Q&A

How about a little Q&A?

First, since we announced our inexplicably good news last Friday, I've received numerous questions about when we're traveling.

Short answer: We don't really know.
Long answer: Our agency in Ethiopia now has to obtain a birth certificate for Baby B as well as an Ethiopian passport. She then has to undergo a medical exam by a Dr. at the US Embassy. Once she has those documents and medical clearance, our US Embassy Visa appointment can be scheduled. Each agency has appointments every other week, for a maximum of ten children at once. So, twenty children can go home per month. Right now there are a couple of families who are waiting for travel dates along with us, who know they have passed court. There are about 60 more families waiting for their court hearings (after the big lull in referrals from Dec-March, there was a big batch of referrals in late March/early April). This bodes well for us in terms of traveling soon because we are not currently in a bottleneck. The next probable Embassy appointment date for us is June 1st or June 14th. That means we may travel May 26th or June 9th. Soon in any case, if all goes smoothly. We should get our travel dates in the next week or two, we hope.

When can you share her name and sweet face online?
A: I need to check on when we can share her name. Maybe that's now? As for her photo, we have to wait until we're traveling to post her photo. I will be sure that I figure out how to pre-post so you all aren't left hanging when we set off for Ethiopia!

Are you having a garage sale?
Oh gosh, how did you know? We are having a garage sale THIS SATURDAY at our place. I have been so overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends and family who have donated some great stuff. Plane tickets to Ethiopia starting in late May (perfect, huh?) are about $2300 a piece because of the frenzied exodus to South Africa for the World Cup--that's $1000 more than they are right now. Airline demand=higher prices. Setting pride aside, we really need funds for travel. I hope we raise a few hundred with our garage sale, and am open to other suggestions for how to raise funds. Maybe I'll do a World Cup bracket contest where folks can buy into the contest and half will go to the pool and half will go to our travel (stealing that idea from someone!). I may also try to squeeze in making another quilt to raffle off here (though I recently heard that raffling online is illegal? So it may be, make a donation to us and then we'll do a give away to someone who gave!). In any case, come on out to our garage sale this Saturday if you're in the area. We have lots of baby stuff, tons of household items, clothes, loads of books (50 cents each!) and furniture too. Things are priced to SELL (most things are $2 or less) because otherwise we just have to take things to Goodwill.

Are you ready to bring her home?
We are ready! Okay, so lots of things around here aren't ready, but if she came home this very day, we would make it all work. Her room is 1/3 painted, she has a crib and I bought some bottles. Food and sleep=done. It's incredible how long my to-do list is. I'm making lots and lots of food to freeze. Today it's enchiladas in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Also on the menu this week is lasagna, pizza (freezing sauce and dough), and chili. The bigger the batches the better. It feels so good to know that we won't be scrambling to make meals when we come home with B. I also started looking over our packing list, ordered some things we needed from Vitacost, and even made B's first Dr's appointment (assuming we travel May 27th). It felt surreal to be making a Dr's appointment for her...because she'll be here. We're also in the process of working on our boys arrangements with grandparents when we're gone. They're (and we're) so lucky to have the best grandparents and they'll be fine and happy (I keep telling myself that so i don't go crazy!).

I hear a few of you yawning, so time to wrap this up. Again, thanks to all of you who supported our garage sale and who have encouraged us as we've gone through this adoption process. We are so grateful.