The Wall Bloggers

Last night, on our agency's online forum, we heard that another family -- who received their referral a month later than we did -- received a court date. While reading this left me a little disappointed, I could not even wallow in it.  In the bottom of my heart, God had already granted me a blessed peace (as only He can). This morning, I left my email box open, only to hear the wonderful mail chime a few minutes later.  When I went to check, there it was... the message I have been waiting for since January 25. We have a court date!!!!!!!!!  The funny thing is, we don't know when it is yet!  Usually, a family is told when their court date is, but our Ethiopian representative said he had not received that part of the information yet.  I'm okay with that for now.  I know it's coming (probably some time in the next week to week and a half). Another part that I need to explain is what I was not able to share in a previous post.  We got word a couple...

Last Saturday, Adrianna had the joy of being a flower girl in our friend Emily's wedding.  She and Abby (the other flower girl/ring bearer) have gone to church together since birth, but because they are one year different in age, they have not gotten to know each other in Sunday school.  By the end of the weekend, they were great friends!   The funniest part of the flower girl process was that when Adrianna practiced dropping flower petals before the ceremony, we always had her go back to pick them up.  When Adrianna and Abby performed the real ceremony, they got to the front of the church, and started picking up the petals!

  This snow storm was two weeks ago.  Adrianna made a snow leopard.  The snow was all melted by the afternoon!

Last weekend, Adrianna's gymnastics company had a gymnastics show.  The owners offered to let people with non-profit organizations set up in the lobby the night of the show.  I asked the owners if our adoption coffee fundraiser would count towards that effect, and they said sure! And so, while Adrianna had a blast showing off her latest gymnastics skills (happily paired up with her good friends Seth and Ella), Scott and I set up a coffee booth.  We sold travel mugs, bags of coffee, and cups of coffee (from our Just Love Coffee site).  Our friend Liz even came to help us manage the booth.  And Scott's parents helped with logistics and care for Adrianna after her show.  In all, we sold half of our bags of coffee and accepted donations for the 32 cups of coffee sold.  We broke even, but now have extra bags and mugs that will be profitable when sold. By the event, we were overwhelmed with the generosity of the people who donated money simply for a cup...

This week, Scott and I have faced the realization that we do not have a date to hope for anymore.  With Ethiopia's policy changes, our timeframe is likely delayed.  Not having May to count on as our light at the end of a very long tunnel has been disheartening, to say the least.  My longing for our little boy permeates every thought every day.  It makes concentrating on anything else difficult.  I thought I was alone in feeling this way, but when I explained it to Scott yesterday, he said he has been feeling the same.  What comfort there is in feeling understood. When I went to prayer this morning, I poured out my longing once again to God.  I heard Adrianna waking up, and knew my time was growing short.  But I knew an urgency to read and pray to God with the Psalms.  My bookmark was at Psalm 10, and by the end, I was balling... "The Lord is King forever and ever; The nations have perished out of His hand. Lord, You have heard the desire...

It has been a rough few days.  Hearing that Ethiopia changed it's court date policy last week (see entry below) left us with so many questions. Will this change delay our bringing home our precious boy?  Likely.   Will we get our court date this week and need to fly there next week?  Possibly.  I hope and pray so.   Or will we need to wait for several more weeks before we even hear about a court date?  Maybe. By Thursday night of last week, my head was swirling with doubts and fears.  My biggest fear kept calling from the farthest corners of my doubt:  What if something happens and we are not allowed to bring our son home?? That one fear wouldn't leave me alone.  It followed me into all of my other activities.  What if you can't bring your son home?  What if you can't bring your son home?? By Thursday night, I just wanted to go to sleep to make the worry stop -- at least for a few hours.  But I knew better....

In the spring time, we love to go to our nearby canyon and check for "water falls" that come from the snow melt.  Here are shots from the last several years... (Blogger is giving me one hard time trying to work with their new photo format... So, I'll just add up here that the pictures are of Adrianna at age 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 3 1/2, and 4 1/2.)                                                  And a bonus picture of Adrianna's very own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree.

If you saw the previous post, you know that we have been waiting and praying for a court date.  A court date allows our son to be legally declared ours and then begins our process of going to pick him up. That was the process until today.  As of today, Ethiopia has changed the adoption method.  As a way to further safeguard their children, Ethiopia now requires all families to come to Ethiopia for their child's court date.  The family must then leave their child, wait approximately 4-8 weeks (while the paperwork and visa dates are put in place), and return to bring their child home. In so many ways, this new process is harder than what we anticipated.  Looking past the added airline and travel expenses, I cannot look past the potential heartache.  How do I hold and hug and cuddle my precious waiting son and then say "Goodbye, I am not allowed to take you home yet"? I cry even thinking about it.  My longing to bring him home has only grown with ea...

Well... If you are wondering about when our court date is, so are we!  It's been 5 1/2 weeks since we received our referral.  Usually court dates are 5-6 weeks after referral.  And so we wait again. At Community Bible Study this morning, I was asked to share our adoption waiting journey with the ladies there.  In preparation for that, I went back to this blog, and found the examples God has given of His faithfulness to us during this process.  (I will add a link above, called Adoption Testimony, if you are interested in seeing what I shared.) Because I have seen His faithfulness, I trust that we will receive our court date in His timing.  He has been the One in control of all these necessities from the beginning.

First, thank you all for your feedback on the "parenting series" I have been recording.  It has been fun hearing other parents' challenges during the course of our parenting changes. I wanted to record tonight's episode with Adrianna, so that I am sure not to forget it.  I suppose it started at 5:05 this morning.  Adrianna called out, "Mom, Dad, my water bottle is empty."  Scott went in to check on her, and said her space heater was turned up too high, and her room was very warm.  He was fairly certain that was the reason for her early waking.  The poor girl could not get back to sleep after that, but talked and read books until 7:00, when I went in to get her. I expected that our babysitting morning together at CBS was going to be rocky because of Adrianna's lack of sleep.  To my surprised joy, she behaved wonderfully there.  Later, I expressed to Scott my wondering.  Is she behaving better in group settings (CBS, play group, etc.) becau...