As I looked through it, tears were just running down my face.  Page after page showed gorgeous photos of these beautiful, resilient, courageous, funny kids living with so very little in a place so very far away.  Every one has lost their parents and yet they are the lucky ones who are safe and fed and cared for with love every day.  There were photos of their caregivers too;  the teachers, cooks, laundresses, doctors, nurses, social workers, and volunteers who care for the needs of these kids until they find families.  Also, there were terrific images of Addis Abbaba and the orphanage itself. 

My heart felt shredded.  I was filled with sadness, joy, and awe.  Sadness because there is so much loss for these kids, and for the millions of orphans around the world.  Children who are abandoned, abused, trafficked, thrown away.  I can barely comprehend their suffering and I completely cannot comprehend the adults who willingly participate in creating more suffering for them.  Joy because two of these millions of orphaned kids get to be mine!  Brian and I get to travel to Layla, meet all the children, and bring two of them into our lives forever.  Our family will forever be changed and the lives of those around us will forever be changed by their presence.  And awe because... how did I ever get here?  How in the world did this passion for abandoned children on the other side of the globe just show up in my heart and pull me toward them?  And even more unbelievable, how did the same passion show up in Brian's heart?  This was nowhere in our plan!  And I really need new carpet!  And poor Brian used to dream of a sweet ski boat.  To me, it is nothing short of a miracle.  We are simply not the same people we used to be.  God has changed everything in us, for whatever reason He has, and the "desires of our hearts" are not what they used to be.  We often look at each other and say, "We're really doing this, aren't we?"  because we are both kind of shocked still, but there's just something compelling us.  It's truly awesome (which my mom says is the most overused word in the English language, but completely accurate in this context).

So I'm sitting there poring over this book with tears and snot running down my face, overwhelmed with emotion and the power of the Holy Spirit, and I remembered there was also a letter from the agency, so I opened it.  It was a bill.  Thanks, Lord!  Hahaha, very funny.  You really have a terrific sense of humor.

This was a big one, too, which usually means something's happening to require more money.  So I called and sure enough, all our paperwork in Ethiopia was submitted to court last week and we are awaiting a court date (hopefully in the next 2, possibly 3 weeks).  Terrific news, once again, faster than we anticipated.

And then the kids came home from school, dragging in most of the foot of snow on the ground, and chaos (aka life) ensued.  It's important to document those divine moments of sadness/joy/awe because they are brief but powerfully illuminating.  I hope you have one today.



 

Biometrics!

I am terribly sorry to say that our biometrics appointment was extremely anticlimactic.  We arrived 10 minutes early for our appointment, running into no traffic, and although it was in a pretty rough neighborhood, we also saw no panhandlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, or crimes in progress.  You see at least two of those just going to a Tigers game!  We went in and there were many normal humans working there.  It took four of them (wearing latex gloves and guns)  to get us through security metal detectors and xray machines.  Then we went into another room, showed a very nice human lady our appointment papers and passports, and filled out another paper with the exact same information that came on the appointment paper they mailed to us.  Then they took us separately into another room.  Brian was sure the body cavity searchers were back there, but nope, just very boring (human) lab techs with computers and scanners.  They took multiple prints of each finger multiple times and said, "That's it.  Have a nice day."  No blindfolds, no abductions, no truth serum, no torture, no Jack Bauer.

So now we wait.  All this paperwork and fingerprinting was to get approval of our I600A, a document that allows you to get a visa for the kids.  After we get the approval, there's more paperwork and waiting on the US government.  All our paperwork from the adoption agency is in Ethiopia right now being translated and prepared for court and we are waiting to hear from them that they've submitted it to court and are waiting for a court date.

I'm pretty happy right now because there's nothing else I can do.  Everything is in the hands of God, Homeland Security and the Ethiopian government.  It's a lot like the second trimester of pregnancy, where I wasn't panicking about miscarrying anymore and it was soon to worry about labor.  I'm just sort of hanging out and thinking about what colors to paint their rooms!

Good news and better news!

The good news is that we got notification today that all our documents are on their way to Ethiopia!  We expect a court date in 5-6 weeks.  Everything is moving smoothly.  It is due, in no small part, to Meredith's prayers.  She always blurts out in the middle of our mealtime prayers "God, help our adoption to go good!"  It always derails Brian's eloquent prayer, but I think it's sweet and it's definitely sincere.  She always prays with one eye open.  When I asked her why she didn't close both her eyes to pray instead of squinting like a pirate, she looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "Mom... it's DARK in there!" 

The better news is that Brian got a contract job for his video business, Riveting Media, at his previous employer.  He will be working at Forest Post Productions four days a week and continuing working at home with his other clients on the fifth day (and probably some nights and weekends).  The money will be great and steady, but he will also be able to continue his work with his existing clients that  he's worked really hard to acquire.  It just couldn't be any better!  Well, it could be just a LITTLE bit better... he was feeling really lucky on his way home from getting that job so he bought a lottery ticket.  We'll let you know if we win!  :)  

Adoption Bureaucracy Part 2 (Brian's version)

I know this will come as a huge surprise to many of you but Joan has a slight tendency to over-exaggerate some details in a shameless attempt to try out her comedy.  I will gladly jump through a few extra hoops and fill out some extra forms to keep the ball rolling smoothly.  Unfortunately, I suspect that the local Immigration office is going to be crawling with very large men with extremely large hands just looking for someone like me to force to submit to a full body cavity search.  Especially after we are now on the Homeland Security watch list thanks to Joan's subversive post.  We'll keep you up to date on all the interesting details soon.