5 sleeps

Am I starting to panic?? YES. I feel like I am missing so much that I need to pack or do ahead of time. The weather is finally nice so my husband is out on the land - still to wet to plant but at least he can so some spraying. My mother-in-law has perked up a bit although we do know this is the end stage of her illness. I am confident that she will be fine until we get back. I am very nervous about court. Someone was there yesterday and passed but only 5 out of 30 families passed that day. It will hurt if we don't pass and don't get to see Eyob before we have to go home. Pray for a miracle. Pray for peace of mind. Thanks.

12 SLEEPS

The countdown has started. Actually it started a while ago. I have a few things packed. A whole hockey bag full of girl clothes that were given to us for our adoption. I don't think our little guy would appreciate them. A few things are packed for us. Starting to make a schedule for our kids. They will just rotate through all their friends and cousins' houses. How fun is that.  I can't believe how calm I've been these last couple of weeks when I should be panicking.

A couple of prayer requests:

-my poor hubby is having a horrible planting season. We are so far behind because of rains. He needs to get some stuff done before we go.

-my mother-in-law's health is deteriorating rapidly. It's going to be hard for us to go knowing that she is not well and that we could lose her. It would not be good if we were not here to comfort our kids or Barry's father. They should be celebrating their 50th anniversary this summer. How amazing is that. And I would love for her to meet Eyob.

I had been following a blog of a fellow Imagine parent who is in Ethiopia right now. He has been very detailed in his blogs and I love it because it has given me some good ideas of what to do. Anyway when he went to visit the orphanage where his little daughter is he was able to go into the toddler room and see the kids there. He went on to mention a little boy he played with and that little guy was my Eyob. All of a sudden the pictures on my walls were no longer just pictures. There is actually a little boy out there who loves to play with his train. I knew all along he was real but it has been 4 months since our first and only pictures of him. After a while it all feels surreal. Thank you Sid for playing with my little guy. In just 2 short weeks we'll be able to do that ourselves and I can't wait. Did I mention it's just 12 sleeps?

Tickets

Well, we ordered our tickets this morning. It feels totally unbelievable that a month from now we will be in Ethiopia. Barry decided that no matter what the farm was doing he would be coming with me. He also has the good fortune to work with his amazing brother who will take over everything for a week. We feel so blessed to have this opportunity and at the same time I am nervous as to what will happen at court. It feels like things  change with the wind in Ethiopia and they can change their rules at any point in time. Well I am off to do a million things that I need to do but can't seem to focus on.

June 9th

I got the call. YAY!! Our court date is June 9th. I never did receive a court file # which somehow got lost or skipped or something. So now we have 5 weeks to plan and prepare. I will possibly be going on my own on this trip. Barry is a farmer and June is normally a crazy month for planting. He wants to come but I just don't know if it's possible. AGH!!!!

Oh the joy of Hydro!!

I just decided that I would not be a good Amish housewife. I have always been fascinated by that whole culture. This week we had an amazing wind storm in Southern Ontario. Unfortunately it knocked out power all over the place. And since we live in the boonies we were one of the last ones to have power restored. 3 days without power!!!! And 7 people living in the house needing showers, flushing toilets, needing food etc. You get the idea. Luckily I have amazing in-laws who shared their generator with us (1/2 day for us and 1/2 day for them) and we were able to keep our food frozen and have running water (cold water- no hot water). My point here is not to complain but to say that after this I will be forever grateful that I am not Amish and that I can enjoy the comforts of our modern society. My kids will always remember this and also appreciate these comforts.

In the world of adoption there is no new news for us. Sorry that this is all so boring for you all.

So hard waiting....

I really have no news to share with you. I am back to feeling the way I did pre-referral. Waiting for an e-mail that at least gives us a court #.  I am tired, frustrated, weary and nervous. It's been more than 2 months since our referral. UGH!!! A couple of delays and we are still waiting. First, in January we needed to get our birth and marriage certificates notarized. These then had to be sent off to the government and we would get a new Statutory Declaration (SD). We then received our referral Feb 8th. Our SD did not get back from the gov. until Mar. 4th . That was then sent to Ethiopia and had to be translated first. (I don't think they file for a court date until that was all there). We then had a small glitch in one of our documents (luckily no new SD). That set us back a few weeks. When I talked to Imagine a few weeks ago they had said that they were just then filing our papers for a court date. UGH!!! So now we wait.
I'm not sure how long this will take. There have been some major delays in Ethiopia with them moving to do just 5 adoptions per day. It's rumoured that this could delay each adoption by a year. A whole year in the life of a child in an orphanage is a huge deal. Our little guy has already spent 6 months in an orphange. By the time we bring him home he will be out of the age range that we are approved of by the Ont. gov. ( in Ontario you have to be approved for a child that will be a certain age when you bring them home - not at referral). My biggest concern is the amount of time he will have spent in an orphanage when he could have been in our home with his family.
God has given me so much peace. Unfortunately this week I've started letting my worries choke out the peace. Pray that I can learn to lean on Him again. I hate feeling this way. I hate that this is all consuming. I hate these helpless feelings I have. I hate the wait.

More Patience Needed

No news about a court date yet. Getting a little impatient. E-mailed Imagine and they said I should be getting my court file# within the next 2 weeks and then who knows how long of a wait after that for a court date. Hopefully I will know by the end of April. Court will more than likely not be until July. This would make my farmer hubby breath a little easier (not that he doesn't want to go as soon as possible). The first couple of weeks in July are more manageable on the farm.

We did manage to get away to Florida for a couple of weeks. Here are some pics from that: