When do we leave???

Unfortunately, getting assigned a court date does not mean jumping on a plane tomorrow. We are not present for the court date in Ethiopia so for now we wait (13 days and counting) to find out if John T is officially ours. Here is a run down on the rest of our process:

Passing Court: All of the paperwork that we had prepared last spring is sitting in Ethiopia awaiting our court date. On November 5th, a judge, a social worker, John T's birth mother, and a representative from our adoption agency will appear in court to make a decision on the adoption. In order to pass court, John T’s birth mother will have to make an 8 hour trip to Addis Ababa to be at court. If she is unable to be there or any of our paperwork is not in order, we will not pass court and will be assigned a new court date. We have been told that it is common to not pass court on the first attempt so to be prepared to have to await a second court date. We are of course praying that all will go well and we will pass court on the first attempt. Once we pass court John T. is legally ours!!

Embassy Date: Once we have passed court, we will be given our travel dates. We have been told that we will travel 4-6 weeks after passing court. The only required appointment we will have when in Ethiopia is an appointment at the US Embassy. After passing court, the agency is busy getting his birth certificate, passport, and some other required documents that need to be turned into the US Embassy 2 weeks prior to our appointment. Appointments to the US Embassy are given to our agency twice per month so our travel dates will be based on these appointments. We have been told that if we pass court on November 5th, we will probably travel mid December.

Travel: Once we get our travel dates we make our plane reservations and GO GET OUR BABY BOY! We will leave on a Saturday and arrive back in the states on a Friday. We stay at a hotel that is walking distance from the orphanage and will have John in our arms the first full day we are in country. We literally can not wait for this day!