Wednesday, March 2, 2011

not yet but soon


we don't have our travel dates just yet, but we're inching closer and closer to them by the minute. unfortunately, the embassy is closed today for a holiday - the victory of adwa {when ethiopia defeated the italians in 1896 from trying to colonize them} - so we hope to hear something tomorrow or friday. is it just me, or does it seem like the embassy closes for a lot of holidays? maybe i should rethink my line of work...

however, we did hear today that we did not receive an embassy appointment for next week as we had originally hoped. it looks like the embassy is totally booked up for next week already, and so are most of the flights. instead, our agency has requested our appointment on march 14, 15, or 16. if we get any of those dates, then we will be leaving around saturday, the 12th, so that's not too far away! not to mention, that is absolutely the latest my doctor will give me clearance to travel. i guess we like doing things down to the wire, yikes! i am really at peace with this and hoping that the extra few days of lead time will reduce our plane ticket costs so we don't totally break the bank. plus, we know our little man is in good hands!!

our friends and previous travel buddies, lewis and margaret, are in ethiopia right now picking up their twin boys. they had an embassy appointment yesterday and passed with flying colors so we're totally stoked for them. since they've been in ethiopia, they've been keeping us updated on little greer nathanel via f@cebook since they are staying at our agency's transition home. we love hearing about his progress and seeing pictures of him, especially these latest ones:



it looks like we're not the only ones not handling all this waiting very well :) according to lewis and margaret, our little guy is not the friendliest towards new friends. we're hoping this is a good sign of a strong attachment with his nannies, and not a sign of many tearful months to come! when i saw these pictures, i told ryan that we better enjoy our last week and a half or so of peace because things are about to get a little loud around our house. ha!

we've also heard that our little guy has begun walking. he was furniture cruising quite a bit when we were there in december so i figured he'd probably be taking off by now. apparently, he's still pretty unstable if he's not holding on to something but it's probably because he's so little! i know he's almost 16 months old, but picturing him walking already is funny to me. i guess we'll see how good his skills are when we get there...

tears or no tears, we cannot wait to get to our boy again. i cannot even begin to express how happy i am that the end is in sight!! it's hard to believe, but we attended our very first informational meeting for our adoption agency, arise for children, exactly one year ago today, and now we're preparing to book flights to bring him home at last. what a gift! if you are looking into adoption, i would strongly recommend checking out our agency :) this process is never easy but we are so appreciative of the hard work our agency has put in to make our son's homecoming a reality. they have prayed for us and with us, encouraged us not to give up, and introduced us to a great network of other adoptive families, and for this we will forever be grateful!

i'll keep you updated tomorrow as we hopefully hear our exact travel dates. oh, and if you think of it, please be praying for all the logistics - flights, hotel in d.c., ryan's work schedule, me traveling while 7 months pregnant, etc to work out perfectly for this second trip.

ps - if you're still also in the waiting process of adoption, read this great post from jamie ivey. it's such an encouragement to know that others get it. loving kids from afar stinks, but it helps to know that there is eventually an end and that others can relate. seriously, praise the Lord for the blog community!

1 comments:

Jana said...

Thanks for sharing that post. It explains exactly what we all feel while we wait! Praying for an appt. on the 14th for you :)