Still on Cloud Nine

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel after passing court. Physically, nothing has changed. We already considered him as part of our family so that didn't change. Would a government making it official really make that big of a difference?



YES!! I feel an overwhelming sense of relief. We are, of course, very anxious to go get him but now that it is official I no longer find myself holding my breath; preparing myself for the worst while hoping beyond hopes for the best. The hurdles have been overcome. He is ours and that makes a huge difference.



We don't have any news on travel and really don't expect to hear anything next week. The earliest we would probably hear something is the next week and that would be faster than they are saying. We are packing up our donations and I have begun the list making so that we are ready when we get the call. We will probably have a two week notice when we are given our travel dates.



Congratulations to the Easts, Shauna, Hensley's and McBrides! They are the first families to travel since the court closure have been given a November 23rd embassy date. This is great news and we are so happy for the families that are going to be meeting their children in less than two weeks!!

We Passed!!!

We got the call today letting us know that we have PASSED COURT!!! This means that Johnny is officially ours according to Ethiopian and American law. I am relieved and so excited that we are so close to bringing our baby boy home.

The only step we have left is our US Embassy date in Ethiopia. This is a date assigned to our agency when the families adopting are required to be there in person to get their childs visa to bring them into the United States. The time between passed court and embassy date used to be 3-4 weeks but now due to a process change they are estimated it to be 5-7 weeks. For us to get assigned an embassy date the following needs to happen:

• The court decree needs to be given to our agency representative in Ethiopia. This normally takes a week.


• Once this is received, a birth certificate and passport will be requested and a final medical review will be done on Johnny.


• This paperwork will be turned into the US Embassy and they will confirm our embassy date.

Right now the tentative dates given to All God's Children for December are for the 14th and the 28th. This would mean us leaving on the 11th or the 25th. There is no way to know which date we will be given as the processing time varies. We are of course hoping and praying for the December 14th date so we have him home for Christmas but probably won't know more until the end of November.

So we wait again....but he is officially ours.....so today we celebrate!!!

Ready to Exhale...Court Tonight

We go to court tonight!

Ethiopia is 7 hours ahead of us so when we are sleeping (probably not but hopefully) tonight, the decision will be made as to whether our son is officially our son.

From the time of referral to our court date I feel as though I have in a sense been holding my breath. In going through this adoption process we were warned from our social worker to not take anything for granted or see anything as a "for sure" until it was happening. She even went as far as to advise us to not refer to our baby as "ours" or "brother" or "son" as so many things can happen between referral and court. In short, she told us to guard our hearts from being devastated if something went wrong.

Though we loved our social worker and gained valuable information from her that we did take to heart, we completely ignored this advice. We dove head first into loving our sweet John T. at first sight. This is why I feel as though I have been holding my breath. In adoption, as is in life, anything can happen. So we hold our breath, hopefully for only one more night, until we hear word that he is officially ours to bring home.

Please pray for peace over our family as we wait anxiously once again.

Formula and Diapers

I have been storing the formula and donations that we have been given to take with us to Ethiopia in Johnny's crib. I thought it might be a good idea to get an idea of how many pounds we had both to gage how much more we could collect and to make sure we weren't going to damage our baby boy's future sleeping spot. As of yesteday we have collected.....

80 pounds of formula and diapers!!

This does not include the $250 in cash and gift cards we have been given to purchase more before we travel!! Thank you everyone for your generous donations. Special thanks to my friends and co-workers at SMC who donated more than half of the items and the Wenatchee Valley Senior Center for their cash donations!

Keep 'em comin.......We have been told that the airlines will often times waive fees for extra baggage in the case of adoption donations. We will plan to take the 150 pounds and then if we have more we will try to take that as well. If they deny us the luggage, we will pass it along to others in the area that will be traveling soon after us so either way they will get to the children.

4 Months Old

Our baby boy is four months old today. In three more days he will (if all goes well) officially become a Pell, though he was ours from the moment we saw his picture almost three months ago. I have meant to post each month and missed his two and three month “birthdays”. I think that part of me doesn’t even want to think about these missed days. I can’t pull out a calendar and mark down his accomplishments for the month as I don’t know them. I can’t write something he can read later about his personality or the things he is doing as I don’t know. My heart aches to know him. I remember this feeling when I was carrying my daughter Emma. The month before she was born I was so anxious to just meet her. I felt her, but I didn’t know her. When she came into this world it was instant love but it took a while to really get to know who she was. I feel the same about John. I haven’t felt him, but it is harder as I have seen him in pictures. Not the fuzzy ultrasound kind. But the real clear kind. The kind that changes with each picture that we get. The kind that reminds us that he is really out there getting older and we have not been there to watch this growth. I can’t wait for the day that we will meet. The day we will see with our own eyes our baby we have seen in pictures. The day we will begin to really know him. To know his unique personality. His likes his dislikes. His funny quirks, his gummy smile. Happy four month birthday baby boy…….

Special Package on its way to Ethiopia

One of the items that we prepared for our court date was an album and letter for John T's birth mother. We sent it to our agency in Portland on Saturday with the hopes that it would get sent to Ethiopia tomorrow and make it to our court date on the 5th (1 week from tomorrow!!!) As our son is from the southern part of Ethiopia, there is a good chance that we will not be able to meet his birth mother while we are there. This album and letter may be the only communication we have with John's birth mother.

We included pictures of our family, our home and all of the photo's we had received of John T.

A donation has been made in your name......

This past weekend our dear friends Jason and Alisa got married. On Friday, I was at the church helping decorate and Alisa insisted that I read the program. It was a six page program (the neatest program I have seen). I got to the 5th page and teared up. Here is what I found (If you click on it it should blow up so you can read):


Wow....we are so blessed to have such good friends. Thank you Jason and Alisa for allowing the Pell family to be part of your day and for including baby John in such an amazing way!!!