And the saga continues

You had to know that it wouldn't be that easy, right? It wouldn't be as easy as just scheduling a court date, and everything being in order, and us passing just like that, right?

Well, that's exactly the case. We did not pass court. I get a sense this happens all the time. I get a sense that all initial court dates fail, just on principle. Unfortunately for us, our court date has been rescheduled for 2 weeks. February 2nd. I don't know if this is typical, but it's what we were given. So, we now have two more weeks to wait.

I don't do well with anticipation and anxiousness. I slept just under 2 hours last night. I suppose the same will be true of February 1st. Good to know that I stayed up all night for nothing.

We haven't been given much information on why we didn't pass. Something about documents or whatever. Who knows. If, in fact, all initial court dates are failed, then there isn't any reason necessary. I do know a letter from the Ministry of Womens Affairs (MOWA) is required, and these letters are often not written by the time the court convenes (which really makes no sense, but two separate gov't agencies communicating effectively will never happen), so it's possible this is what the holdup was.

2 more weeks. In geologic time, it's nothing. To us, it'll be a near eternity!

January 18

Five days. That's all we have left. Five days.

Our court date is set for January 18, and we're coming down the home stretch. It seems unreal, almost, like we're just waiting for some bad news to come down the pike; to have the rug pulled out from underneath us just one more time.

We've been freaking out a little, too, as we're getting close to the one year anniversary for some of our documents (most of which are only good for a year), and we're convinced they'll find something wrong at the court date (or the mother won't show...but don't get us started on that) and we'll have to start all over with the paperwork. So, we're trying to stay calm and positive.

Five days. We can do five days. It's been eight months since we were matched with Little Miss Chloe. Five days is nothing.

We just have to remember to exhale every now and again.

The last two pictures

Well, we've caught ourselves up to the present time. There are only two more pictures left, from November's update (though the pictures were taken the first week of December). We have yet to received the December update on Chloe, so the two pictures below are the most recent. This is how she looked a little over a month ago.

As you can see, she looks quite a bit older. I'm not gonna lie, it was tough to see. She's a toddler already!

Enjoy.

Happy New Year

Is 2010 the year? It's looking as if it will be, though we did say 2009 would be the year just this time last year. :)

Happy New Year to everyone out there. Please be safe and imbibe responsibly.

For your new year viewing pleasure, three pictures from October:

Video

Well, here it is, the long-awaited 1 minute video of Chloe. Notice the adorable dimple. I know I keep mentioning it, but my god man it's so cute.

Watch for the laugh at the end.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Isn't she something?

Don't you just wanna hold her and squeeze her and love her? We can't wait for February to get here!

Thanks to Matt Larsen for taking this video. :)

More pictures soon.

Court Date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Merry, Merry Christmas everyone! We finally have our court date. January 18th. If all goes well in court, we will be heading to Africa to pick up Chloe the last weekend of February. This is better than any Christmas present that we could have possibly wished for and its less than 3 weeks away.

Justin was napping when I found out the amazing news so I ran upstairs and exclaimed, "We have a court date, January 18th"! Athough he was very happy, the adrenaline rush from being jerked awake left him a little perturbed.

We had a wonderful holiday. We opened gifts and had a delicious dinner, that Justin prepared of course. It was a beautiful day aside from the exciting news. We were very fortunate to have a day like today be the last time we celebrated the holiday with just the two of us.

We love you all and coudn't have gotten this far without your support. The end is in sight and hopeully there will be no more speed bumps on the way.

new measurables and pictures

We got another update on Chloe. These are probably more likely the correct numbers on her height and weight. As of December 7:

Height: 24 inches

Weight: 15 pounds

It's encouraging to see that she's still a little girl. The longer this thing gets dragged out, the more it feels like we'll be adopting a teenager. There were two photos attached to this update, but they're embedded in a .pdf this time and I have no idea how to extract them, or if it's even possible to.

No news on the court date, yet. Hopefully, this week.

Until then, more pictures. From September:

Check out that dimple!

Next week, a short video.

Crib Mate Passes Court

We got exciting news today regarding one of Chloe's crib mates and want to pass this news along to all of our blog followers. We have had the good fortune to meet, get to know and rely upon the adoptive families of Chloe's crib mates through the past difficult months. One of those families, Jenny and Mario, has just recieved the wonderful news that their child has passed court. This means that in Ehiopia's eyes, this child is now theirs. They should be traveling to pick up their daughter by mid January. This also gives us hope for Chloe to pass court as well. Each child's background is unique and it is difficult to say with certainty that if one child passes they all will. But, it does make that light at the end of the tunnel just a little brighter.

Things are moving!

And congratulations Jenny and Mario! We're so happy for you.

Another milestone reached

Well, today we finally (finally!) received the CPR (Child Profile Report) that we were waiting for. We signed it, had it notarized, and will send it off tomorrow morning. This will set into motion our receiving a court date for early next year. The sooner they ask for (and obtain) the court date, the sooner we fly out. Look as if best-case scenario is for a late February fly out. We hope so.

We learned of the particulars of Chloe's case, which we'll keep private but were interesting nonetheless, and which we were hoping we'd find out about.

We also got the latest vitals (as of October 14):

She is 67 cm long (~26 inches).

She is 6.3 kg (~14 lbs).

She rolls over, elevates her chest when prone, and babbles. All good signs.

Everything in her blood work was normal.

So, good news. Everything seems to be taking longer than normal for us. Oh well. It'll make the acquisition of her that much sweeter.

More pictures later this week.

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.

news soon

It's been a while, we know.

We said we had a week before we had to make a decision. Things have changed. They always do in these things. We will hopefully have some news very soon. We are waiting on a few formalities to be cleared up.

Soon. We promise.

What's going on, you ask?

Well, a whole lot of nothing good...and a whole lot of potentially bad.

Without going into too many specifics--because we're really not in the mood to get specific here--there might be a big decision we will have to make next week. This decision is in regards to whether we continue along the track we are on (with the beautiful little girl we've been "matched" with) or switch tracks and accept another match. This is not a decision that will be made lightly, as one will require the abandonment of a baby that has already been abandoned (and who can do that, really?) and the other will require resolve and the potential for waiting many months for things to clear up, if they ever do (and if they end up not resolving, that would put us right back here except a bunch of months having been wasted).

The reasons this decision has to be made are many, and it's not the proper time to discuss this, though it will be discussed (believe you me). Let's just say we have found ourselves in the morass that is international adoption. It's a common story.

But, who suffers most in this chess match played by the adults? The babies; the beautiful little girls and boys in orphanages around the world suffer, and are neglected, and die without love because adults feel the need to use them as pawns in their political and nationalistic machinations and power struggles. It's a lose-lose situation, except for those who receive the considerable monies that change hands; for them it's pure W-I-N!

This is where we are at. The same place we've been since May, when we were first matched with that beautiful one-month old. She's 5 and a half months old now, and there's no end in sight. We are in adoption purgatory and there isn't even the courtesy of a few magazines to read while we wait.........................

Christmas looms

For the first time in our lives we are not looking forward to the holidays.

Will our little girl ever come home?

Inoculated for Yellow fever, Polio, Hep A, Hep B and Typhus.......$800.00



Finding out that you don't have a criminal background with the FBI......$120.00



Having a social worker come into your home and ask invasive questions about your marriage....$1500.00



Having your adoption agency get off of their ass and find out where the hell our police clearance papers are, which would lead to a letter from the Ministry of Women's Affairs which would lead to a court date which would lead to bringing our baby girl home.......Apparently there's no bribe big enough!

It's so painful

We finally received the photo that belonged with July's update (which we spoke about in the last post), and it's the best photo of Chloe we've received. In all the other photos we have of her she looks scared or angry (as you'll see when we post them...which will be soon, hopefully), but in this new one she's happy and smiling (with her tongue sticking out) and it turns out she has the most adorable little dimple in her left cheek. It's good to see her happy.

But, it's so painful to see these, knowing it's at least 2 months before we can be there to pick her up (and likely 3). It's harder and harder each day. It feels as if the day we travel out there keep retreating a day with each day's passing; like we're standing still. One step forward, one step back.

July Update

It's August, already, moron.

I know, I know; but we never received the July update from our agency. We got it today, finally, and as of July 24, our beautiful, little Chloe was 3 months and 22 days old; she was 57cm long (approx. 22 inches) and 6kg (just over 13 pounds). Her head circumference was 35cm, too, (approx. 14 inches) though I have no idea if this is normal or not. She appears to be normal.

One thing I find worth mentioning is that I was nearly the same size she is now when I was born. Granted, I was a humongous baby.

On the update, we read that she sleeps through the night without waking up unless she wants a bottle or has "diaper discomfort". :) She also naps after every meal, so she's already starting to resemble her future father!

"She drinks milk whenever she wants to drink" was written under EATING HABITS, but I'm not sure what this means, really. I take it as being good. Nothing has changed medically, and she's not on any medications. Both good.

All social, movement, vision and hearing milestones she should've had were met. Of course, this is both good and bad news for us. Good, in that she appears to be healthy and is growing as she should; bad, in that we have missed yet more milestones.

I suppose as long as we don't receive an update that says she's learning how to drive, or has taken the SAT, right?

Formula

We, as almost-parents, are expected to send formula over to our near-daughter. We're happy to do it, of course, but the only way we can actually manage it is to ask someone traveling to Ethiopia to pick up their child(ren) to bring some formula with them, from us, for our quasi-kid.

Julee was given a list of emails of folks traveling over later this month, and the first person she emailed just so happens to live 20 minutes away. Small world. Turns out at least two other couples from Utah are going through the same adoption agency.

We've asked this couple to also take some pictures of our psuedo-baby if they would be so kind. They said they would be happy to. :)

Though we've not looked at the pictures much lately (you know, trying to not get too attached to her just yet in case something unmentionable should happen and we weren't able to....you know...), we still like seeing new pictures of her. Soon, hopefully soon, we'll get this blasted police clearance and we'll be able to officially accept her in court...then, we will post these lovely pictures of our beautiful soon-girl.

still with the waiting

So what is it exactly that we are waiting for? Why haven't the pictures of this beautiful baby been posted on this blog?

Well, we're waiting for official release papers from the police in Addis Ababa. This release will allow us to officially accept baby Chloe in Family Court in Ethiopia and begin the process to adopt her; however, we still not received this release. It's been since the first week of May, when baby Chloe was 1 month old, and still nothing. To say we are perturbed is mild. But, there's really little we can do but keep calling our adoption agency, and hope they keep calling their liaison, whereupon she will put the screws to her people, etc.

On a positive note, our soon-to-be daughter has three cribmates, the parents of whom we've recently been in contact with. These three families seem very kind and are interested in keeping in contact throughout our children's lives. So, I suppose some kind of cribmate reunion (or several) will be in our future. I think this is a great idea and will help all four cribmates keep in touch with a part of their pasts.

Hopefully, pictures soon. Once we get those papers, she's as good as ours and the pictures will be posted. We can't wait to show her to you!

dead arms

We got our immunizations today for our travel to Ethiopia. We won't be traveling for months yet (likely November or December) but these need to be obtained ahead of time. So, we're both sitting here with dead arms, especially the right one. We can't lift our right arm above the shoulder, and typing this is harder than I thought it would be.

When we were at the doctor's office getting the shots, and finding out about the risks of each vaccination (especially Yellow Fever, which can cause Yellow Fever in a very small percentage of those who get the vaccination...which means, death, of course), we invariably had to update our doctor on the status of the adoption, going over all the information we have (the investigation, the ban, the lifting of the ban, the waiting on the police release (to come in another post soon), the waiting, the waiting, even more waiting yet). Driving back to work, I thought more about the future and having Chloe and what it will be like (or what I hope it will be like), and the strangest pang above my stomach and below my lungs came to me. It's an eagerness; a yearning; a pining, even. We both want her here so bad; to hold her and have her fall asleep in our arms; to listen to her sleeping (we have been told she's a snorer); to get the rest of our lives as a family started.

But, now, instead, we have the pain of the vaccinations (5 in total for each of us: Hep A and B, Typhoid Fever, Yellow Fever, and Polio...my god, Polio!!!). We take this pain knowing each throb is necessary, and brings us one step closer to having this thing come to an end.

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...