Our Day in Court!

We got it!!!! The court date!!! July 18!!! This is where we will officially be given custody of sweet Baby M in Ethiopia!!! How many exclamation marks can I use to truly indicate the level of excitement!!!!!!!!!?????????!!!!! Thousands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

David and I signed powers of attorney so that staff from our agency can stand in for us in court for this first part of the official process in Addis. If all goes well, he'll be ours by the end of that day. After that, we have to wait for some more bureacuratic rigamarol that will deliver the much anticipated birth certificate. From there we'll get a travel date, which we think will be somewhere in mid September. Fingers, toes, and tongues (yes, its possible) crossed.

Yay. Home for fall, and just in time for his first embarrassing Halloween get up. This little guy's gonna be some sort of insect, ocean argonaut, or cuddly mammal. Depending if he's large enough to fit into the awesome tiger suit sent to us by Miss Gwen from Spokane. If not, David's wearing it, size be damned.


On another off topic note:

Overheard on our street last night by a woman chatting furiously on her screaming pink, bejeweled cell phone:

"I know...he's crazy. I sort of like him. Did you smell his feet? You did? Did they smell like Zach's?

What the...?

Shelby

Baby boy!!!

Hi everyone!

David and I are delighted to announce that we have accepted a referral for a 3 month baby boy! We're beyond thrilled and are charging forward, hopefully quickly, with the rest of the process. We're unable to post a photo or other details on the blog until we get through court. We can say he's beautiful, wonderful, speaks multiple languages, and demonstrates natural inclinations toward modern dance, baseball, and quantum physics. At this point, we're not so sure when we'll get a court date. The courts close for the summer during the first week of August so we're white knuckling it hoping to get through. Depending upon court, we're looking at a 3 to 5 month wait before travel.

More details to come! Thanks to everyone for your support!!

Shelby and David

Got Something

We actually got something! Not a referral but a choice. Every summer, the Ethiopian court system shuts down because of complications that arise from the rainy season. In most years, our agency would stop giving referrals right before this closure so that families are not waiting an extra period of time for their cases to go court and subsequently, to pick up their children. However, because everything is so backed up anyway, and timeframes are increasing overall, CHSFS has decided to give families the decision about whether or not they will receive a referral during the court closure. Because we are spazzy, and an impatient pair, we've decided to go for it and take a referral during the closure.

What does this mean? We don't know, but it appears to be some sort of progress and some sort of chance that we won't be looking for a referral in the fall and winter, but rather during midsummer. Again, anything can happen, but this at least keeps the windows open to a summer possibility.

As luck may have it, I'm off today to India for the next two weeks. What better way to distract myself and stop staring at The List, the walls, and my dogs, by traveling through a country at the hottest time of year. Oh yes, its a balmy 107 degrees in Delhi right now. I'm completing gauzing out with frocks that flow and products that hopefully will keep my thighs from permanently sticking together. I'll try to post updates on sweat levels, strange happenings, and the sensory overload that is India.

Bye!

Got nothing?

I got nothing. No movement in the aforementioned list. I'm spending alot of time staring at things. For your information, things don't move much when you stare at them. Did you know that a burrito bol at Chipotle has something like 30,000 calories? They portray this as the healthy alternative, but it really only cuts your heart attack rate down by a fifth.

I've decided that my eyes are getting more squinty as I get older. Now, many of you would call that wrinkling, but come on, we all know that I've beat that aging thing along time ago. in 01, I was part of a post millenium secret DNA experiment where myself and Nicole Kidman were injected with the post yoga class sweat of Madonna. We're both good to go until 2080!

Waiting for Tragedy

The crazy part of this waiting game is that what we are actually waiting for is some sort of tragedy. Its sad and sometimes downright overwhelming to know that in order for adoption to occur, some level of tragedy must happen, somewhere, to some family. It might fall on the lighter side of the continuum (still relatively bad, I'm sure) to the downright awful. We know that tragedy happens around the world, whether or not we're on this path or not. But it does sober you up, keeps things in perspective, and instills that extra dose of patience.

So as you can see from my photo above, I'm starting to look up and solidier on. I will put my chiffon gown in storage for now, be thankful for what we have, and hope that the tragedy that brings us our child, isn't too too bad, and from which something alright might happen.

The List

There is this thing called "The List." The List is a voluntary spreadsheet that tracks progress for all families at CHSFS in each part of the adoption process. We are currently sitting at #39 on the Waiting for Referral page. In October, we hopped on at #88. The list is lovingly put together and updated by pre and post adoptive parents via our agency. It reflects approximately 40 to 50% of families currently on the hampster wheel. Its a wonderful thing when it moves; it can almost kill you when it doesn't.

I've manipulated this list to death. All you got to do is cut and paste it into a new Excel sheet and you can sort, group, graph, and analyze to your hearts content. I've even made a scatterplot. David believes I have an unhealthy obsession with The List. He is right. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. And, I'm so evil that I've handed this crack pipe over to David's mom, now she's got the monkey on her back! My mom dabbles in it but doesn't appear to be on the road to ruin. Yet.

Right now its a crutch and basically that's all we got.

Frozen

Well, its true. I'm doing a lousy job of updating this blog. But after peering into a computer screen all day, the last thing on my mind is looking at another. Unless I'm checking out Perez Hilton or other celebrity related sites. Sad, I know, but what's a childless woman to do except peer into the shallow lives of the rich and beautiful?

So, we're still waiting for a referral. And it looks like the wait is going to be twice as long as originally envisioned. Appears that Ethiopia has experienced a surge in adoptions. The courts, however, have not experienced a surge in new staff or increased capacity to handle all this new interest. So our 6 to 9 month timeframe (starting October 19) may turn into a 12 month wait, with travel to Ethiopia not happening until 2009.

How have I handled this? Very dramatically. I cry often, wearing long chiffon dressing gowns, falling on my chaise lounge, screeching "why me? why me" while sucking down valium laced martinis. Actually, not that dramatic, but I do stomp my feet, and pout. The dogs are scared that I might start dressing them up soon, if things don't speed up. And we all know how much dogs hate wearing pants.

So for the most part, we feel frozen. The Chicago winter was literally frozen up until today (but the 70 degree temperatures were accompanied by 70 mph winds). The democratic nomination seems frozen (dear god Hilary, read the writing on the wall!). And the adoption seems frozen.

I'll be updating more since I've got to do something to pass the time. Any advice on how other ways to endure the additional six months is most welcome.

Peace out friends.