Bummer :(

I broke down and finally emailed my specialist today to see if I could get any insight into when we might start seeing referrals again and here is what she said.

After all the hype about whether families were open to "summer referrals," we didn't get any! Our staff in Ethiopia has advised us that our Care Center really was at maximum capacity, so they needed to wait for more children to be placed before they could bring new children into care. At this point, my best guess is that we might not see new referrals until mid-September...

The families at the top of the list waiting for referrals of infants have been waiting since mid-October, 2007 and are at the 10 month mark of waiting. Given your 1/22/08 dossier date, I would anticipate at least another three months wait for referral. I am definitely hopeful that you will get a referral by the end of the year, but I can't say for sure that it will happen -- it will all depend on the number of children brought into care, their ages, health and background concerns, etc.

To say I am not having a good day is an understatement. I always knew that hitting 9 months could be a reality but I hoped it wouldn't be true and now I have to adjust again to thinking we may be lucky to get a referral by Thanksgiving which would be 10 months for us. AHHHH. I am trying really hard to be patient with all of this and I know everything will work out in the end but this waiting is just so hard....