A gift from Heaven

Today was our baby shower. This post is not about that. That post has to wait until tomorrow when I can add pictures. ;)

Those of you that are close to me and have been friends with me for a long time, know how important my grandma Elsie was to me. Our oldest is named after her...Micala Elsie. She rode 3 hours to see Micala when she was less than 3 hours old. Special. She made a longer trip to visit Lexi in Bowdle after she was born. My grandma has 2 daughters, but I was given the special gift of her wedding ring. I have letters sent to me that have stories in them that nobody else knew. She was a special, special lady. There have been many times where I have thought about my grandma wishing she could meet this special little man. Today at our shower, there was a box from my parents and from Grandma Elsie. Hmmm?! In it was a jean quilt she had made. Tears! The sappiness continues as I have had time to think about this. My grandma made lots of these quilts. Each of the grandchildren got one. My girls never got one, but our little man will have one. My girls got to meet their Great-Grandma Elsie, but Kobe won't. My mom found this quilt that my grandma had made. It was an extra....or Great Grandma Elsie really has met our son and has now given him a very special gift. A gift from Heaven.

A wild and crazy ride

Here is a recap of the events of the week. Monday our filed was opened at the US Embassy. Yippee!!! Tuesday we were CLEARED by the US Embassy! What!?! Wowzers!! THAT IS AWESOME!!!! Seriously I don't know if anyone has cleared that fast. Tuesday was spent telling our good news and trying to decide what to do first with all that we needed to get done. Wednesday we woke up to the news that our Embassy appointment would be April 9th. April 9th will be our "Gotcha Day" and our little man will be in our arms FOREVER!!! :) Since we had a confirmed date, I needed to hear from our agency in order to know exactly what day we needed to be in Ethiopia and which day we would leave. Granted we kind of figured this out b/c we knew it was 2 days before and 2 days after, but I was waiting to hear the official word. Then it was time to book tickets. We had a couple of options to pick from.We put some tickets on hold. Then we had to email our agency with our intinerary. (They have to approve it so that we aren't getting their too early/late and that we aren't leaving too early/late.) After their approval, then time to BOOK those tickets. All of that on top of regular life's activities. Thursday and Friday for the most part were spent figuring out what the plan was for the girls while we were gone, getting our transportation to and from the airport figured out, making appointments for our little man when he gets home, as well as working on lesson plans. I currently have 4 days of school left for this school year. Needless to say, I was caught a little off guard when we thought it would be at least the beginning of May..at the earliest. Once again, God shows me that I am not in control and He continues to laugh at me thinking that I am. ;) I'm working on lesson plans for next week. I will be there for that week. The following week's lesson plans need to be done as we will be out of the country. The week after that's lesson plans are being done b/c I can't imagine I'll have the time/energy to get those done once we get home. Planning and preparing for 3 weeks worth of school is challenging. After we are home, I'll be going in each weekend to do plans...one week at a time. I don't have my school stuff totally done, but it is coming together nicely. Today is our baby shower which couldn't have fallen at a better time. Now it is time to focus on a baby!! Now only a baby, but OUR SON! We leave in less than a week. We have waited and waited and waited for this time to come. It will soon be here and it doesn't seem like it is happening. In 2 weeks we will be a family of five all under the same roof! :) When will this seem real? Our girls are 14 and 10 and we are going back to the baby days. Part of that is scary especially with all of the unknowns with an adopted child. WE CAN'T WAIT!!! This past week has been nothing more than a wild and crazy ride, but it has been awesome and the end result will be more amazing than we can ever imagine!

We are CLEARED!!!!

Where do I start this? Good luck sticking to one subject at this point in the game. Ha! I'll start at the beginning of our day. Both emails we have gotten from the Embassy came at about 8:00 am. Our file was just opened yesterday so I wasn't really thinking we would have much for email from them today besides saying they were requesting a police officer interview. At 7:15 am, I thought "What the heck! I'll check." What a blessing that was! I open my email and see a message (didn't look to see who it was from) and it said "CASE CLEARED" in the subject line. No way! Could be this for real? Okay...don't get excited yet. This isn't possible. I opened the email and read it. Yes it WAS possible. It WAS real! Jason was out of town with some school kids. Both the girls are in bed. I'm freaking out! I tried Jason's phone. No answer. I went to Micala sobbing and hysterically. I said, "We get to bring "K" home." We hugged, cried (sobbed), and thanked God. Then she asked if Lexi knew. Nope. She ran to tell her and I got on the phone. I did get ahold of Jason. Geez he went to breakfast without his phone. He thought he wouldn't be gone long, but....he was gone long enough. ;) At this time the girls are calling people and I'm calling people. So glad I had this email so early in the morning so we had time to share before having to head off to school. Micala has since said that she thought someone had died. I guess when she talked to my mom, she was the same way. :) She was crying so hard my mom couldn't understand her. So sweet!!! Lexi started to eat breakfast and turned and said, "I can't eat." These girls are ready to have their brother home.

The email from the Embassy said that they were booked the week of the 2-6. The head of HH had requested the 5th, but she didn't know they were booked. 2 things could happen. The Embassy will email her and say that date doesn't work, the next available is this date and we have the family put into that spot. Or they will say they are booked and then ask her to pick a date. We hope to know tomorrow when we get up. I'm guessing there will be some emails going back and forth b/t the Embassy and the head of HH. All of these emails are CC to us. Hmmm...wonder if I will sleep tonight or if I'll be refreshing my computer all night. ;)

It was pointed out to me that we got our Christmas miracle and now we are going to get an Easter blessing. Our referral was on the eve of Ethiopia's Christmas. Their Easter is the 15th so...he will be home (or close to it) by then.

It used to be about 4 weeks in between trips in the "good ol' days." Then the Embassy started to scrutinize every case. Seriously...I think we hold a record. I don't know if anyone has been opened one day and cleared the next. We are praising God for all of His amazing and wonderful things He has done. I'm so thankful that we have AGCI as our agency and Hannah's Hope as our transition home. They really are very proactive and try to be one step ahead on the paper "game." What a blessing! So the 17 months on the wait list were hard. Yet now that I'm at this point..it was better to wait at the beginning and to have things go fast now. Thank you God and AGCI.

I have so much to do. I will be taking the last of the school year off. We do not have this house ready for a baby to be here SOON! I haven't been able to do anything right now. I'm just spinning in circles. We are anxious to find out when our Embassy date it. Then we wait to hear from our agency to find out what day we leave and come back. We have to be there 2 days before the Embassy appointment and 2 days after, plus 2 days travel. I had a friend last night that prayed for a "wild and crazy ride" for us. Guess what....we got it! We might be leaving next week!!! We just need to get our date figured out so we can get things figured out for the girls, plus school, plane tickets, etc...

I got to talk to our case worker today. We missed meeting her in Ethiopia by 2 weeks. Then I was excited she was going to meet our little man. Then I was upset to think he was going to be in the hospital and she might miss him. Well--she saw him!! I got 6 new pictures. Very cool! He is so happy. Even another traveling family made the comment about the smiley baby. :) Sounds like he will fit in.

Thank you all so much for your love, support, and prayers! I know I could feel your prayers so often. We know that we have some very hard days ahead of us. We will still need your prayers. Our little guy will be plucked from everything he has ever known. He will be seriously grieving the loss of EVERYTHING!! We look different, sound different, smell different. It will be so hard in so many ways.

Until tomorrow when we have a date......

File opened

We got an email today from Ethiopia. (Those are fun to get) Bottom line, our file has been opened! One step closer. More than likely they will need to do a police officer interview. Sometimes they don't try very hard to contact them. At least we know our file is open and on their desk. I just hope and pray that they work hard to get us cleared. I've heard of enough cases where they just sit on the files. Please God don't let that be us. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Please keep them coming. Pray this boy home SOON!!!

SUBMITTED!!! :)

So I had a long post yesterday about not being submitted to Embassy.  Ha...funny!!! I woke up this morning with an email from Ethiopia saying WE WERE SUBMITTED!!!What a nice surprise! It was a great way to start the day. What does this mean? It means the staff at Hannah's Hope has given all of our paperwork to the Embassy. Now we wait for the Embassy to open our file. (Hopefully we will be notified of this) Then we wait for the Embassy to do all of the investigating needed to prove our little man is a true orphan. This is the frustrating part. The country of Ethiopia has already done their investigation. Now the US Embassy investigates. We are all for the legal part of this, but it really should be done earlier in the process. Our little guy is LEGALLY OURS as far as the country of Ethiopia goes. Now we wait for the Embassy to investigate so they can issue a visa. As I posted yesterday, this can still be a very long process. However...this truly is the last leg of this journey. We have one final hoop to get through b/4 this baby is home and into a forever family!!!! There really is no rhyme or reason to how/why the Embassy does what they do. We have no idea on a time frame. More than likely they will request an interview with a police officer. They might get in touch with someone and they might not. Time will tell. We continue to pray for this to go as smoothly and quickly as possible because this can really d-r-a-g out.

A few people have commented about this awesome thing we are doing. Seriously we aren't doing anything awesome or amazing. God called us to adopt an orphan from a different country. We simply answered "the call." We are blessed. We are the blessed ones that will get the opportunity to have one more child for us to love and will call us "Mom and Dad."Any of you that are parents know what a blessing a child is. Not only are we blessed to get to parent this little guy, we are blessed with some pretty amazing family and friends. The support has been so unbelievable. We have been blessed with a great support system. God has tested and stretched our faith. We have grown so much spiritually. We are blessed!!!!!

I can not hold back any more. I am posting a picture, but we can't show his face until we are home. Enjoy the tease. :)

No Embassy submission

Our agency submits to the Embassy on Mondays meaning most families hear of their submissions on Tuesday. Since it is as late as it is in the day, I'm guessing that means that we were not submitted this week. They say 2-3 weeks for submission. We are just a little bit past 2 weeks so we would have been pushing it, but....one could hope. ;) My thoughts are that if the Embasssy is going to drag their feet, let's getting submitted to Embassy as quick as possible. Right now the "submitting to Embassy" is really the staff at Hannah's Hope getting all of the legal documents ready for little Y to official be ours. Since we passed court, he is legally ours in the eyes of the Ethiopian government. They have to get a new birth certificate as well as some other legal documents before they can "submit" the paperwork requesting a visa. We know that the staff at HH is doing all they can to do this in a timely manner. It just takes so much longer doing this paperwork "stuff" in a third world country. It isn't as easy as sitting down at the computer, typing in some information, and printing it out. So we wait to see if we hear any word next week.

I did some serious number crunching last night. Lots of people from our agency are on the "Post Referral List." It lists when they got their referral, when they went to court, and when they came home. Funny I would even bother looking at this because there really isn't a rhyme or reason for how things happen. If I looked correctly, there have been 7 families that have brought their children home this year. Their wait between the two trips varied from 7 weeks to 15 weeks. There were quite a few at 13 weeks. 13 weeks puts us at the end of May. It certainly is better to be the end of May instead of June or July.If it gets too late in the summer before we get home, I'll have to take some time off at the beginning of the school year. That is a tough part of the school year to miss, but if I have to I have to. In the ideal/fantasy world, I'd love to be home the beginning of May. I'd selfishly like to be home with our little man for a couple of weeks just Mommy and baby before the chaos of summer hits.

Time will tell. Right now, I'm content and calm and trusting in God's perfect timing. There is a family that took 6.5 weeks to be submitted to Embassy. They were cleared the next week. What in the world?! No rhyme or reason. There is no sense in me trying to figure things out. It just helps my head/heart to have some idea. So...I'm holding on to the hope that we will be submited next week. I'm holding on to the hope we will be home by the end of May. If it is earlier...praise God!

I pray that I can continue to be content in His perfect timing. I pray that I can wait with a HAPPY heart and not a HEAVY heart. God has been with us for over 2 years as we took this leap of faith and ventured on this journey we never thought we would take. We know He won't leave us now. We also know that the hardest days are the days ahead. Knowing he is our son and not knowing when we get to hold him, kiss him, and love on him. We can't wait to share our precious bundle with all of you that have been so faithful to us on this journey.

RELEASED!! :)

I woke up this morning with a sense of peace and calmness. I just felt we were going to get good news. (Or maybe it was wishful thinking) We got the phone call we were hoping/praying for. Our little one is back at Hannah's Home. Thank you God! It would have been a long, hard weekend not knowing if he was in or out of the hospital. What a huge relief! The staff at HH even sent us pictures so that we could see with our own eyes how he looked. That was so appreciated!!! Since our regular case worker is gone, we have been working with a different one this week. She said she can't believe how different he looks in the pictures today vs the referral pictures. No doubt!It is amazing!God is good! Thanks for all of the love, prayers, and support during this time. We certainly felt them. Now we ask for prayers to get our little man HOME and in OUR arms forever!!!

Hospital Day #3

By lunch time today, I  hadn't heard anything from our agency. I usually hear from them b/t 11-11:30 so I figured they didn't have an update. I wasn't going to sit and wonder so I called them. I was right. They had no update. So this means our little guy is still in the hospital.

Our case worker is currently in ET. We missed meeting her by 2 weeks. We thought it would be cool for her to meet our little one. Hopefully he isn't in the hospital when she goes to HH. I know it is a minor thing, but it would be special to us if she would be able to meet him.

We haven't ever had one of our kids in the hospital, which is enough to put any parent on edge. Now we have a kid in the hospital and he is across the world. :( What is a hospital like in a third world country? We know he is getting the best care possible. We are thankful for the fact that he isn't in an orphanage b/c this probably wouldn't be getting taken care of. We are thankful that he has one of his special mothers with him so he isn't alone in a strange place. We are thankful for all of the people supporting us through their prayers. I wonder if this hospital trip is to make the rest of the wait easy. HA!!

Hospital Day #2

We got an update. Our little man is doing better, but is still in the hospital. I emailed information to our International Pediatrican. She said they would probably keep him longer than they would in the US. I guess there is probably lots of truth to that. I wish I would have known this before we got the call today. I was hoping to hear that he was back at HH. I guess it is better to have him completely recovered before he goes back instead of jumping the gun and having him relapse. Today was much harder on me than yesterday was. Like Jason said, it would be nice to see with our own eyes that he was doing better instead of taking someone else's word for it. I'm about ready to jump on a plane and see him. I'd even do the whole trip by myself if need be. It isn't possible in any way, shape, or form. I know that. I know he is in good hands. I double checked to make sure that he had someone with him all of the time. I wasn't sure if it was b/c he was just brought in or if someone stays with him the whole time. They keep someone with him the whole time. That is so comforting to this mom's heart. At least he has someone that is special to him there to love on him. No it isn't us, but it is the best it can be right now. So thankful for our agency. If we were with a different agency #1--he would be in orphanage not a transition home #2--he might be still suffering at the orphanage instead of getting the medical care he needs. #3--he would be all alone.

It is hard enough to be away from him, but this is so very hard to know that he is soooo sick and we can't see him. To my surprise, I haven't cried over this yet. However, I did have troubles sleeping last night and now I'm starting to have some acid stomach issues. The first thing that comes to my mind is to relax and pray about it. Trust in God that he will be okay. I believe he will be okay. However..I have never had a kid in the hospital let alone in a hospital across the world depending on someone else's arms to hold him, someone else's lips to kiss him, someone else's eyes to say he is okay. It is tough. We have so many prayers and such support. It is so greatly appreciated. We know he will be okay. We know he is getting good care and is in good hands. He is not in his mom and dad's arms and that really matters at this time.

Our baby is in the hospital

Today I had a missed call from our agency. I really wondered if there was ANY chance it would be that we were submitted to Embassy. Our agency submits to Embassy on Monday and families usually get notice on Tuesdays. It has only been a week. Would it be possible that was the deal? Maybe!?! Every time I get a voicemail from our agency, my stomach goes into knots. One just never knows what information they could have. Well...our little guy is in the hospital with pneumonia. :(Sad!That is hard a mom's heart. It is hard to have him so far away when he feels good. Now he needs his mom and I'm a world away. :( I do take comfort in the fact that HH is being very cautious. I also feel comforted to know that one of his special mothers is there with him. (At least someone is there loving on him.) We have plenty of prayer warriors and for that we are thankful.

Reality is starting to sink in

It is hard to believe that is has only been one week since we returned home from ET. One week. Feels like an eternity. We landed in the US on Saturday. It took me until Thursday to get my body adjusted back to the 9 hour time difference. This past week was a whirlwind trying to get my physical bearings back. It was also a very busy week. Now that I've adjusted back to our time zone, I'm gotten some sleep, and had a little down time...reality is starting to sink in. I don't like reality.  The reality is that our little man is legally our son. The reality is that he will be 6 months old tomorrow. 6 months that he hasn't had a mom/dad/family. The reality is that we still have months before we get to bring him home. The reality is that no matter how busy we are, our hearts ache for our little boy. I know we need to live in the moment, cherish today, etc..I know we need to enjoy life as a family of four. However, we aren't a family of four. We are a family of five. No matter how busy we are, how much we live in the moment, how much we cherish the memories with our girls, our hearts ache. It is just the beginning of this tough road. Each stage of the wait gets more and more difficult. We know the end results will be worth the wait, until then...I don't like reality!

Thank you!

This journey is one we never thought we would be on. God had different ideas. :) I'm glad we listened to His call as we now have a beautiful baby boy. What a blessing! I want to take this time to thank you for walking this journey with us. Whether you are someone we speak to daily or whether you are someone that is a silent follower of our blog...thank you!!! Each and every one of you has played an important part on this journey. We appreciate ALL of you! I've been overwhelmed in the past couple of days by outpouring of love and support from others. The best is to get an email from a "random stranger" (aka: someone from our agency that we have never met) just checking in. The blessings we are receiving on this journey are so much more than this little boy. Thank you so much for being part of our journey. It hasn't been easy. We know the hardest part is yet to come as we long to have our little boy in our arms FOREVER. Yet, I have faith that we will make it through the tough days to come. God has placed some amazing people in our lives that are helping us to get through each day. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You will never know how much your thoughts/prayers/love/support mean to us. Thank you!

What is next?

Now we wait on the US Embassy to look at our case. The Ethiopian side of things already checked things out to make sure he was legally an orphan and that all of his paperwork "checked out." Now the US Embassy has to do the same thing in order to grant him a Visa so we can bring him home. This is where the biggest glitch of the system currently is. We really feel that the US investigation needs to be earlier in the process. In about 2-3 weeks, we hope to hear our file has been submitted to the Embassy. Then the Embassy will "try" to contact certain people to prove information is true. Yes we want the info to be true and we want things to be legit, but it is hard to stomach that the US is the one keeping us from bringing our baby home. Please keep the prayers coming. The longer we wait, the harder this gets. We knew between Court and Embassy would be the hardest part. I don't think we have a clue how hard this really will be. Again..thanks so much for all of the love/support/prayers throughout this journey. We appreciate it greatly. What we need now are the prayers. Pray that the Embassy moves swiftly and our little man can come home to this house/town/family that is waiting for him with open arms. Thanks!

We are home!

We got picked up from the airport on Saturday and spent the night at Jason's parents. It was so good to see our girls again. We have been away from them before for this long, but that was when we went on our cruise. This was a big family ordeal and it was hard to not have them with us for it. My parents, Jason's sister, Jason's brother, and of course Jason's parents all gathered for show and tell. It was nice to share as much as we could all at once.

When we got back to Bowdle on Sunday and had show and tell with friends that could make it. We knew people would want to know all about our trip. We thought it would be better to share as much as we could at once. It was nice to see so many friendly faces after we had been gone for such a life changing event.

Day #4

After breakfast, we went to HH for our last visit. The babies were out sunning, so we hung out. Jason fed our little man and I played with the others. They babies are so happy at HH. Such a comfort when leaving our baby a world away. ****DISCLAIMER**** Hannah's Hope is a transition home and not an orphanage therefore why the care is sooooo amazing!!! I ended up taking our little man since he was fussing so much for Jason. The special mother came and got him from me as I couldn't calm him down either. She got him to sleep and then gave him back to us.  When all the babies went in for bottles/naps, we went to our "regular" family room. We were told by our agency to "keep our emotions in check" during our last visit. They said how things were hard enough for the kiddos without the parents being all upset. Totally understand and agree. I had the motto of "live in the moment" all week. I was very proud of myself as I did well. Our agency also talked about how the kids seem to have a 6th sense when it comes to that last day. They said they almost always see a difference in the behaviors of the kids. He totally avoided us. He had very few smiles and would NOT have any eye contact with us. Stinker! I did well living in the moment until 1:20. We had about 10 minutes until we were going to leave. I passed him over to his dad for his last hold. The tears started. It couldn't be helped. We took our little man back to his special mothers. We handed him over to them, tears streaming down our faces. As far as Ethiopia is concerned, we are his parents and he is our son. We have no idea when the US will clear us to come and get him.  We went back to the hotel. Jason napped and I was on the internet trying to send pictures. Had supper at the hotel. By 7:30 pm, we were packed up and heading to the airport for our 11:25pm flight to leave.

Day #3--Court Day

Big day today. First we went to court. The traffic was really heavy and it took at least an hour to get there. We were in the waiting room for about a half an hour before it was our turn. We were asked about 5 questions. WE PASSED!!! He is ours!! :)

After court, we went shopping. We felt pressured from our driver to hurry so that was a bit stressful. I had an idea of what I wanted, but didn't want to buy the first thing we saw. ;) I already know of one thing that I wish I would have gotten. Oh well. I might have to see if any of the other families traveling could get it for me. Then we went to eat at an Italian place. We had chicken pizza.

We went back to our hotel and changed clothes and within an hour headed to HH to see our little man. Of course when we got there, he was eating/sleeping. Jason took him and he woke up. This happened quite a bit while we were there. I'd get him to sleep and pass him over and he would wake up. ;) In Jason's defense, our little man is used to women with his special mothers. He pooped his pants twice for ME to change. We hung out most of the time in a different room so we could just be alone the 3 of us. He slept most of the time. Poor thing is so out of sorts with us disturbing his schedule. Finally I took him back to his special mother b/c I couldn't console him. We didn't we would leave since it was close to time anyway.

Still no internet at the hotel. Crazy...we are in a third world country. We know internet is hit and miss, but we had great internet all of the time until we had important court news to share. It was at least 12 hours from us passing court until we actually got internet up enough to share the news. Seriously not a fun time to not have internet. At least we had good news to share, but we knew our family/friends were anxious to hear from us. We were down in the lobby talking to the guy from the gift shop. We told him we passed court and that there was no internet to share with our family. He said we could make a phone call from his phone. How very sweet. We didn't do it though. We tried to remain patient. ;) Americans are VERY respected which is not what I expected.