Just an update.

I guess I don't always get into the specifics of the adoption on here...I have never been one to want to just post facts or timelines, I guess I usually am more of a rambling writer :)

But just to point out, we were always going to court in less than two weeks. That has not changed, even with the new (now official) rules in Ethiopia. For those of you interested, here's a little peek into the process.

When you decide to adopt from Ethiopia you fill out one million pieces of paper, you submit financial records, medical records, letters of recommendation, a homestudy, federal background check and fingerprints, state background check and fingerprints, child abuse clearances, pictures, warranty deeds on your house, letters to the Ethiopian government, etc. etc. etc. It's quite a bit and it's called your dossier. When this is translated and registered in Ethiopia, you are placed on a waiting list for a referral.

When you are given a referral you can either accept it or not. It never occurred to us not to accept a referral--before we even saw their little pictures we looked at each other and screamed "YES!" At any rate, when you accept your referral your file goes to two places:
1) Ethiopian court
2) Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA)

You wait for two things:
1) Court date with approval from the judge
2) A letter from the MOWA stating you are approved.

This basically involves two government entitites working in parallel on your case. Normally--hopefully--you go to court, pass, and also receive your MOWA letter at about the same time. Then and only then can your case proceed to the US Embassy for their review and processing.

When we received our court date everything was moving along as originally planned. Then the MOWA announced major changes--that it would only write five letters per day instead of the normal 40-50. And a spokesperson for the US Embassy in Ethiopia stated that persons currently in the pipeline (as in US) might very well go through court but then face a very.long.wait for their MOWA letter.

And just for the record, I applaud any effort by the Ethiopian government and adoption agencies to ensure that every single adoption in Ethiopia is ethical. Of course. I would be sad about additional waiting times but could deal with it if it assured me every single aspect of the adoption was ethical. Of course. I hope (!) those who know me would know at least that much about me. But there is a lot of debate about how well any of the recent changes in Ethiopia have done anything to ensure more ethical adoptions. I don't really know. I do know this: the agency we chose was chosen with careful consideration, with references, after we started with another agency and then switched, and is run by a physician who has dedicated his life to uniting orphans with families. He is a part of every single effort to reform adoptions in Ethiopia. The orphanage from which we are adopting has a very good reputation.

Obviously there is a huge element of trust involved in international adoption--after all, you cannot be there personally to know the circumstances of every adoption, to know how thoroughly everything was done, to know without a shadow of a doubt there are no ethical violations. But you don't just blindly trust, you do your research.

So here we are, getting close to our court date, praying for our MOWA letter, and hopinig to have our case move forward to the U.S. Embassy. But if I found out tomorrow that something was 'wrong' with our case, that our babies were not actually available for adoption, my heart would break but I would only ever want what is the absolute best for them.

Because I love them.