It's been about a month since my last post, and since that time we've just been waiting and waiting. You'd think we'd be pretty good at this waiting thing, but it has been pretty hard. All of the families in our Yahoo group who were not required to travel for their court dates (we call them "1-trippers") have passed court (meaning they are legally parents) and have begun traveling to get their little ones. To date, none of the "2-trippers" (that's us) have been assigned court dates; HOWEVER, we found out yesterday that our file was submitted to court last week! What happens from here is a little fuzzy, but here's how we think it works:

-Our file is submitted to court

-a couple of weeks later we are assigned a court date (3-4 weeks out and possible tentative)

-in the mean time, soon after our court dates are assigned, the birth family has their court appearance. 

-if all  goes according to plan with their hearing, we will be given the okay to book flights, maybe 2 weeks in advance of travel. 

Bottom line: There is still a chance that we will make it through before the courts close for the rainy season...so lets do some double time on the praying! and we'll keep you posted.

The next question (if not the first) is, "So when is she coming home?". The answer to that is, "We really don't know". Unfortunately, as some of you already know, a big issue unfolded this week. The US Embassy in Ethiopia decided to reduce the number of Visa appointments issued per month (usually 20 per agency) to only 10 appointments. Basically, it has the potential of drastically slowing down the next leg of our journey. There are approximately 30 families with our agency who are waiting for appointments to pick up their children, and this is the only thing stopping them from bringing their children home. There are some rumors that the reduced appointments are only for the summer, but we don't know that for sure. Thank you to everyone who emailed their state representatives on behalf of the children of Ethiopia. If you have not already contacted them, please wait until we get some further direction from our agency. We want to make our voices known, but we want to be careful not to offend the Ethiopian officials and risk any sort of adverse reaction. International adoption can be very precarious, so we're going to proceed with caution for now. We know that the agencies are all doing their best to advocate for the children. Depending on how much of the bottle neck clears out before we reach that stage, we're probably looking at traveling to bring her home in October or November. I'm usually saying December just to be safe :).

Anyway, while we've been waiting , waiting waiting, we've been doing, doing, doing. 

I have succumbed (finally and much to the amazement of other adoptive mothers) to retail therapy. I bought some cute little hair clips and ties at the dollar store and a perfect little storage container at JoAnn's (50% off). I'm pretty sure this is just the beginning of a major hair obsession. Let's hope she's grown some since her last picture! :)

1).Pray we make it through court before the closures (Update: some agencies are reporting that the courts will close Aug 6-Sept 27th, but our agency has not gotten confirmation from the courts on this. Please keep praying that we get a court date soon...and that it is before the closure).

2). Pray that more Embassy appointments are added (Update: The Embassy is telling our agency that the reduced appointments will only be for the summer, some people have even been told directly by the Embassy that the reduction will only be for July. That may help reduce the bottleneck for Visa appointments, but they seriously need to add more if possible.

3). Pray for one of my good friends who has been waiting much longer that us and found out there is a glitch with her paperwork. (Her soon to be daughter is in the hospital and could use some prayer too)

4). Pray for another close friend who is scheduled to pick up her baby girl in the next few weeks, but will get pushed back if her new INS fingerprints don't come through in time. (Answered Prayer! See Her comment below- Fingerprints were located)