Changes

A piece of my heart is in Ethiopia. It always will be. As I mentioned in a previous post, I miss Ethiopia. I want to see more, hear more, learn more, enjoy more. The short week I was there was just not enough. I tried to soak up as much as I could.

Well, we just found out that as of right now the process to bring our son home has changed. It may change again but as of today, the Ethiopian government is requiring adoptive parents to be present at the court hearing. In essence, that means two trips to Ethiopia, one for the court hearing and then one to bring home our son. There aren't a lot of details as to how this will work but we are kind of excited about it.

Why? Well, we would get to meet our Little Man sooner and hug him, love him and just see that he is doing well. Don't get me wrong, it will be so hard to leave that first time without him. I guarantee I will cry and cry a lot. However, with the additional trip we can travel around the country and absorb even more Ethiopia.

Also, because of these two visits, our son would come home on a IR3 visa which would make him a citizen the second he hits US soil. It mean less paperwork and no fee for filing the COC.

I do feel for the families that have recent referrals or are very close to receiving a referral. This news was sprung on the whole adoption community yesterday and for some families that doesn't leave a lot of time to budget for a second trip or find childcare, or get time off of work etc. Since we are years away, we can figure these details out. I pray that all the cards fall in to place for these families caught in the middle and the unknown.

Because of the lengthening timelines, we are also discussing bringing Kiya with us for one of the trips. She could be closer to 5 when this happens and I think it would be great for her to go and see where she was born and to start to experience Ethiopia first hand. We haven't made a final decision and likely won't until it gets closer but the seed has been planted.

I am anticipating that things will likely change again before we even get close to a referral, I am just hoping that this recent change will help Ethiopia stay open to international adoption. There is still a fear that our son will not be from Ethiopia. I try not to think about it too much and am really hoping for the best.

I think about Ethiopia just about every day. Some days more than others. I am itching to go back. We talked about going again before our son but with these new changes we likely will just wait until we travel to see our son and then bring him home. So for now we will just sit back and wait and see what other changes are coming, after all this is international adoption so we at this point expect there will be more changes.