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!")