The Journey

Yesterday, I posted on Facebook that there were some decisions being made in Ethiopia about international adoption. After posting for prayers, we waited to hear from our adoption agency. Today we final received word on what was happening. This is the information we received from our adoption agency. Over the weekend in Ethiopia a multiday meeting was held by the House of Representatives along with MOWCYA ( Ministry of Women Children and Youth Affairs) officials. Around 400 people were present.  A research paper prepared by MOWCYA in conjunction with Parliament was presented regarding issues of sexual harassment, drug abuse and adoption within Ethiopia.  After the presentation, those in attendance were divided into six groups to discuss and respond to 15 questions.  Seven of the 15 questions were directly related to adoption. Our adoption agency is in the process of translating the research paper and questions.  Each group had a mixed representation of parliament officials,

Tomorrow marks one year DTE. In adoption world, DTE stands for Dossier to Ethiopia. This means tomorrow marks that all our paperwork has been in a desk, in a file, in an office, somewhere in Ethiopia for a year. When we started the program, we thought that today we would be much closer to our baby than where we actually are. When we started the program, we were told that people were waiting around 12-18 months to receive a referral for their baby; sadly, these wait times have changed drastically since we started. Internationally adoption as a whole has really decreased in the last few years due to a number of different reasons. To give you an idea, in 2010 our adoption agency was able to match and bring home 80 infants and 52 toddlers in the Ethiopia program. This year 17 infants and 8 toddlers were matched. That is a huge difference in just a matter of three years. With these numbers, you can imagine that we are slowly moving up the list to receive a referral. To be honest and giv

This week, my dear husband posted a picture of me holding a sign with the time that we have been waiting. This count is from when we were accepted into the Ethiopian Program with our adoption agency. My heart has been ready for adoption for much longer, but this was when the true wait began. I think sometimes people forget that I have been waiting for so long because I don't look physically uncomfortable, but I am so ready for this wait to be over. I am also a visual learner, so I appreciated his visual representation of our wait. Thank you all for your sweet and encouraging comments and prayers. We love you. This has been the most challenging, frustrating, emotional, beautiful, and exciting time of my life. I can't wait for the day- whenever it may be.