Pictures from September

Our friends, Hosho and Gina, have left for home after a wonderful visit for Thanksgiving. Our other friends, Josh and Laura (and their two wonderful sons), who we have known for nearly 10 years, have moved away to Chicago this weekend.

It's melancholy around here. The Christmas lights and tree have been put up to help lighten the mood around here. In that vein, here are some pictures of Chloe from September:

Look at those huge eyes. What a beautiful girl.

More pictures soon. Also, a video.

August photos

We received the November update for Chloe from the adoption agency a few days ago. This one came with only three photos and no medical information (weight, height, milestones met, etc.). Oh well, we'll just have to assume everything is okay. We'll post these new photos (taken on October 30th) in a few weeks.

But first, the two August photos we have:

Next week we'll put up the September photographs. There are 14 from that month. We'll split it into two posts, and we'll also post the video we got from that same time.

Pictures from July, Part Two

I promised more pictures from July, so here are the rest:

We'll post the pictures we received in August soon, plus a very special link to a video of our girl where you can hear her giggle.

Oh, and the little yellow duck toy is the very one we bought for her (and had a post about) earlier in the year. Same with the little toy in the first picture.

Hairy

In July, in the thick of the morass, I decided I needed something to mark the passage of time, like the tick marks in a convict's jail cell or the rings of a tree. We weren't sure at the time what would come of our match with Rodas—would we get to keep her, would we have to move on to another match, would this drag on indefinitely? The only two things we were certain of were that uncertainty was guaranteed, and time would eventually bring about an end to it—whatever that happened to be.

So, I came upon the idea of neither cutting my hair nor shaving. I figured we would then have a visual record of what kind of time had passed. It is now the first week of November and it has been since the first week of July when I last shaved. Four months. My last haircut was probably sometime in late May. I now look like a wild man. (I've actually been told throughout this by various folks that I look like Fidel Castro, Rasputin, Jim Bridger, The Unabomber, Yusuf Islam, and a younger Walt Whitman. Thanks, guys!) The beard hasn't been trimmed (Julee won't let me lest it brings back the bad luck) and my hair has curled up something crazy, but I think it looks okay considering.

The idea was that it would only last until we got her release and then I would shave and get a haircut. Well, we got that, but it turns out I like the beard and so does Julee. And I like the long hair. And, now that we have to sweat out the mother appearing in court, I'm not touching a hair on either to keep the run of luck with us. I have to shave before we fly out because I'm clean shaven in my passport photo (and flying overseas with a crazy beard probably isn't a good idea). I might keep the long hair, though.

In more important news, here are five of the July pictures of Chloe. The first three are the official adoption agency update pictures. The other two were taken by one of the adoption agency's workers on a visit to Ethiopia. You can see Chloe's adorable dimple in some of them.

More July pictures soon.

Funny

It's funny (not haha funny but unfortunate funny) that whenever anyone finds out that we are adopting they often use the words long, arduous, difficult, emotionally-draining, and torturous when they refer to the process itself followed by words like beautiful, selfless, wonderful, and amazing when referring to the act itself. It's both.

And why is it, exactly, that something described as selfless and wonderful needs to be so damn long and arduous? (not to mention expensive...but, we're not supposed to talk about the money aspect of all this, are we? That's off limits.) Is there no better way of doing this? I suppose not.

Anyway, it happened again today. Another person at my work heard through the grapevine (boy do I hate that grapevine, but that's for another day) that we were adopting and said it was a wonderful thing that we're doing, then wished me luck on the long and arduous process.

Thanks.

But, on a happier note, here's another picture of Chloe. From the June update when she was two and a half months old:

Don't you just want to grab her and squeeze her? You can see why getting these updates are bittersweet. It's great to see her, but painful to not be able to hold her. Soon, baby, soon. We're on our way soon.

More pictures later. July was a rich month for pictures. We'll post them in the next update.

A toast on this day

We're sitting here sharing a bottle of wine, toasting to nothing, to everything. It's a good night, cool outside, the leaves not quite yellow not quite brown. It is the best night since we were matched with a little girl back in May because we received word today that that beautiful baby girl has received her release papers. This is the (almost) final major hurdle for us in our quest to bring her home.

So, what was going on? Some of you know, some don't, but here's the deal. Ethiopia is still not releasing abandoned babies for adoption (babies are classified as either abandoned or relinquished, the difference being whether or not a signature officially giving the baby up for adoption exists). Not very many people were in the position we were in, which was having been matched with an abandoned baby shortly before or during the investigation/ban that started back in June--the country is no longer matching abandoned babies with prospective parents. Since we were matched and unable to move forward we were stuck in limbo. The orphanage our little girl is at worked their asses off to find our baby's mother, and succeeded, despite the cultural taboos and odds. Not only did they find her, but they convinced her to sign a paper officially relinquishing her. This happened a few weeks ago. But, we still weren't in the clear. All the paperwork needed to be compiled and sent to the municipal authorities in order for the release to be given. Today, we received that release.

One of the previous posts mentioned a big decision was to be made by us. This decision was, assuming they couldn't find the mother, whether or not we continue on the same path with the same baby, or get a new match and "abandon" this one. It would've been impossible for us to do the latter. It would've been painful having to wait if we chose the former. Luckily, no decision was needed. We were lucky. Even more amazing is the fact that the 3 other babies who are cribmates of our daughter were in the same boat and all 3 mothers were found and signed the relinquishment paper. Amazing.

What next? We need to obtain the actual clearance form (called a CPR form, the irony not being lost on us), which we will sign and send back, where we officially accept her. After that, a court date (hopefully in late December, early January) will be set up for the Ethiopian courts to review all documentation, and when the gavel comes down she is ours for good. We will fly to Ethiopia about a month later to pick her up (hopefully February).
UPDATE: We just heard that one final hurdle remains. The mother of the baby MUST appear before the court to officially relinquish the baby during the above-mentioned court date. Seeing as how this is such a taboo in Ethiopia, this is definitely something to be concerned about. Here's to hoping she's willing to appear.

So, you might be asking yourself, "Who is this little girl you speak of?" Her name is Rodas, which we'll keep as her middle name. She is also a beautiful girl with dimples and a great giggly laugh (we know because we've been lucky to receive video of her from one of her cribmates' mother (thanks Jenny!) and from another person who traveled to pick up their own baby).

We promised pictures. So, without further ado, we present to you our precious Chloe Rodas Barrett:

These are the first pictures we were given of Rodas when we were matched with her, when she was only a month old. We will post more pictures in the future, and we promise to post more often now that we know she is ours and we finally have something to post about.

Thank you to all of you for your support throughout this. It's been trying, but we always knew it could be. Thanks for your patience in our lack of blogging. As you can imagine, we were drained and didn't always feel like talking about it. It was too emotional for us at times. We're happy to finally be on the last lap. Our legs are tired and our arms are tired, and we can see the finish line.