Christmas with Myla

Meeting Myla!

INTRODUCING....

MYLA OMEGA!!!

Itinerary

It's getting so close!  Today we celebrate Christmas with family and then tomorrow morning we board a plane that will take us half way around the world to our daughter!!!

Here is our trip timeline:

Saturday (22)- leave OKC, pass through Denver and Frankfurt
Sunday (23)- arrive Addis Ababa in the late evening (9 hours ahead of OKC time)
Monday (24)- MEET MYLA!!!!, Addis
Tuesday (25)- Christmas visit with Myla!, Addis
Wednesday (26)- Court, Addis
Thursday (27)- Addis
Friday (28)- Addis
Saturday (29)- day trip outside of Addis
Sunday (30)- Lalibela
Monday (31)- Gondar
Tuesday (1)- Gondar/Bahir Dar
Wednesday (2)- Bahir Dar
Thursday (3)- Bahir Dar/Addis
Friday (4)- Addis
Saturday (5)- Addis, leave Addis late evening
Sunday (6)- arrive OKC late evening

And then we start waiting for an Embassy date!!!

We are so excited and a little overwhelmed!  This is quite the trip to put together on 5 days notice!  Luckily we had already done research, purchased our humanitarian aid and gotten all of our travel immunizations before the call on Monday!  Shew!  It's been a slight whirlwind but luckily it hasn't been a tornado. :)

Can't wait until we pass court and can share pictures of our cutie!!!!!!

NEWS!!!!!

 

After almost three years of waiting, waiting and waiting some more

THINGS ARE MOVING VERY QUICKLY all of the sudden!!!!!! :)

 

We found out this morning that our court date in Ethiopia is next Wednesday!

 

So we'll be flying out in 5 days, meeting our daughter in 7 days and going to court in 9 days!

 

And the day we meet our daughter?!?!?  CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!!

 

We are SO beyond excited!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

No News

We received a call from Gladney this morning letting us know that there was no opinion issued on our case today (it's already late evening in Ethiopia).   We were expecting this, so it's not a real letdown.  We're hoping to hear good news in the next week or two!!

MOWCYA review day

Today is our MOWCYA review day.  We understand that MOWCYA is running a little behind so we're expecting to wait several days up to several weeks to hear about whether they approved us or are requesting any additional information.  Keep your fingers crossed that this first step goes smoothly!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another step towards our little girl

We have mentioned before that things are always changing with international adoption.  How often? you ask.  Well, in the last 2 weeks there have been changes in how court dates are assigned in Ethiopia!

Today we got a phone call from our case worker that our first court date has been set.  Before we travel to attend court there is a date when an Ethiopian agency reviews all of our paperwork to make sure that everything is in order.  After they issue a favorable opinion then the Ethiopian court is able to see us in person and finalize the adoption.  It used to be that both court dates were assigned at the same time (the paperwork review date and the in-person meeting).  Now they are just assigning that first date and waiting for the outcome before proceeding to schedule the next date. 

Our review date is next Thursday, November 29.  SO SOON!  Just 9 days away!  We are VERY EXCITED!  There are two families with our agency who are traveling to Ethiopia in the next week to attend court.  They got both of their dates at the same time.  Then there are two families that are in the same boat as us, who have review dates next week and then will get their court and travel dates like we will.

It is an exciting and always changing journey.  We can't wait to find out our travel dates and know the first day we will be seeing our little girl in person.  It will almost definitely be in December!

Waiting on that next phone call

You may be wondering what the next step is, now that we have our referral. We got news last week that our documents and our little girl's documents had been submitted to court. At this point, we are waiting for the court to review the documents and schedule a court date for us to attend in Ethiopia. Recently other families have gotten court dates fairly quickly after being submitted to court. We could be hearing any day between now and the next couple of weeks.

Whenever we do get that call, we'll be finding out on what days we should be traveling, what day we will see our daughter in person for the first time, and what day we will appear in court.

Our plan is to spend a week in the capital, Addis Ababa, and see as many sights as we can there. Then we will head out to explore other parts of Ethiopia for a week. We are so excited about this trip for so many reasons. First and foremost- we get to see our little girl!  It will also be our first trip to Africa and we will see so many interesting places and capture photos and memories that we can later share with our little girl. It will be an amazing experience and one that we will never, ever forget.

Referral high

 

We are still on such a referral high!   She is all we can talk about and think about.   If someone brings up a conversation with me that doesn't have to do with her I have trouble concentrating on them! :)

 

Thursday was a whirlwind of seeing our baby for the first time and then sharing our wonderful news with everyone we know.

 

Friday was the last day of our vacation and felt like a complete celebration day to Zach and me!

 

Saturday we spent 9 hours in the car driving home together and talking about her CONSTANTLY! :)

 

Sunday was a whirlwind of prepping our house for her referral party and printing off tons of pictures of her!

 

Monday was sharing our news and pictures of her at work!

 

Tuesday we heard from another traveling family that they got some pictures of her that we can expect when they get home!

 

Wednesday we had a family lunch to celebrate her.

 

Thursday- we're already to our one week referral-versary! I can't believe it's already been a week!

 

Every night I go to sleep thinking about her and every morning I wake up thinking about her.

I just can't believe how lucky we are.   She is everything we've been hoping and waiting and dreaming about for SO long!!!

 

 

REFERRAL!!!!!!

We received THE CALL today for a 6 month old baby girl!!!!  We are so, so, so, so excited!!!  We were super lucky because we happen to be on vacation so we were together when the Call came!!!  Zach had JUST gotten out his computer too so we were ready to go the moment Natalie called!!  After talking to Natalie for about 40 minutes we ran to the store to print off several pictures of our new baby girl and to buy an IT'S A GIRL balloon!!!  We've spent the last 6 hours telling our family and friends our great news!!! 

Listening to and looking through information on our little girl

Baby Girl Balloon used to announce the news to my family!

Family portrait on the beach at sunset on our referral day!!!!!!

FIFTH fingerprinting

photo courtesy of http://awakenyoursoul.wordpress.com/

 

Today was our fifth fingerprinting experience.  Since it was our third time at the USCIS office we're starting to recognize the fingerprinters by face....

We were kind of hoping THE CALL would come the one time Zach wasn't allowed to have his phone with him but we didn't get that lucky! 

the neverending wait

I have hesitated to write a bitter post detailing how hopeless and frustrated and beaten I feel just because I tell myself surely, surely soon I'll be able to post the happiest post thus far in my life.  I don't want to taint that elation with bitterness posted just days or weeks before and I don't want people reading those posts back to back and thinking, "Oh, if only she had been a little more patient.  Look, just 4 days ago she was thinking this would never happen and now here's her referral post!"  But seriously, I've been feeling this way for a long time now and I don't honestly think that after 26 months on the waitlist anyone could think, 'if only she had been a little more patient.' 

It would be one thing if there just weren't any babies or children that needed adoptive parents.  If all of the children in Ethiopia already had a loving family that could provide for them and THAT'S why we're left waiting.  But that's not why we're waiting!  There are children that need us as badly as we need them!  But I can't do anything to make it go faster.  I'm stuck with my hands tied.  I don't really even have anyone to blame.  I want to blame my agency but I constantly remind myself that surely, they are doing everything as quickly as possible to match children with families.  But then I remember that we've been waiting over 2 years on the waitlist to be matched and can't manage to come up with a good explanation as to how it's possible for things to move so slowly.  

In the beginning I made a paper timeline to mark our progress and over the months and years I've had to add significantly to it.  I just realized the other day that at the end of next month I'm going to have to add to it again.  My timeline is going to be over a yard long.  ARG!!  How frustrating!  And knowing that we could receive our referral today but that we probably won't.  ARG!!!  Frustrating too!  And that no one can give me an answer to how much longer we'll be waiting?!  SUPER FRUSTRATING! 

So... that's how I'm feeling right now.  Perhaps by finally posting this I'll cause our referral to happen and forever people will read back to back ARG/Eeeeeeee!!!!  posts.  So be it.  I dare the universe to make me have to post those back to back and to make me wonder

if I'd just been a little more patient........  



2 years

Soon, soon, soon!  We're hoping it's going to be soon!

Happy 2012!

Ah! You know what just occurred to me? We're the top blog family on the unofficial FBI list! And we're letting everyone down by not posting! Sorry, waitlist blog stalkers!
I feel very, very, very, very confident that 2012 is our year but I still feel like it will be MONTHS before we get our referral. So I can't quite start posting daily because everyone will get bored with, "Still waiting today." Which is the same post we could have been posting for the past year and 7 months!
I try to not think about our adoption constantly because I'll go insane but I met someone this afternoon who is in the adoption process too (from Thailand) and so we got to talking. That got me to thinking and picturing our referral day for the gazillionth time and my heart started racing and I got all shaky and excited and now I'm left with this crazy nervous energy for the rest of the day. I feel like I could bust out of my office right now and go run a marathon- and maybe break a couple of records- with all of this pent up energy!