The International Rollercoaster

The question of the hour is, "When are you going to get your baby?!?!?"

Well, Jerry talked to our social worker this week. When we originally applied, they were estimating a 5-7 month (with lots being on the "5" end of things) wait for a referral (a picture and medical history), and then 8-12 weeks until traveling to bring her home. That would have meant we would have received a match with a child in March-May, and would have been home with her by the beginning of summer. As we've said, that time frame has extended.

What we are looking at now is this: referrals are currently taking about 8 mos, and travel is happening 8-20 weeks after that. That puts us at the beginning of June for a referral. The issue with that is that the agency stops giving out referrals on June 15. Why? you may ask. The courts in Ethiopia close down for about 2 months in Aug.-Sept. So the agency only gives out referrals that can clear court before the closure. Otherwise, families would be sitting matched for an extra 2 months, but not be able to go get their children. As the social worker said, we will be just on the line. Only time will tell...

So, if we get a referral by June 15, we should clear court and be able to travel in August or September to bring our baby girl home.

If we don't get a referral before the 15th, we will be stuck in the court closure moratorium and get to sit out 2 months with no referrals being given at all. We will have to renew (and pay again for) our home study and Immigration stuff, as they will have expired. Referrals start going out again sometime in September and then proceed to court that opens back up in October. Which means we may have her home in December 2008-January 2009.

And that could all change and extend out in the blink of an eye.

Obviously, this is not what we hoped when we applied. We know the timing is in God's hands, and He will bring her home when the timing is right. There are days that are harder than others to trust...when we finish school early this year because we started early to be prepared to bring her home, when we think of not having her home for what we thought would be our first vacation at the beach as a family of 6 in September, when we wonder if she'll be home for Christmas this year. But we also know that those things will all fade away quickly and mean very little when we have our little girl home.

If you want to pray, continue to pray for God to orchestrate the matching of our family with the little girl He has for us. Pray for us to continue to trust in Him and His timing. But most of all, continue to pray for our little girl, for her birth family, and for the people of Ethiopia. Their journeys deserve your prayers so much more than our mere discomforts.