What's Next?

Well - it has been a bit over a week since we received the great news of Nejbya - some have asked how we will survive this wait. Surprisingly, with the whole house issue it has been flying by so far... :)

We officially listed our house for sale last week, hoping to get some action here this week - it would be great if we could close and move before having to travel - we'll see.

We expect to hear that Nejbya is through the courts sometime around the 4th of July and thus traveling in early to mid-August.  The good news is that with the lake beckoning, we are hoping this time will go very quickly...

Local Ethiopian Gathering

Yesterday we have a great opportunity to meet three local Fargo families. Two of the families have adopted from Ethiopia before. In fact the one is currently waiting for their third son, again from Ethiopia. The other family was a woman who grew up in Addis, Ethiopia and married a local man. All in all we were able to spend almost four hours with six of the cutest little boys and great families. As a bonus we were able to get some great insight to what to expect on our travels to pick up our beautiful daughter.

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