Catching Up!

OK, so the other day I was talking with my darling Sister Roo and she mentioned that my blog still mentioned that the quilt raffle, which ended June 25th, was still going on for a few days only!  I had posted the winners on my facebook page, but it hit me that many of the people who donated towards the raffle could not see said page!  So... drum roll please!

The winner was Sue Supulver!  And the runner up, who received a beautifully hand-painted sign by my talented step mom, was Handmade Quilt Shop!

Mike and I are so very thankful for the outpouring of love and support by so many people, many of whom we have never even met!

So, now that we cleared that mystery up, here is our adoption update!

Right now, we have been officially waiting for 24 months and 18 days (but who is really counting?).  I had a nice little chat with our adoption caseworker who informed me that we were in the list of top ten families waiting for a referral, and we could be getting a referral soon!!!  Yeah yeah yeah!!  We cannot wait, and are trying to not get our hopes up (but who are we kidding, they are way up there).

Anyway, I have had so many people ask me what happens after our referral, so I am going to try and explain it (it is really confusing, trust me).

After our referral, our case will be submitted to US embassy; however, this is very different than the way Ethiopian adoptions have happened in the past.  They JUST implemented a new change to the process and we will be some of the first referrals to navigate these changes.  My caseworker did inform me that we will NOT be the VERY first families (or guinea pigs as she put it, yes.. she said  guinea pigs!) so, thank goodness for that!

After submission to US Embassy they will review our file, do any investigations into our case that they deem necessary and then pass our file to MOWA (Ministry of Womens Affairs) in Ethiopia.  MOWA will then schedule a Guardian Court Date.  The Guardian Court Date (GCD) is where the birth parents, guardians, or individuals who found the child (if it is an abandonment case) will go to court to relinquish rights.  After the GCD they will schedule an Adoptive Parent Court Date, and we will then travel to Ethiopia for our first time to meet our little guy and to attend court.  On this trip, we will actually legally adopt our baby in Ethiopia; however, we will have to travel back to the US (without him) and wait for US embassy to approve us to bring him back so he can be a legal citizen of the US and a legal Fleener!  During this time Ethiopia will be changing birth certificates, obtaining passports, etc for our little one.  After all of that is done, we get to travel once again and go get our son!!

Clear as mud right?  So all in all, from referral we are looking at another potential 6 months before we get to bring our baby home!

I just want to thank everyone once again for their continued prayers, support, encouragement, and generosity!   I hope to have good news sometime in the near future!