A little progress

Last time I posted there was a flurry of stuff going on and it was a very exciting time. As usual, it slowed to a snails pace and we are a little frustrated although we did get some good news today. So we submitted our acceptance paperwork for D around August 6th. We found out this week that the papers weren't officially filed with the courts in Ethiopia until September 7th. We are being told that it is usually 3-4 weeks between the time the paper is filed and when we receive the court date. So we should be getting a court date any time.

Based on other families we know and a little information from our agency, we expect that we might travel to Ethiopia at the end of November or early in December. This is a little disappointing because at one point we actually thought we may bring her home before the end of the year which definitely won't happen now. Once we get a court date we will be able to roughly calculate when we will bring her home. It will be around 8 weeks following the court date that we will go back to get D.

The good news we got today is that she received her welcome bag with the pictures, letter, toys and shirt. They sent us a picture with her wearing the shirt and the sunglasses and holding her toys. She is just beautiful and this makes us VERY anxious to get there to meet her. I wish we could post the picture but, again, the international adoption laws forbid it until after we clear court.

The other blessing here is that it looks like we will probably take Kyle with us on the second trip. Because of vaccinations and the suddenness of our referral we didn't think we would be able to get him ready to go. Now that things have been delayed it looks like he will be able to get his second round of vaccinations in time. However, Faith was devastated because we just don't have time to get her fully vaccinated and we just can't risk taking her over there without vaccinations.

We are heading to Disney for a four day excursion on Halloween weekend. This is the kids' fall break and we have some great friends who offered us their Disney Vacation Club for 3 nights as a gift for helping them out with things. We love this family and would do anything for them with nothing in return, but this was a nice gesture that allows us to get away for something fun at a pretty discounted rate. This is also good because we know once D comes home we will likely not be traveling anywhere for a while until she gets well acclimated to her new surroundings.

So please keep praying for us and especially for D. We need prayers for patience and strength as we know there will be unforeseen things we aren't prepared for. Pray for D's safety and health as she waits for a few more months to come home.