Friday, July 1, 2011

Adoption Update

It's been a while since I've updated any adoption news. Thought you might like to know where we're at in the process! A few weeks ago we were ready to send in our dossier to our agency who would then send it to the Ethiopian embassy for translation and then off to Ethiopia. A few weeks before that I had dutifully made three copies of each document since two go to our agency and one goes with us to Ethiopia. What our agency didn't tell me was that each document needed to also be scanned and emailed to them. Ugh. It took me the better part of a week to finish that annoying step. I didn't know I could them to Kinko's to have that done, I didn't know about zip files or anything other than frustratingly taking each paper one-by-one scanning it, renaming it so I knew what it as other than a bunch of numbers and emailing it. My computer groaned, moaned, churtled, snorted and protested the whole process. Email after email kept coming back to me as unsent. Finally after a week and after they actually had our dossier in hand did I finish.  If I had known I was supposed to scan each document I would have had that part done weeks ahead.

On to happier news! Our little gal is doing fabulously! She has progressed further than we ever thought she would and she's not even home yet! She did so well that the nannies and transition home workers pooled their money and threw her a little celebration party. In a picture of her at the party she looked like a queen on her throne with her little coffee cup of whatever she was drinking.

We've been able to send her a few more care packages with outfits, books, socks, a pair of shoes, and a few pictures of herself which she enjoyed. All the items get pooled together and become community property so she sees it once as hers and then it gets shared. We parents send our items knowing that. I did find a Dora doll at Ross which I was going to send but decided to keep it for when we bring her home on the plane. The older girls really enjoyed combing hair on the dolls and this Dora has nice long hair that she can play with and should keep her busy on the plane for a bit.

In our paperwork we had a letter from our international adoption specialist doctor requesting the Ethiopian courts to expedite her case because for medical reasons. Perhaps they will heed the request and perhaps not, we'll see! From what I've heard the Ethiopian courts close on August 8 for a good month or two. That happened four years ago when we were adopting Adah Derartu and Anna Mihret. The courts were closed but since we had passed court while it was open we were able to go for embassy. At the embassy visit we're interviewed by an American embassy representative and if given permission we receive the children's Visas and Passports at that time which enable us to leave the country with them.  So we're hoping to have court before August 8 and have a successful court date the first time, which is rare because usually a document of some sort is missing. Wouldn't that be wild to actually fly to Ethiopia on the notice of perhaps a few weeks if that?

I've been listing curriculum and books on ebay to help offset the costs of our adoption fees. I've been clearing our bookshelves and homeschooling friends have generously been donating curruiculum they no longer want to us. On the last day of our homeschooling co-op we have a used curriculum sale much like a swap meet. I had Abi Mulu pass flyers around telling people what we were doing and that we could take their books if they didn't sell. I couldn't believe what happened next! Cars were literally driving by, stopping, and boxes and boxes and bags and bags of books were gettting dropped off at our selling spot. Luckily I had my fifteen passenger van, but I also had seven kids I needed to have seats for. I packed that van so tight I couldn't even see out the back window. We had to go to Anna's eye appt. and the kids literally had to climb over the front driver's seat to get out and the same to get back in. Well I'm happy to report that through all these ebay sales and the sales that day we've been able to raise about $1,000!!! I still have our toy hauler with piles of books to list so I'm sure we'll have more $$$ towards our flights. This last week I went through my bookshelves and took out almost all of the science books I have collected through the years, there were over two hundred and those sold for over $50, but hey, it's $50 we didn't have before. If the shipping weren't so expensive we would have been able to sell them for more.

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