April Baby

We received a copy of Mihret's birth certificate yesterday and found out that her birthday is April 2nd! Since we do not know her early history, the Ethiopian courts assigned her a birthdate based on best estimates of her size and development. Usually with babies they can get pretty close, so this is most likely a fairly close estimate of her actual birthdate. This means that she will be 7 months old on Friday and about 7 1/2 months old when we meet her in Ethiopia!

Well, that escalated quickly...

So... Today, we found out that our date of November 21 had actually been moved up to November 14.

So, instead of me being freaked out that we had an embassy date in four weeks, I now get to be freaked out that we have an embassy date in three weeks. So I've got that going for me...

Good news- We'll be in St. Louis over the Thanksgiving week (let us know if you can come to visit!). Bad news- Mihret will still miss a sacred moment.

Here's a recent photo, taken by another parent on their visit to Ethiopia:

I'm in ur calendar, changing ur dates...

Oh- and now that it's "official", we're able to make the video that we posted earlier public. Enjoy!

A Reason To Be Thankful

There are lots of things to be thankful for now... We dodged a pretty big bullet at home on Sunday.

But, this evening Carrie received the following email:

From: susaai@olympus.net
Subject: Court Approval
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:39:06 -0700

Hi Carrie,
We had a surprise today at court! Our legal representative said that your case has already been processed! You will be able to travel to Ethiopia for an Embassy Interview on November 21st. This means you will need to arrive in Ethiopia by November 20th and you can depart as soon as the evening of November 23rd.

Please be sure to email me a copy your itinerary and plans for accommodations.

Thanks and Congratulations!

Susan

November 21st. The day before Thanksgiving.

There are a lot of things going through our hearts and minds right now, but none sing more true than this song from another mother:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
Luke 1:46-49 NRSV

Thanks for all of your prayers and kind emails... We'll keep you posted.

Ethiopia, here we come.

Not Yet

We got some disappointing news from our adoption agency today. Our case wasn't heard and has been rescheduled for November 13. It seems there is a backlog of cases that need to be reviewed by the Director of the Children's Commission in Ethiopia before they can be heard by the Ethiopian courts. We would appreciate your prayers for the Director of the Children's Commission, Hadish. He has an important job since he needs to make decisions regarding the futures of so many children and families. We would also appreciate your continued prayers for us, for Mihret, and for the other adoptive families that are in the same boat. Waiting is hard...

It Could Be Worse...

The Bad News
Our adoption case wasn't heard today. I'm not sure what happened, but none of the cases that were scheduled for today were heard.

The Good News
We've been rescheduled for Thursday, October 18! I heard that there is another adoptive family whose case was rescheduled for October 29, so October 18 sounds great to us. Hopefully we will officially be Mihret's parents by the end of the week! We'll keep you posted as we have more information.

More Good News
We also got a health update in the mail today on Mihret. At around 7 months old, she is 16 pounds and 24.75 inches. She is able to sit up with support and has two teeth. The report said that "she feeds well and sleeps a lot," which made her Daddy very happy.

Update from the courts

From an email Carrie sent out this week:

We found out today that our Ethiopian court date is October 16! Sometimes cases don't pass court the first time because of a paperwork issue or something like that, but if a case doesn't pass the first time, they usually pass the second time. We are hoping and praying that we will pass court the first time! Once the court decision is made, then Mihret is officially our daughter! Her birth certificate will be issued after that with our names on it and she will get an Ethiopian passport. We will travel to Ethiopia for her US embassy appt when she'll be given a visa to enter the US. Our adoption agency thinks her embassy appt will be in mid-November, so it looks like we will be traveling to Ethiopia next month! We'll keep you posted as we find out more details.

Baby Movies

Just got an update from Ethiopia- here's a film of our daughter! (and it is our daughter, in spite of the references to "he")

It's good to see that she's getting such great care- we're excited about her joining our family soon. We've been prepping her room and reading everything we can to make sure we're ready to be good parents.

UPDATE: Whoops, we're not allowed to have any videos public yet. Send me an email, and I'll figure out a way you can log in to view it.