The beginning of the end

Justin here.

You're probably wondering why this place has been so damn quiet. Good question.

Usually no news is good news, but it can just as likely be bad news. Today we have mostly good news:

The investigation is over. Nothing suspicious was found. The by we have been matched with (who is ridiculously adorable, more on that later) is ours. We are now merely awaiting a court date where we can officially accept her and become her parents in legality.

We have many pictures of her, but are loath just yet to post them. We promise we will release them soon (when we are able to pass the family court and officially accept her). We are hoping (and expecting) this to happen later next month some time. If it doesn't happen by the end of August, we'll have to wait until October, which will put off our trip to Ethiopia to pick her until November at the earliest. {update: we're now hearing that it WILL be October before we can accept her legally, and were given the indefinite date of "by Christmas" for when we'll have our little one home. Things happen fast, and change even faster. That would put her at around seven months old. A few months older than we'd hoped, but still within that critical nine month old window we've heard so much about: apparently, most of the issues of adopting a child (bonding, behavior, etc.) occur in children adopted after nine months old; before that, and it's usually much easier to bond and they have fewer problems.}

So, sorry for the silence. Julee or I will both do our best to update this blog a little more regularly. Things got a little dicey there for a bit, and we were a little scared we might've become a statistic and lost all hope (not to mention the money). But, things are looking up.

On another good note, our beautiful little girl shares a crib with three other beautiful little girls and we've come into contact with one of the families who will adopt one of these cribmates. They live in Italy. We hope to keep in contact with them (and the other families) throughout the years. Maybe a reunion one day. Who knows. It's all so exciting.

We also begin our vaccinations next week. This is the beginning of the end. I have a feeling things will start snowballing where before we know it we'll find ourselves on a plane in the middle of the Atlantic on our way to DC from Paris, with a baby girl in tow, wondering exactly how it is we got where we are.

Until then...