For the better part of six months we have sat quietly and waited, and waited.......and waited some more. If you've followed this blog, which I know many people have based on the multiple questions and emails we receive regarding it, we have not forgotten about this blog, we just haven't had much to report about. After months of back and forth with the NBC and USCIS, all of our paperwork has finally been submitted to the Ethiopian courts to have the first court date issued! The first court date will be for the biological father which will be followed by the second court date, where we will make our first trip to Ethiopia. For those wondering what has been going on between our blog about the referral and this one, I will do my best to break it down in a way that makes sense. In the past year, Ethiopia has undergone numerous changes to their adoption process by implementing a program called the PAIR process. At the moment I am blanking on what the acronym stands for, but the PAIR process is an investigation that both the Ethiopian government and the United States government conduct to actually deem an "orphan", an orphan. From our understanding, once we submitted our information (dossier) to the governments, investigations such as an interview with the birth father was conducted to ensure that it was his child that he is relinquishing the rights to and that it was something that was done at his own free will, etc. This "investigation" is not one that is new to the adoption process, but is instead conducted at the forefront of the adoption prior to the adoptive family traveling for their first court date instead of afterwards. In essence, the concept makes much more sense to conduct this kind of investigation up front rather than after the fact. The negative here is that we've waited months to hear something or have had to follow up with government requests if there was more information needed, which as you can see is time consuming. All of that being said, this PAIR process is supposed to make the time between the first and second trip substantially shorter, which is a great thing! However, we are uncertain of this as we don't yet know for sure. Time will tell and we will know soon enough....hopefully! For those wondering about requests for more information that the government could make, one example that we dealt with here was that when the biological father went for his initial interview with the Ethiopian government, he informed the government that he had two other children that he was not putting up for adoption. While this may seem irrelevant to our adoption process, it was relevant to the government as they requested that we update a family history within our dossier. While this seems minor and again irrelevant, this little bit of information took time to update. It's not as simple as just adding a few names to a file. Remember, the paperwork is out of our hands, and its constantly traveling around state to state, country to country and those things take time,. which can be very frustrating and disheartening when time is of the essence. After all, my son is sitting in an orphanage half way around the world, getting older, and there is nothing we can do about it until this information gets updated and approved. Can you feel the frustration? We did, but this is one of the many, many feats of adoption that families have to overcome, and it can be disheartening at times.
So for the past few months we have had our ups and downs and done our very best to stay busy and try and put this whole thing out of our minds. If you can imagine, that 's kind of hard to do as we have been receiving weekly updates about his size and health along with pictures of what he looks like and we just cannot wait to bring this little guy home. As of right now, the back and forth emails with the adoption agency are mostly about readying us for our first trip and what to bring, what to expect, etc. We will be calling our local health department this coming week to start to get our shots and immunizations in order for when we travel, and begin to mentally and emotionally prepare for this trip. We will not know our court date until after the biological father has his court date and the government issues us a date. We could be looking at anywhere from a few weeks to even a couple months. With the way things have been going, the couple months seems more likely, however, when the call comes, we will be ready to go. I expect to have more updates in the coming weeks, so if you've followed this blog whatsoever, keep your eyes peeled, because our fingers are crossed and we are beyond ready......
The homestretch is just around the corner.
So for the past few months we have had our ups and downs and done our very best to stay busy and try and put this whole thing out of our minds. If you can imagine, that 's kind of hard to do as we have been receiving weekly updates about his size and health along with pictures of what he looks like and we just cannot wait to bring this little guy home. As of right now, the back and forth emails with the adoption agency are mostly about readying us for our first trip and what to bring, what to expect, etc. We will be calling our local health department this coming week to start to get our shots and immunizations in order for when we travel, and begin to mentally and emotionally prepare for this trip. We will not know our court date until after the biological father has his court date and the government issues us a date. We could be looking at anywhere from a few weeks to even a couple months. With the way things have been going, the couple months seems more likely, however, when the call comes, we will be ready to go. I expect to have more updates in the coming weeks, so if you've followed this blog whatsoever, keep your eyes peeled, because our fingers are crossed and we are beyond ready......
The homestretch is just around the corner.