Well - We have great News!!!

On Thursday morning we received the most amazing news - we are parents of a beautiful, 3 month old daughter currently named Nejbya. She has the most amazing brown eyes and is very healthy. You cannot imagine how happy Theresa and I are - we were in love from the first moment we looked into her eyes - we cannot wait until we get to meet and snuggle her.

 

We want to thank all of you for your support up to his point. We are now on to the next phase of our waiting - this time to travel to Ethiopia to pick up our lil' girl. We expect this to occur in the August timeframe. It takes about 6-8 weeks to go through the legal process and once that is complete it takes about 4 weeks to travel. We will have plenty of notice so hopefully we can get some decent airline flights.

 

So to pass the time, we put our house up for sale tonight  - we have actually been dealing on a house for over a month and on Friday afternoon the sellers finally agreed to our price. (Interesting side note - as I was faxing the acceptance documents for Nejbya I received the call regarding the house - if you believe in signs this was more than coincidence.) It isn't a done deal yet as we have to sell our home first - which isn't going to be easy in the current market. Wish us luck.

 

Thanks again for your support and we will be sure to keep you updated on this continued amazing journey.

David and Theresa

The Wait...

Ugh. there I said it.

 

We are getting really tired of the wait - it isn't so much the time, as it is the expectation that the call can truly come at any time. How are you supposed to concentrate on anything else...

 

I personally was hoping for this week but it has been another slow week of referrals - I guess there is still a chance, but it doesn't appear likely that this will be the week.

 

Four more weeks until the courts close - still confident that we will be beat that date - but it does add another layer of nerves in this waiting game.

 

Have a great weekend.

David

Disclosing private details about our child

Hello, we wanted to send this out in advance of receiving our referral as we expect we may not be thinking as clearly then. We may not disclose as much information about our child's background upon receiving this information. This information is that of our child's and we want to honor them by letting him/her decide how it will be told. Below is a statement from our agency, which I think does a good job explaining this.

 

Our agency recommends that we not share any information about our child's background or history. Here’s their reasoning: 'As adoptive parents, you are the custodians of your child’s history. Your child has the right to hear his story from you, when you decide the time is right. It is up to you to protect and guard this information until such a time as your child is able to absorb it, understand it and decide what to do with it. At some point, your child may choose to share details of his birth family, his background and the circumstances surrounding his adoption plan. That information is for him to share. Until that time, we ask that you guard and protect this information.'

As much as we’d love to share everything we know, we’re going with the advice of the experts on this one and respecting his/her privacy by not going into any details about their history."

 

Saying that... I am so anxious and tired of this wait - please pray for a referral soon!!!

May 7 Update

Hello everyone,

 

We start another week of waiting... We are officially in our 'waiting period' so the call could conceibeably come at any moment. I talked to our social worker last week at CHSFS and she feels very confident that we will make it through before the courts close this summer, meaning we will get our referral prior to June 15th. We are cautiously optimisitc that it will come well before then... :)

 

Spring is upon us, meaning mowing lawns, getting the flower beds and gardens ready and thinking about getting the boat and camper ready to go - about a month until we are on the water again! Should be a busy month ahead of us leading into Summer.

 

Well, not much more to report today- we hope to have much more exciting news to come shortly....

 

Best,

David

April 17 Update

Not much new to report, just thought I would drop a quick line to everyone. Hope many of you are enjoying the Spring weather (finally!)

Referral Activities - Top 20 of the list!

Wow – a great week so far for referrals and we are hoping that today will be another day full of referrals.

 

We are now in the Top 20 on the ‘list’ (unofficial list kept by members of message board) and could possibly be Top 15 for an infant (non-siblings) – what does this all mean? Well, we are starting to feel very confident that we will get the call we have been waiting for by the end of May – but in all reality, it could happen at any point now. 

 

Jobs continue to go well for the both of us, I continue to travel at a rate of a week a month – my next trip is to San Francisco and Theresa will be joining me to spend a long weekend taking in the sites in the city by the bay.

 

Hope everyone has a safe Easter.

 

Love ya,

David

April 2nd Update

Not too much new to report. We are still waiting for the next big round of referrals. Not optimistic that we will be in this next round, but are hoping it sets us up for a May referral.

 

We met identified another family in Fargo who just returned from adopting their son from Ethiopia this January. We have communicated via email at this point and hope to get together soon. They have enrolled him into the daycare we are considering and that is how we were able to connect with them. We are very excited about the possibility of our child to have someone to connect with during their early years.

 

We'll be in touch again soon.

 

David