It has been three weeks since we announced to the world that we received our referral call. Since then we have experienced so much love, support and prayers that we are absolutely blown away. We have also have had people ask us question, so I thought that I would take a little time to answer some of the most popular questions. We are an open book and so very excited about our journey to bring Baby E home to her forever family, so feel free to ask us anything we are happy talk about our girl.
Here are some of the most common questions:
- How old is Baby E? As far as we know she is 5 months old, however we still do not have a lot of information on her. We do not know her exact DOB but hope to get a better idea once we get all of her medical information.
- What is her name? and are you going to change it? There are a lot of privacy rules with adoption, they rightfully want to protect the innocent so I am pretty sure I cannot give her birth name online until she is home. We have discussed changing her name, but we have not made a final decision. If we do change her name, we will definitely keep her Ethiopian name as her middle name.
- When do you pick her up? That is a tough one. Right now we are not sure, we are at the mercy of paperwork and the government. The best guess that I am getting from our agency is about 4-5 months from our official referral. Once the referral is accepted it takes about 6 weeks to get the PAIR application together. Once submitted it takes another 3 months (if everything goes smooth) to receive your PAIR letter approval, then the courts call and schedule your court date. We will then go to Ethiopia and officially adopt her in the eyes of the Ethiopian courts, however she will not have papers to leave the country. We will then return to the states where we will wait for an Embassy appointment to return back to Ethiopia to bring her home. It is a very long process, but we know the reward at the end of the journey will be worth every minute of it.
- Are you going to take Isabelle and Davie with you to Ethiopia? We are not sure how this will work out yet, we are kind of going with the flow. Isabelle really, really, really want to go with us and we would love to take her, however if she goes she will only go with us on the second trip. If money allows and it is safe we will likely take Isabelle on our second trip. We are still not certain if Davie would be able to sit through a flight that long, a one way trip is about 30 hours (with a layover in Germany).
- Where is she now? When we first received our call, Baby E was in a remote region of Ethiopia. She was moved a few weeks ago to Addis, which is the countries capital. Right now "E" is in an orphanage up the road from our agencies transition/foster home, the Thomas Center. Although she is in an orphanage she is checked on by the nannies at the Thomas Center and receives medical attention there. When the nannies check on her they will take pictures and send them to us for updates. I do not know many details about the orphanage because I am trying to think happy thoughts about it, the less I know the better, otherwise I will think the worst and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. All I can do is pray that the sweet nannies are watching over our little girl and taking care of her. One of the many reasons we choose Ethiopia was because of how well they care for one another, so I am absolutely certain she is getting the best care. (right?) When we travel the first time to Ethiopia we will visit the orphanage and meet the nannies that cared for her there, then she will be moved to the Thomas Center where she will be cared for during the transition time between our first and second visit.
Right now our focus has been on getting all of our paperwork and funds together. I submitted paperwork for our authentication seals on the last couple pieces of our dossier paperwork a few weeks ago and then our dossier is complete! I hope to get the paperwork back very soon, and then we can finally send off all of our paperwork to the US and Ethiopian governments. This in itself is a huge accomplishment, there is so much paperwork to be done!
As far as the funds for the adoption are concerned, all I can say is GOD IS GOOD! When we got the referral call a few weeks ago I was in an all out momentary panic wondering how in the world would be come up with over $13,000 in the few weeks we needed to come up with the money. From the very beginning of this journey I felt the Holy Spirit calming me and telling me not to worry about the money. As easy as it is to say, it was so hard to believe but I prayed, gave it to God and honestly felt at peace that the money would come. I am so blown away at how God has worked over the past couple of weeks, he has worked in me, he has worked in others and he has made the unthinkable a reality. In the past three weeks we have come up with $11,686.72! That only leaves us with $1,953.88. We had an action that raised $2,169, with our savings and so many generous people donating to our Lifesong account we have less than $2,000 to go. That is unbelievable, incredible and only possible with God.
We still have the remaining balance and of course the cost of travel to Ethiopia two times, but I know that God is on our side and he can move mountains. He has shown me this time and time again, all I have to do is lay my worries at His feet and trust that His will be done. It has been on my heart for a few weeks to encourage people to not let adoption be about the money. With the journey that we have been on so many people have said to me, "we would love to adopt, we just don't have the money." My prayer is that people throw the money aspect of adoption out the window and trust in God. If it is His will, it will be done. I know that is hard to believe but it is so true.. I promise! There are people out there that want to help, all you have to do is ask for it. There are people that don't feel led to adopt, don't feel like it is right for their family, but they want to help and they will. We have had a hand full of people who we don't even know donate to our adoption. It's not because we asked them, but because someone shared our story and the Holy Spirit put it on their hearts to help. It's a God thing and He is bigger than any worry you have. Please do not let money be a factor in your choice to adopt, if you feel led to it go with your heart, and tell your head to stay out of it.
I am sorry this turned into a rant and a long post! Yikes! Last thing, I want to thank every single one of you who has donated to our Lifesong account, donated an item to our auction, bid on an auction item, bought a t-shirt, prayed for us, asked us about our adoption, shared our story or even thought about our family along our journey. We feel so very loved and supported, and at a time like this who could ask for anything more!
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