His Mother

I lay in bed awake at night thinking about our son. Our sweet baby boy that is almost certainly been born and is probably tucked into bed with several other children in an orphanage. It is my hope that he has already arrived at Hannah's Hope, the orphanage that is run by our agency. I imagine him exploring his new environment and being loved on by the special mothers that make Hannah's Hope a safe place to be for orphaned children. As I think of him, my mind automatically goes to his birth mother, her possible circumstances and what she must be feeling having just given up a most precious gift of her child. Either by choice or by necessity, this must be one of the hardest moments in her life. Her body probably still shows some signs of the pregnancy. Daily reminders of the pain she has endured. Chances are that AIDS or some other disease has weakened her to the point of being unable to care for her sweet baby. She looks to those around her for help to find that everyone else is also in this same plight. What kind of world do we live in where a mother is not able to care for her baby? Where one country has so little in terms of basic needs while another country bursts with wealth? Where one country is being destroyed by a disease that another country has the drugs to subdue? These are the thoughts that I struggle with on a daily basis. What can be done so that less mothers have to make this enormous sacrifice? What can I do to help not only the children but the mothers as well?

I yoyo between the feelings of excitement and sorrow as I look ahead to the amazing gift of life that our family is about to receive but also reflect on the sacrifices and injustice that have occurred to make this gift a reality.

Unofficially Number One

I swore that I was not going to post any unofficial numbers as it would drive me crazy. I also swore to myself that I would not spend hours "blog stalking" to find out if we had moved up the list. I broke my promise. Thanks to my massive amount of time blog stalking, I discovered today that we are unofficially number one on the boy list. This is exciting news that we couldn't keep to ourselves. Hope to have even more exciting news in the near future.

What Happens from Here??

We found out we were number 2 on the boy list the day before we left for a week long beach vacation with my family which is why we haven't really posted much in the last couple weeks. Needless to say, we were overjoyed to find this out and it is still keeping us pretty excited when we look at each other each day and say "Number 2, can you believe it??"

So what happens now??

1.) We wait to get a call from our case worker, Christy, letting us know that she has a baby boy to introduce us to. This could happen tomorrow, this could happen a week from now, this could happen two months from now.

2.) When we get the call, we will be provided with all of the information they have about our little boy. Pictures, videos, medical information, family background. We will be sent an email and overnighted a hard copy of all of this information.

3.) We will then send the medical information to an international physician who reviews it and conferences with us to answer questions and explain the information given.

4.) Once we send our acceptance paperwork to our adoption agency, our dossier (international paperwork) will be turned into the Ethiopian court system with a request for a court date.

Steps 1-4 happen very quickly, normally within a week.

5.) We wait for the Ethiopian court system to grant us a court date. These are given out as quickly as a month from submission or as long as three months. The courts will close in Ethiopia for the rainy season during August and September so this could slow things down for us getting a court date.

6.) On our court date, a representative from our adoption agency goes to court for us. If we pass court, our little boy is officially ours. If we don't pass court, we wait for another court date (normally given out within a month of the first one)

7.) Once we pass court, we travel two weeks later!!

Our Estimated Timeline (this of course could change drastically):

Referral of baby boy: August
Court Date: November
Travel: November or early December

July Referral List Number

We got our official numbers today and flew up the list this month. We are officially number......



on the boy list and number 20 on the girl list.

This means we could get a referral any day!!! (or it could take a couple months) We are so close.....

Thanks to the support of family and friends, we have been given $7,968 toward our adoption with $8,032 left to go.