Patience

Sarah and I have both learned a lot about patience during this journey of adoption. It's amazing that we think we are being patient but families that are adopting through China are being told the wait times could be 4-5 years if not more. I don't know how anyone could wait that long! We haven't heard anything new the past week. The chatter on the message boards is that the courts will open back up sometime from October 1st-October 6th. We should hopefully get some idea of a court date then. That is estimated to be 1-3 months from when the courts open. We then travel 4-6 weeks after that. So we still have at least a couple of months if it was best case scenario. We finished up Leah's room over the weekend and our project for this weekend is to finish up Malachi's room. Once we get that done we can hopefully "rest" until we travel.

Please continue to pray for our child. He's over there and in great care but it still hard to not be able to reach out and give him a hug and let him know it's all going to be alright.

There is an awesome video here on yout tube of a Holt family that traveled over the summer. It's an incredible video that shows all the aspects of the adoption. It's ten minutes but worth the watch!

Talk to you later!

Adam

What Next??

Many of you have been asking what's the next step for us. Well there is a lot to do. As far as the actual adoption goes, not a lot. We got fomal adoption papers today so we have to get those signed and notarized over the weekend and then he will be ours as long as everything goes through the court process over there. We did hear good news on our immigration paperwork though. Many families have had a lot of trouble getting their paperwork straightened out and it's been a huge hassle to deal with the government. We heard this week that ours is over there and in great shape. Thank you God!

We do have a lot to do at our house to get ready. We've compiled a huge list of to dos. Our goal is to get everything done before October 1st. Our plan is to enjoy October 1st to travel as a family of 3. There were 14 referrals from our agency this month. That is the most they have ever had so that is exciting.

Well off to start work on the to do list....

We Have a Referral!!!!!!!

Well after a few days past four months waiting we received a referral yesterday for a baby boy. Malachi Horton was born on June 13, 2008. He is doing well and is on progress on all the birth charts. It appears he might actually be a pretty tall boy. We are so excited. We had a heads up last week that this probably would happen this week and that it was a 3 month old boy. Just imagine how hard it was for me to go all weekend and Monday with no news!! As part of Ethiopian adoption law we can't post any pictures until he is officially ours. Don't worry though he is absolutely precious looking! Estimated travel time is sometime in late November-late January. We are hoping to be home by Christmas. We will be carrying pictures with us so you can see them if you see us:)



Pray for us that we will wait patiently. Pray for Malachi's health-he is at the Holt Center which is top of the line so he is receiving the best care possible. Pray for the small things-airline tickets will not go through the room, paperwork issues, vaccinations we need. So many little things to get done but we have tons of motivation now to get it done!



We look forward to sharing the rest of our journey with you. Keeep reading!

Getting REALLY REALLY Close

I've mentioned I'm impatient on here before, haven't I? Well after not hearing anything last week after the rumor of referrals and nothing yet this week I tried really hard to come up with an excuse to call the agency to find out what was up. A friend did point out that if we are paying them good money I probably don't need an excuse to call and that they can probably see right through the excuse but I thought I'd try anyway.

I'm currently signed up to go on a mission trip to El Salvador in November with our church. With the possible referral I've been hesitant to totally commit and haven't purchased my ticket yet. Sounds like a good reason to call right? Well I called yesterday and never got a phone call back. After almost exactly 24 hours I called again . The director picked up and was gracious enough to let me patiently explain how I wasn't trying to hound them but I needed to know whether I could commit to the mission trip. She said well let me get out my list and see where you are at. She then said, well you guys are next up for a baby boy. That was exciting news to hear! From what she told me a lot of referrals went out this week and we are actually #2 on the list but the couple ahead of us has requested an infant girl. The next obvious question was when do you think we might get a referral. Without getting into too much detail or sharing stuff I'm not supposed to it sounds like we might get good news next week:) Keep us in your prayers. We know fully well that God has a wonderful child out there for us whether we receive the referral next week or next month. (God does know how impatient I am too!) All in all it made for a great Friday afternoon. I've got a huge project at work that is taking all my time and keeping me extremely busy so that helps pass the time. We're hoping to get Leah's room painted this week so we can start preparing the nursery soon!

4 Months Waiting

4 months of waiting is where we will be on Friday. Hopefully the original 3-6 months will be true and we'll only have 2 months of waiting left.

Yahoo groups are an amazing thing that I was totally unaware of before we started the adoption process. There is basically a group for almost any subject you can think of. I belong to 4 groups, Ethiopia Adopt, Ethopia Holt Adoption, Adoption Agency Research, and MO International Adoption. They are a wealth of knowledge and I'm not sure how any adoptive parents can go through the process and not join a yahoo group. Obviously since we are adopting through Holt that group has been the best for us.

With all the positives there can also be some negatives. Sometimes too much information is a bad thing. Last week the assistant Ethiopia director told someone in our group that there would be 6-7 referrals to come out between last Thursday and Friday. After talking to the director two weeks ago and a referral that came out early last week and based on what was told other couples we are currently tied at #6 with one other couple who completed their paperwork the same day we did. Knowing that and thinking there were 6-7 referrals coming out made us a little nervous last Thursday and Friday. There's a good chance we would NOT get a referral since most ahead of us have requested infants and for us to get one would meant that they would all be infants which is not likely but at worst case scenario we would be at the very top of the list. Thursday and Friday came and went with no referrals. Someone in the group mailed the assistant and she said there was a paperwork issue and hopefully in the near future they will have referrals. The question to be asked is would we have been better off not knowing that there were possible referrals? Part of me says we would be much better off but the bigger part of me and those of you who know me will agree that I want to know. Who knows maybe I'll go on a two week fast of yahoo groups??? Nah, probably not!

We enjoyed a restful two days at my parents house this weekend. We went absolutely know where and it was wonderful. We got back last evening and enjoyed a day around the house getting stuff done.

Hopefully soon when we post on here we'll be posting a referral. Until then, stay tuned!

Adam