We passed court!

Joanna and I received word this afternoon that Sintayehu's case passed court today! We are so excited! This now means that the adoption is final in Ethiopia and he is officially our son. It's hard to believe we're now the parents of two little boys.

Here's pictures of the new little man that we can now post.

Referral picture from Dec 08

Updated picture from Jan 09

Mikias sporting his "big brother" shirt tonight

It sounds like we'll be travelling in about 4 weeks...we still have to work out all those details. For now, we're extremely grateful that everything fell into place. Thanks to everyone who has been thinking of / praying for us.

The turnaround

Well, just when we had already accepted the fact that court would be indefinitely delayed for us and all AAI families, it seems like some last minute happenings in Ethiopia will allow our case to go to court tomorrow!! We received an email today saying that the issue has been resolved and we will continue with our court date tomorrow as scheduled. Essentially there was a problem with our agency's license (this did affect a few agencies actually), but it's all good now. This problem had the potential of affecting a whole lot of families with court dates this week and in the near future and could have created a mess trying to reschedule everyone. We were thinking that we'd be delayed a couple months. We were actually told last week that it would take a miracle for us to keep our original court date.....I guess that's what we got!

Needless to say our heads are spinning a bit with all of these ups and downs. We're hoping tomorrow is another "up" and that court goes smoothly. If so, we'll officially be the parents of TWO!

A little guy and his friends

This past Friday afternoon we were scheduled to have a "phone meeting" with our consultants about our upcoming court date for Sintayehu. While the intention of the scheduled meeting was to discuss travel arrangements, the tone quickly changed after we were informed that there have been complications that may delay our court date. Unfortunately, the reality is that "may" seems like a far reaching comment. We are not expecting anything on Wednesday. We are so disappointed. We are not sure, at this point, when those complications will be remedied.

However, deeper than that disappointment is fear. We also learned that the formula situation in Ethiopia is becoming "precarious". It appears that the orphanage that Sintayehu is in doesn't have a surplus of formula. While formula being sent over has certainly been attempted, the most full proof way of having the formula arrive is with people handing it off directly. The adoption boards have come alive with plans, for which we are grateful. We hope to connect with a family who is traveling mid-March to be able to hand off the stockpile in our basement. Ironic that there is formula right under me and a child 7337 miles away who needs it. Scratch that....children 7337 miles who need it now!

Our Saturday consisted of us searching the Ethiopian Airlines website looking for flights to have ready should we get the go ahead to hop on a flight with formula in tow. Does it seem irrational that a parent wants his/her child to have food? To say that this is frustrating and sad is an understatement. I hate feeling helpless while we go about our daily happenings. I hate the fact that when Mikias didn't finish something at dinner, I noticed it more. More than anything, I hate the fact that this is our son we are talking about.

Today we received word that a doctor had visited our son. On January 6th, Sintayehu was 5.8kg. Today he is 6.0kg. We are thankful that there are hands to examine him. We were also told that our contact feels as if they have enough resources until our next group arrives. These are all good things....at least enough to stall us from purchasing tickets, for now.

The hardest part of our surreal experience is that hunger is the reality for many people on a daily basis. We only feel deeper now because we are talking about our family member. I wish I knew how to bottle these feelings up so I can remember them when our life returns to "so called" normal. The clarity that is present right now is certainly powerful.

When you have a moment....please send some thoughts across the ocean to a little guy and his friends who could use a little love.

His court date is a comin'

71 days ago we found out that we had a new family member on the way who was about 75 days old. 14 days from today we will have our first, and hopefully only, court date to find out if we are officially his parents. Afterwhich, we cross our fingers and let another 28-42 days pass until we tentatively arrive in Ethiopia, after 19 hours of flying, with 4 grandparents, 2 parents and 1 brother to Sintayehu. Then our new family of 4, will travel approximately 7337 miles from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to our front door. I am so excited! This is, of course, if evertyhing goes as planned...but who's counting? :)

Overdue Pictures

We've been meaning to post pictures of some of the happenings of the last month.

Up North over New Years


A typical 2-year old moment

Celebrating Ethiopian Christmas

Our budding musician

...warming up with the band