Bags are packed!

This day has finally come. The bags are packed - and weighed - lots of room to bring home some goodies!!! The lists have been checked and double checked. We are officially ready to roll. Before we know it we will be at the airport and ready to begin this trip of a life time.

Its been so busy getting ready to leave that I am sure it will sink in at some point that we will soon be meeting our son. That is just an amazing concept to me - not sure exactly when it will sink in.

I want to take this time to thank all of you - for your love and support through the years. God has been faithful and we can see His hand in each step of the way (even though we don't always understand the 'why'). Many of you have been part of His plan for us and we thank you. So, keep us in your prayers as we experience this trip of a life time. We look forward to sharing it with you!!!!

Next...

The adoption process is long and complicated. I figured maybe i would connect some of the dots for you all.

So, last week we got our court date. - By the way this court date is 4 years and 5 days since we started our adoption... That story however could be a whole new post. - This means we fly to Ethiopia (in 27 days!) and appear in court there. We stand before the judge and answer a few questions. At this point we become Bedi's parents legally. There is always a chance that we might not pass on the first try. When we go for court a representative from the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) needs to be there and present the judge with a letter to support our adoption. It is common for this letter to not be ready at the time of the court date. This usually results in a conditional pass, you pass when the letter is presented to the court.

After the successful court date, we get to visit our boy. This will be a one time visit for probably a few hours. If we don't pass court we don't get to see our boy :(

During the rest of our trip we plan to do some travelling and site seeing in Ethiopia. We are really looking forward to that.

Then we will come home and wait for the rest of the process. We had talked about staying and waiting for his visa in Ethiopia. This plan has changed. The time line is so uncertain so we have decided that we will be coming home and waiting here.

After our court date, Bedi will be issued a new birth certificate and a new passport. This should take about 2 or 3 weeks.

When those documents are secured, we can then apply for a visa. He will need a visa to travel to Canada. There is one Canadian consulate in Nairobi (Kenya) that services many African countries including Ethiopia. This part can take any where between 2 days and 20 weeks.

While we are very excited to have a court date, we still have a few more hurdles to jump. We are definitely getting closer - the end is in site.

We want to thank you all for the love, support and prayers!! We would have never made it this far without all of you!!!!

Light at the end of the tunnel

Yes - that's right. We can now see that tiny little light at the end of this huge crazy tunnel. On Thursday we got news of our court date! Its funny how this news always comes in a little email. Usually only one or two sentences tell us some kind of huge news. So, March 5th is our date. To be honest I was disappointed that it was SO FAR AWAY... But the process includes 2 court dates. One is for Birth Parents/Social Workers and then one month later is the date for Adoptive Parents. So, Feb 2 is our first date and then March 5 is our second date. In reality this is fairly quick.

I am not having the reaction I thought i would have. Mike is the very excited one and I am getting there. I feel a huge sense of relief but more than anything I am still in shock. You see for the last almost 4 years we have had no sense of timing. We tried to guess and maybe, sort of come up with some kind of time line which has always been way off. This time we have a date. We have a count down. We KNOW when we are going. We KNOW when we will see our boy. Its kind of freaking me out to be honest. We are making TRAVEL plans... I am buying things. Its all feeling a bit crazy.

On every kind of holiday i would daydream and dare to ask myself - will we have a baby next Christmas 0r our next camping trip or next summer... and the answer appears to be yes.

Now the other thing is that it is not over yet. This is like the 7th inning stretch. Its fun to do and it means the game is coming to a close - but it ain't over yet. Still so many things to wait for and some of the hardest part is coming. The sweet sweet day we will see our boy for the first time and the day we have to leave him and come home. I knew this day was coming - I did and I would tell myself "it won't be that bad" - many others have done it. But i know I am going to be a HUGE mess. This, I am not looking forward to - in fact dreading it. We were really trying to figure out how we could make the 'long' stay work - but in reality we just can't do it. I will be on cloud nine if we have to turn around 5 weeks after we get home and go right back to pick him up!!!

So, YAYYYYYYYY we have our court date!! It is exciting to be at this place FINALLY. But with it comes a whole new set of scary and crazy - which we should be used to by now. We are grateful and we are thankful and we are happy! And as my co-worker J would say 'strength for the journey'!

Letter

Our long lost letter has finally been signed!!! We just found out today. Now we can get back in line and apply for a court date. This has been a nightmare. There were times where we really believed we would loose our boy. Thanks for your prayers and your support!

Sitting

He sits. Our boy sits on his own. He is growing and getting bigger. He is loosing the baby look and looking more like a little boy. The red t-shirt with the white stripes from last months photo is now looking a bit small for him. His hair is getting longer and the curls - Oh the curls!!!!! He has big, loose curls. His legs are getting cubby and he has rolls at his wrists. He is the sweetest thing ever - can't wait for you all to agree with me.

We are grateful for our photo updates. We don't receive any other info - so seeing him sit is huge for us. We just don't know what milestones he is reaching. We can see that he is healthy and well cared for.

We have no other news, no updates. We pray for our boy and hope that we can be together soon. We have our good days and our not so good days. I want to thank you all for supporting us in so many different ways. Please continue to pray that this nightmare will be over soon and we can get on with living our lives as a family of 3.

Confession Friday

Hey there - yes we are still here. We have little in the way of updates. We are still missing one important piece of paper - this paper is standing between us getting to court. So, if you think of us (and a few other families) please continue to pray that this will all be cleared up real soon.

And now for my confessions:

*this week Bedi turned 1. Yep he had his birthday on Monday. I actually made it through the day without being a huge mess. I never imagined we would have him home for his birthday but i imagined by now we would be waiting for his visa. It is hard to think of him being in the orphanage for so long and without us. Next year will be the party to end all birthday parties! We love you sweet boy - Happy Birthday.

*I know that you have heard me say this wait has been hard... hard doesn't cut it. There have been time (are times) that we aren't sure that we will get Bedi. In the past weeks hope and despair can live in the same moment. Our friends and family have been wonderful in the encouragement department and in the prayer department - continually lifting us up. And i can feel it and it gets me through those tough days. Thanks peeps. Most of all Mike has been a rock. We often take turns being the 'strong' one - but lately its been all Mike. This song was on the radio today and it is so true for us.

God Gave Me You

I’ve been a walking heartache
I’ve made a mess of me
The person that I’ve been lately
Ain’t who I wanna be

But you stay here right beside me
Watch as the storm goes through
And I need you

God gave me you for the ups and downs
God gave me you for the days of doubt
For when I think I’ve lost my way
There are no words here left to say, it’s true
God gave me you

There’s more here than what were seeing
A divine conspiracy
That you, an angel lovely
Could somehow fall for me
You’ll always be love’s great martyr
Ill be the flattered fool
And I need you

God gave me you for the ups and downs
God gave me you for the days of doubt
For when I think I’ve lost my way
There are no words here left to say, it’s true
God gave me you

On my own I’m only
Half of what I could be
I can’t do without you
We are stitched together
And what love has tethered
I pray we never undo

God gave me you for the ups and downs
God gave me you for the days of doubt
God gave me you for the ups and downs
God gave me you for the days of doubt
For when I think I’ve lost my way
There are no words here left to say, it’s true
God gave me you, gave me you
Gave me you

Blake Shelton

Confession Friday

I confess:

*Its been a long hard week. Actually it's been a long hard 4 months since we got our referral. Last week we finally got an answer as to why we don't have a court date. We aren't even eligible for a court date... To make a long story short, we are missing paperwork in Bedi's file. This mysterious paper work has been missing for about 4 months and we weren't told. It is tiring and scary and we would just like some answers.

*We got new pics of our Bedi yesterday. He is getting so big!! He looks healthy and happy. Today he is 11 months old.

*I have the day off and feel very little ambition to get out of my PJ's and do anything constructive.