Updates from Day 5

April 11, 2008

5:00 am

 

Hello!

 

I'm sitting here awake, since 4:30 am (it's now 5:00 am), and this seems to be the time my body wakes up these days.  I've been so tired, and every night mean to take a sleeping pill to see if it helps me get through the night, but always forget since I'm so tired when I go to bed.  Ugh.  So much for being well rested when we take the twins full time.

 

As for that, here's the current situation.  If Joe already sent word, my apologies for the duplicate notice, but I crashed VERY quickly upon returning to the guest house late last night… but internet was up at the time and I did do a quick email check.  Anyway, the attorney has the passports, and all that's left is the medical exams for the embassy appointment.  The big problem is that we didn't have our file to the embassy a week before the appointment.  However, they definitely make exceptions, it's just not good that they won't have our file before the DAY OF the appointment.  :-S  So, we ARE going to the embassy with the attorney and the twins on Monday afternoon to plead our case to the consulate, apparently.  I'm actually very hopeful that we'll be successful, but still no guarantees at this point.  If they will go ahead and process our case and give the kids visas, we also learned from 2 Dove families (another agency that Adoption Avenues works alongside at Toukoul) that they got the visas the day after the embassy appointment… not 2 days after!  So… that COULD mean that we'd have the visas by Tuesday, in which case we will DEFINITELY pay the change fees to come home sooner.  I'm not sure what will work out with the United end of the trip, but will be asking Mom to try and get that changed for us if possible.  We know the Ethiopian Air flight on Tuesday currently has space available, so we don't think we'll have a problem getting on the flight.  We may risk having a smaller chance of getting the bassinet, but it'd be worth it in the end to get home.  That's ok though if we get home!  Then we can get the babies to a Doctor and start being a family in a more real feeling situation.

 

So this evening Joe and I began the search for a new place to stay.  Ephrim took us to more guest houses and hotels, none of which we were too successful at.  The first place we tried was the Hilton since we were reconfirming our reservations on Ethiopian Airlines at the office in the Hilton there anyway.  The Hilton is FULLY booked this week, they didn't offer any rooms at all, not even some expensive Presidential Suite or something.  I will say that place was NICE!  Holy cow was it posh.  Either my view of nice has completely changed or the reviews some people have given the Hilton here are too harsh… either way, I nearly cried that we wouldn't be getting to stay there.  The grounds are beautiful, and there are lots of gardens.  We tried the Ghion Hotel, which had a room with twin beds, was old, ratty, and over priced big time.  So, the search continued with no success.  We obviously haven't tried the Sheraton since it's so pricey, but let me just say… what I wouldn't give…!!!  Here at our guest house it sounds like we're sleeping in a paper box set in the middle of a freeway filled with choppers and huge trucks… the taxis going up and down the street all night are so incredibly old and loud.  On top of that, people that work at the guest house are noisy, as are other residents (probably the ones coming in on late flights all night long).  When I awake at 4:30, there's always some loud banging going on against the wall where our bed is… and it's REALLY loud.  Oh, and the dogs… oh the dogs!

 

Ok, enough complaining.  The power is on at least now, but the internet down again.  So much for free internet… seems like we'll have to hit another internet café later today.  If it wasn't for wanting to take the kids into our custody full time, bathe them in WARM water (when the power doesn't work… neither does the hot water heater, and even when the power's on it only occasionally gives us one warm shower), and have a semi quiet place to sleep at night.  Obviously too much to ask, so I'm not sure what we'll do.

 

Our visit to Toukoul yesterday allowed us the opportunity to wander around the grounds a bit and in the afternoon we even got to see where Yodit and Tewodros have been sleeping.  In the morning we asked to see the babies sunning, and when we were taken back, only got to see them all lined up on the ground in a back room.  It was amazing… so many babies laying there, and another group crawling/walking around.  They were all in the same room because the baby house had been cleaned (as I guess it is every Friday) and insecticide sprayed throughout.  Therefore, the babies and ourselves couldn't go into the rest of the "house" until the afternoon.  But, we did get to see Yodit and Tewodros in the bouncy chairs… one like in the referral pictures.  I think they're definitely getting more comfortable with us, and both seem to snuggle in and fall asleep during our visits.  Both are incredibly curious about their surroundings, but Ezra is sleeping more and falling asleep first… undoubtedly due to his illness.  Both seem to start looking us in the eyes more later in the visits, but every time we give them back I do feel it sets us back and we have to really work to get the eye contact again the next visit.  I'm sure with some time at home that will start to be much more consistent.  Oh, back to their cribs… our two are so small they are in VERY little rectangular box type things.  Very odd… I got pictures, but they weren't even the ghetto style old cribs used here.  The did have toys hanging on the sides though.  And SIDS is not something they worry about here… all the babies have big blankets!  We noticed that at Toukoul in Awassa too… lots of blankets around them.

 

We laid out two of the disposable changing pads on the dirty floor of the visiting room yesterday morning and then laid two flannel blankets on top of that.  It gave a clean and slightly softened surface to try tummy time.  Ezra is a champ!  He lifts his head/shoulders and his feet and kicks like crazy!  Olivia is instantly ready to dissolve into tears, so we aren't forcing it just yet.  I do think it looks like Ezra may be crawling first though due to this.  I'm thrilled he is doing so well despite the serious sickies. 

 

………………..

 

I think I'd better try and lay down a bit more.  It's now 5:51 am and I'm hoping to catch another hour of sleep.  Yesterday I was unsuccessful and hand washed all our laundry in the sink and bathtub… so I could really use another hour this morning.  Thanks for all the help and wonderful additions you've gotten for the nursery and changing table, Mom.  It means the world to us both, especially me.  I miss you tons and wish you could all be here on this journey with us, but it's a huge relief to know mom and dad are home, watching our puppies, and resting up for the exhausting time change the 4 of us will be going through soon… we'll be happy to have help!

 

Jesi

 

 

………………..

 

April 11, 2008

8:00 am

 

I did get back to sleep and it's now about 8:00 am here… I slept in a lot compared to any other day!  I also meant to tell you we've tried the carriers and I sure wish we'd gotten a second Lascal M1!  That thing is AWESOME!  So far, I really don't like the Theodore Bean.  It got good reviews, but it hurts to wear… the straps dig into my sides, and when you sit down you have a bit hard thing poking you in the back… not workable for using it on the plane.  They are getting used to the carriers though, I stared with the Lascal and Olivia, and when she starts to cry usually bouncing up and down settles her back down.  Yesterday afternoon we had Olivia in the M1 with Joe and Ezra in the Theodore Bean with me.  They both conked out and slept a large part of our visit.  Oh, and when Joe first had Ezra in the afternoon, he spit up A LOT and it also came out his nose!  Talk about freak me out… I've never seen that before and I thought something was wrong.  The two other families visiting assured us it was normal.  J

 

They are also starting to figure out the pacifiers.  They seem to like sucking on them, but have a hard time holding them in their mouths, so we have to hold them in place for the most part.  We've only tried one of the styles we brought, and may experiment more with others later.

 

Time to get ready for the day!  Just another day in Ethiopia… breakfast of scrambled eggs, a drive to Toukoul, a morning visit, lunch, afternoon visit, dinner, crash!  If I can get online to find the email we may also go visit AHOPE today… the orphanage where HIV+ children are kept.  I need the directions though and need to get online! 

 

More to come…

 

Jesi

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Pictures...

Here are a few pictures!  We're at a very stuffy & hot internet cafe trying to send these out, so I hope you enjoy!  We should learn about our embassy date this afternoon... we have everything we need, I guess it's just a matter of whether the US Embassy will see us on Monday since they haven't had our file on hand for a week... cross those fingers and toes!

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Day 4 Updates!

It was an INCREDIBLE day.  We are the proud parents to the two cutest babies in the entire world.  Sorry, we're probably biased, but I think it's true!  ;-)  They are beyond amazing and we are so in love. 

 

First, our Tewodros:

Seeing our precious Ezra Tewodros in person has us VERY glad we came when we did.  He has such bad congestion/wheezing/rattly chest, and it's downright scary to hear him.  Even my hubby, Mr. Non-worrier, is freaked out and wanting to take him to a hospital.  I know he's getting good care, but he is so sick.  He sleeps a LOT, even compared to Olivia Yodit, and I know much of that is due to feeling so awful.  I'm glad at least we're here to clean his nose out and try and make breathing a bit easier for him!  Oh, and his ears were in desperate need of attention, so we cleaned them up too!  Let me tell you, that boy had some serious earwax!!!  Besides all that though, he is an absolute doll.  He is so smiley (despite feeling sick!), and does this great open mouth laugh & giggle!  I've found the magic tickle spot on his tummy, and can almost guarantee a great smile with a few tricks I've learned.  Oh yeah, momma's boy.  Oh, and this afternoon towards the end of our visit he was getting fussy and just not happy with anything we did.  Not REALLY upset… just fussy.  That was, until I held him up against my chest and rested my cheek on his head.  He almost instantly sunk into me and fell asleep nestled into my shoulder.  It hurts though… feeling his struggle to breathe through his chest and into mine… this poor guy is such a trooper!

 

And now, the lovely Yodit:

She is even more beautiful than I could have imagined.  I mean… this girl is incredible.  She'll melt your heart.  She makes you work a bit harder for a smile, but it's worth it when it comes!  Both her and her brother are pretty active and do a LOT of looking around… so super curious about everything.  She's pretty happy to be held and look around, and fell quickly to sleep on Joe's shoulder this morning.  Actually… they both fell asleep on Joe during our morning visit… he seems to have the magic "sleep" touch.  Let's hope he keeps that talent once we're home!  Yodit has beautiful, soft hair, and great lashes.  Her hands are teeny tiny… much smaller that Ezra's.  Oh, FYI – Ezra isn't COMPLETELY bald like he looks in all his pictures we had from before.  He does have some cute fuzz!  Olivia is congested and has a stuffy nose too, just not as worrisome as Tewodros.  I know they'll both benefit from some clean air (there's sooo much smoke and fumes here!) and getting out of an environment where the sickie bugs are undoubtedly passed back and forth. 

 

Anyhoo… that's it in a nutshell.  We had some yummy pizza for lunch at Green View, and Joe and I walked a ways down the street tonight for dinner at the Zebra Grill.  I had some super yummy chicken kabob, and Joe enjoyed a tasty cheeseburger!  I'm sure I'm forgetting LOADS of things I want to say… but the internet is finally up and I need to send this and get some emails sent out!

More to come… (as the internet connections allows!)

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Day 2/3 brief updates

Well, there's nothing like making it back to your "Guest House, sweet Guest House" and finding that after a couple of days out of touch, the internet is down.  Oi.  It was such a brutal trip to Awassa and back… I was sick on the way there, Joe was sick on the way back.  Today, most all of the day was spent in the car, coming and going from Awassa, the area our children are from, and Addis Ababa.  Just the drive from Awassa to Addis was about 6.5 hours.  It would be so much faster if there weren't constant streams of cows, donkeys, goats, sheep, and people crossing the road in front of you and causing the car to have to slow or stop.  For the most part, this game of "dodge the life forms" was rather successful, but there were a few tragic sites along the way to remind you how real this game of dodge was. 

 

We had a whirlwind visit to Awassa, but it was still a great thing that we went.  We got some really key information about our little babes' story, and for that all the sickness, road dust, sweat, and fatigue was more than worth it.  Things we saw and learned have opened our eyes even wider to what our little ones have already experienced at such a young age.  I can't even imagine the drive itself for ones so small and precious, let alone all the other details of their incredible journey.

 

While in Awassa, we stayed at the Tadesse Enjory Hotel.  It was pretty nice… in many ways much nicer than our guest house, but incredibly tight.  There was barely enough room to shuffle around the bed and to the bathroom, let alone lay out a suitcase to get your stuff out.  Ahhh, the things we take for granted.  At least for Joe's puke sessions he enjoyed a nice, new toilet… nothing like the fun I had here at the Addis Guest House and its lovely toilet.  J

 

In the morning, we're hoping Joe and myself will BOTH be "healthy" or at least close to it, and if so we'll be heading to Toukoul for a "real" first meeting with our angels.  The first was so incredibly brief it barely counts for anything.  It was enough to know we can't wait to get more!  We keep seeing pictures of them, including new pictures while at the Awassa branch of Toukoul… we're reading to see them in real life and learn their features in 3D!

 

………..

 

Ok, I'm now showered and feeling much better.  What a clean feeling does for the soul, I tell you.  I'm utterly exhausted though, and the internet is still down, so I guess this update will have to go out tomorrow.  Now back to crossing my fingers I'll get through my first full night's sleep since arrival… I'm determined to be better rested before Olivia Yodit & Ezra Tewodros are in our care full time!  Also… I'm REALLY hoping we get word from the attorney tomorrow that we have good news on our embassy date… we're just waiting for their new passports, so they could come through tomorrow!  PLEASE let them be ready tomorrow (Thursday)!!!

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What a day...

Just a quick update and then back to bed for me!  It was a heck of a day.  We met with the attorney in the morning and got some frustrating news about some things, but some "promising" news about the April 14 embassy date.  No guarantees, but it's at least looking "possible."  We saw their birth certificates... what beautiful babies we have!  Yodit is making such a cute face in her picture... she's definitely got some serious personality!

 

While at the attorney's smokey office on the 6th floor of his building (a long walk up when you're starting to feel puny!), I got so overcome by dizziness I had to lay on the floor of his office.  This caused quite a stir, but I felt better once I was horizontal.  I figured it was exhaustion and/or altitude, no big deal.  After a long and rather information talk, we were sent to Toukoul to meet our angels.  I'll admit now this was a terrible idea considering I was feeling so out of sorts.  But, we were so ready to meet Yodit & Tewodros!

 

We arrived at Toukoul and began talking with Melat about our program.  I had to interrupt her and ask for a place to lay down... back to just about passing out.  Yikes.  While I was laying in the visiting room, Melat continued talking about the visiting hours, our plans, etc., and then I heard it.  That beautiful little cry our Yodit shared with us in a video taken back in February by a friend.  Moments later, Tewodros was carried into the room and placed into my arms.  Yodit was handed to Joe and we began talking to them in awe.  We'd arrived at lunch time, so Yodit was rather unhappy we didn't have a bottle for her.  After a moment of holding little Tewodros, we swapped and I tried to comfort Yodit.  This was semi successful, but I was getting sicker by the moment.  Tewodros had some serious congestion and projectile spit up.  About the moment of the spit up mess, I was starting to pass out or throw up, so I begged our guide Ephrim to take Yodit.  Joe and Ephrim took the babies from the room and I collapsed.

 

So, the remainder of the day I spent in bed and visiting the toilet.  Puking is really the pits.

 

More later... back to bed.  We're hoping in the morning I'll be continuing to feel better and we'll spend more time at Toukoul.  I think we're going to delay our trip to Awassa another day to allow for more recovery time...

 

Oh, there was also a fire at the building that butts up against our guest house today... fun times.  More on that later!

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We're in Addis Ababa!

Just a quick post to let you all know we made it safely to Ethiopia yesterday evening!  Our flight arrived about 10 minutes early, and all our bags are here!  Including our huge duffel bag of donations that was barely within/just over the weight maximums and definitely larger than the maximum dimensions... but we were never questioned about it and not charged!  Hooray!  We can't wait to get them delivered to AHOPE and Toukoul.

 

We've decided we are meeting the babies this morning, and prior to our trip south.  Actually, it's Joe that wants to so badly.  I know it'll be hard to leave them for a couple of days after meeting, but Joe was insistant that we get to them this morning!  We'll also be calling our agency's attorney in a few minutes and seeing what we can do to help ensure an earlier embassy date.  We already love it here... but still want to get home and settle in to be a family in 2 weeks rather than 3!  ;-)

 

More later... it's beautiful here.  There's so much to say, but I'll do that when I have more time!

 

Hugs from us!  We'll post later if we can... hopefully with pictures of meeting our children!

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Leaving on a jet plane...

Oh yeah, you got it! We're leaving Saturday morning! Although, I'll admit that it's not because we got a confirmed embassy date for April 14 though. :-( We DID get updated medicals on the kiddos this morning, and current health concerns with our poor little Ezra has us determined to GET TO THEM! He is said to being doing well right now, but has been dealing with some very serious issues, much more than the cold/respiratory stuff we knew he had going on. So, Ezra and Olivia, here we come!

I can't tell you how surreal, or unbelievable it is that we ARE leaving in less than 2 days! We are mostly ready... and definitely have plenty left to do. Last minute shopping (need a couple of camcorder batteries and more DVD's for it), gifts for key people in Ethiopia, like our guide, the attorney, and people at the care center. Our duffel bag that's filled with donations is packed to the gills, but DOES weigh in right at 50 lbs. The only problem is it's a bit larger than the size/measurement allowance... so we may get hit with an oversized bag fee. I'm trying to figure out how to cinch it down small enough to fit. :-)

So, wish us luck in the craziness of the next two days, and keep your prayers and thoughts with Olivia and Ezra... especially Ezra right now. On a positive note, our little peanuts are still getting bigger! They're now at 10.5 pounds (Olivia) and 11.8 pounds (Ezra)!!! They've grown SOOOO much since January!

With love and appreciation to you all...

Jesi

When will our embassy date be?!

Ok, so I owe an update! Thanks for hanging in there and praying for us and thinking about us. This has truly been a struggle (and remember, I am NOT a patient person!). The last couple of weeks have been increasingly difficult. We are so ready to get our hands on Ezra and Olivia. This is the story in a nutshell:

We were told our embassy date would be 3 or 4 weeks after court - meaning April 7 or April 14 (our agency has embassy appointments on a Monday). We waited and waited for news. After a number of discussions with our agency, I finally decided I needed to get our tickets, and since we're staying an extra bit of time in country, it would overlap either possible date, but be centered around the idea of having a later embassy date. Well, shortly after getting our tickets, we found out our embassy date would actually probably need to be on April 21. Yeah, lovely. Another week of just leaving Ezra & Olivia without their mommy and daddy. Soooo not something easy to think about. But, to make matters worse, we also have a really difficult family matter we're dealing with that makes it all the more important to us to be home sooner than later. Sorry... can't blog about it, but I appreciate the support I know you're all feeling anyway! ;-)

Soooooooooo, it's boiling down to giving up and going with the April 21 embassy date, or potentially just leaving for Ethiopia early Saturday morning and hoping, praying, crossing fingers and toes for the best. Worst case scenario we'd be with the kids, but have to spend an extra week in country. Not the best or most affordable option... but we'd all be together and that's super important to us. Just to keep you all REALLY in the loop, as of about an hour ago, hubby and I "pretty much" decided we'll leave Saturday. We just need to work out some kinks with work (you know... gotta earn a living and figure out how to wiggle in an extra unpaid week or something), then we can commit. Maybe we're nuts, who knows. At this stage in the process, that's completely possible. Heck, after this roller coaster ride waiting for an embassy date, I'd say it's highly probable! :-D

Stay tuned... and keep on praying, crossing toes, fingers, arms, legs, and ears, doing the April 14 embassy date dance... whatever you can! We reallllllllyyyyy appreciate it!

Waiting for travel dates confirmation, still...

Just a quick post to let all of you still patiently waiting with us know that we still don't have confirmation on our travel dates. We're expecting to hear something today or tomorrow, and hopefully that proves true. At this point, we've begun packing, and are hoping to wrap that up tonight... or maybe tomorrow. I've been filling out immigration forms for our embassy appointment, and get quite a laugh when filling out forms for Tewodros & Yodit (who are only 3 months old!) that ask about their employment, schooling, and spouses! I don't know what to put in many of the sections, so I have lots of blank areas left. Hopefully the lawyer will help us get that all figured out when we arrive in Ethiopia.

So... here's to a Saturday departure! We have the tickets, and a guest house booked... so we just need the official go ahead. The concern from our agency is that it may end up needing to be another week beyond the maximum we were told... so that's what the hold up is. Joe and I are starting to feel VERY strongly about getting to our beautiful babes, so even if our embassy date IS delayed a week, we may travel on this weekend and at least be together as a family while we wait! For those of you still reading this... please cross you fingers, say a prayer, do an April 14th embassy date dance, or whatever it is you can do! COME ON APRIL 14TH EMBASSY DATE!!!

On a side note, yesterday we got to pick up our car seats from our wonderful friends, Geoff & Val. Their very sharing twin boys have decided they will allow Olivia & Ezra to now use their infant car seats. As we said our goodbyes and began driving away, it was weird to think that was quite possibly our last visit with them as just "Jesi & Joe." From here on out when we see them, we SHOULD have E & O in tow. While all the waiting for an official date to travel begins to make this all feel unreal... and like it will never happen... that moment was etched into my mind forever. I still get chills when I look at Olivia & Ezra's pictures and realize that they WILL be in our arms very soon.

Back to work. Back to my LAST week of work before mommyhood! (Notice my positive reinforcement of our upcoming April 5 departure there?!) This WILL be the last week in the US without our babies!

Are we EVER going to get travel dates?!

We're still patiently waiting to get our travel dates from our agency... wait a minute, did I say patiently? ;-) Our agency recently changed it's practices as far as when they will give a family their travel dates, now erring on the side of caution. They won't give us travel dates until the new birth certificates have been issued, which can be 10 business days... so we may not even hear by the end of the week! Ugh! However, they ALSO still say the embassy date will be 3-4 weeks after court, so we may end up with almost no notice prior to departure.

Joe and I have been carefully watching airfare, based upon both embassy dates we believe are likely to be our dates, and are disappointed to say that prices have been steadily skyrocketing. It makes sense since gas prices in general keep on climbing, but the other problem is that now we're looking at very late bookings. Last minute travel is rarely cheap... especially when you're not flexible on dates and destinations! I've spent more time than I can stand to think of searching for decent fares via travel agents, my own online searches, and LONG phone calls to airlines. Hopefully by day's end we'll have something workable. Had I only booked our tickets on Ethiopian Air by last Thursday, even if we ended up having to pay to change our tickets it would've been cheaper than waiting due to an increase in fuel surcharges that went into affect on Friday.

Sound like fun? Well, it isn't. I normally have lots of fun planning a trip, organizing the details, and finding a great price. Problem is, I just want to get to our babies! I can't help but think about how they are just waiting for us. Last I knew, Ezra had a cold that he still wasn't over from a few weeks before. Joe and I get so excited thinking about getting them home and starting out as a family... it's incredible to think that it really isn't so far away, even though time seems to drag a bit. I'm sure our time will fly by between now and travel... at least it will once we end up getting travel dates!

Now, onto our progress getting ready to travel! This past Saturday we had a lovely baby shower hosted by Joe's wonderful and incredibly generous aunt and uncle, and his cousin. They did a safari theme, and it was awesome! The cake was so super cute, and they had so much yummy food! It is so exciting to have others share in the excitement with us and celebrate the addition of Olivia and Ezra to our family. They are already well loved by many! We were so bummed that so many of our friends couldn't make it, many of them we had expected... so I hope you're all ok and just got busy! We were worried about those that didn't show up for fear they'd either gotten lost or who knows what! We missed you all! :'-(

After the shower, my mom and I headed to Babies'R'Us with Crystal who was in town for the big shin-dig. We worked on completing the registry... filling in gaps where we still really needed things (like sheets for the cribs), and mom (the new grandma) splurged a bit more. Once we were home, it was back to laundry (baby cloths, towels, washcloths, blankets, stuffed animals, you name it!), folding laundry, figuring out an organization system and putting away laundry, rearranging the nursery, putting up the wall hangings in the nursery (almost done!), and so forth. Basically, it was a CRAZY busy weekend.

Poor Crystal's flight to Colorado was CANCELLED on Sunday morning, so she was stuck most of the day Sunday as we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off. I felt so badly that I couldn't even come up with fun tasks for her to do to help... hard to "assign" anything when you're not even sure what you want to have done next yourself! Yet, somehow we all survived the craziness and are now that much closer to getting our arms around the ultimate prize... our little angels. The harder we work to get to them and become a family, the more lucky I realize we are to have been brought together at all.

Without further ado...

Here are our children!

Tewodros at referral (above and below) January 28, 2008


Yodit at referral (above and below) January 28, 2008

Olivia Yodit & Ezra Tewodros - pictures from a friend in mid-February

Update picture from our agency... look how cute Olivia's smile is and Ezra's little chins are!!!

Drumroll please...

I am proud to announce that Olivia Yodit & Ezra Tewodros are now officially ours! We're finally a mommy and daddy! I'm in shock, and was so relieved to finally get word from our agency... what a LONG morning it's been!

More to come later... back to making some phone calls and working on my now VERY serious to-do list!!!!! Hooray! No word on our embassy date yet... hopefully we'll get more info in a day or two... HOPEFULLY!

I'm a MOMMY!!!!!

Nothin', Nada, Zip

Ok, so here I sit still anxiously awaiting news on how our court appointment went last night whilst I tossed and turned (couldn't call THAT sleep by any means). When I did drift off, I dreamt of Ezra & Olivia... meeting them and finally setting eyes on their incredible little faces.

*Sigh*

I gave in a moment ago and emailed my agency. Just to remind them that we're here and we're waiting. We're ready for the news, so I wanted to be sure they knew that, in case they were wondering. Just in case. Cause MAYBE they forgot about us or were wanting to wait until we couldn't stand to wait another second. Are we a family yet?? Huh, huh?! You can tell us!

I can't believe that today, after all this time, I MAY be able to post some pictures of our precious angels!

........Back to refreshing my email and staring at my phone.......

A few hours to court!

It's hard to believe that our case will be seen before a judge in a matter of hours. Ethiopia is 10 hours ahead of us (Pacific time), so while we're sleeping tonight (or NOT sleeping in my case I think!), we should officially become a family. It's hard for me not to get worried as the big moment gets close that something could go wrong. I'm generally pretty optimistic, and think it will go without a hitch, but... you never know. Some families have multiple delays, missing paperwork needed by the judge, etc, etc. I hope our attorney has EVERYTHING he needs, and all the t's are crossed and i's dotted.

When I awaken tomorrow, I will finally (hopefully) be a Mama! I think tomorrow a celebration will be in order! And, a celebration IS happening this coming Saturday... it's our baby shower! I can't wait to celebrate with our family and friends. And to think... as soon as a week or two after the shower, we could be hopping on a plane and heading to Ethiopia! Just the thought makes my heart flutter in anticipation. I'm sooooo ready to start filling up suitcase with donations for the orphanages, baby clothes, diapers, bottles, etc. I guess this means I've really got to start figuring out where all we're going to travel to while in Ethiopia so I can start making those arrangements the minute we get our travel date!

As I type this, Joe is putting the chair rail up in the nursery, then I'll finish painting the grass on the walls. Tonight or tomorrow we should be able to get the crib that DID come set up, and the dresser put where it goes... and in another week the other crib and dresser should get here. I love how it's all just about to pull together and be finished! Their room is going to be so neat! I love it! Although I'd claim very little talent in the artistic department, I am also thrilled with how good the wall colors are and how neat the grass I'm painting is turning out. I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like, but figured there was no way I'd be successful when I actually did it! And, thanks to my mom's help, the mural looks INCREDIBLE! I hope Ezra and Olivia enjoy their room as much as I've enjoyed dreaming it up and pulling it together!

We also took an expedition to IKEA today to look for some shelves/organizers for their closet. We found a neat storage unit with pull-out, plastic cubes. I think it'll give us a lot better use of the closet space, so just one more exciting thing to have found! I'm having wayyyyyy too much fun with this!

Ok, back to work! I'll post pictures of everything once we get it done! And check back tomorrow morning... I'll post news as soon as we find out how court went!!!

PLEASE everyone cross your fingers, toes, arms & ears, pray, chant and do the successful court dance.................... anything to help the powers that be get us through smoothly and quickly so we can get to our children!

The weirdest thing...

So, I get back from the neurologist with Chloe (our mini dachshund who was in for a follow up on her inflammatory brain disease), and see I've gotten an email from our agency. I anxiously open it, wonder what it could be about. It states the following:

"Hello
how are you? We do have the court date:
Court date March 17/2008"

Ummmm.... yes, I KNOW we have a court date, and I DEFINITELY know it's on March 17th! I hadn't sent any emails/questions prompting this, but our director sent it as a response to an email with questions (that he'd already responded to) from late last week. Ok... yep... weird. I would love to know what that was about. It seriously got me hoping and freaking out while trying to open the email and figure out what he meant. I've heard of families who had a court date a few days away that got a call saying they'd made it through court... so yep, the thought crossed my mind as I began reading an email that said "court" in it. Ugh... toy with my emotions, seriously! I'm not complaining because I'm seriously excited about our big day on Monday, it was just weird I guess. And I'm glad that at least he confirmed it's still the same date... I would've been devastated if it was an email about the date being rescheduled!

As for other news, 3 out of 4 pieces of our baby furniture finally arrived today! They had to inspect it before we could pick it up, and then we got a call back. Apparently only ONE crib and one dresser made it. We were told TWO cribs and one of the dressers were being shipped, and the other dresser was on backorder until late April. They're looking into what happened with the other crib.... we kind of need TWO of them, ya know?! Such a bummer... but I'm so excited to go pick up the pieces that did arrive! We've never even seen the furniture in person, so I hope it's as beautiful as it looked in the pictures! The nursery furniture was a gift from my incredibly generous, and WAY too giving parents. Otherwise, I think we would've been shopping at garage sales for everything! ;-)

My mom may even help me hang the mural today.... then the nursery will be JUST ABOUT there. I still need to touch up the paint in a few places, do my artistic grassy stuff on the bottom half, and then put up the chair rail... but we're GETTING there! Oh, and I also still have to paint the inside of the closet. Psh... details. I've been a painting machine though, and have gotten the room painted quite quickly so far! Soon I'll be able to get back to my sewing and finish up the quilts and baby blankets!

3 days til court! :-D

An incredible video

As we inch our way towards the big day on Monday, I'm spending WAY too much time stalking blogs and reading forum posts on the various Ethiopian Adoption boards I'm a part of. This evening, I saw a post with a link to this video. It melted my heart... what an incredible story. I had to share.

http://abcnews. go.com/Video/ playerIndex? id=4416303

We're hanging in there as we get closer to the big day. Only 3 more days! Wow, how exciting to say that! I think the next few days will go relatively quickly too... the weekends usually seem to fly by!

Baby updates from our agency!

My apologies for not getting this information posted sooner, it's been so busy, I'd nearly forgotten to add updates on our wee ones. We heard from our agency director last Thursday upon his return from Ethiopia. He returned with pictures and medical updates on Ezra and Olivia. At that point, we hadn't gotten any information on their sizes since they were three weeks old (we got the referral when they were five weeks old). Obviously they should be growing (quite a bit at this age...), yet the news was still shocking. Our little guy is now tipping the scales at a hefty 11 pounds! Yep, that's our boy! He's got a couple of chins now, and a few neck rolls... and we love them! No failure to thrive there, not a bit! Olivia hasn't gained as much, but is still growing rapidly and now just a bit shy of 10 pounds! They both look so much bigger!

It's exciting to see them doing so well (obviously no failure to thrive here!), yet also a bit heartbreaking missing these changes. It's partially that feeling of being so close, and yet so far. I look at their tiny little bodies from their referral pictures and sit in awe at how much they've changed! Olivia has the CUTEST little smile in one of the pictures, finally showing a bit of personality. Ezra still definitely has a cold, which means he's been dealing with it for at least a couple of weeks now. :( His nose is plugged up and you can see he has to breathe through his mouth. :'-( He needs his mommy! Ugh! This part is hard, I know they are SOOO well taken care of, but it still doesn't compare to having them home with their mommy and daddy!

On another positive note, we are now a mere 6 days (ok, 7 days if you include what's left of today) from court! Our babies are officially eligible for court as of Saturday, so we are SOOOO close to the point where we're "in the clear" and don't have to worry about any of those remote chances of something not going as planned. I think soon I may be able to breathe once again! Holy smokes... by this time next week we should officially be MOMMY and DADDY! WOW!

I'm going to go breathe into a bag now to try and stop hyperventilating...

Just kidding. I'm actually wavering between utter excitement and total peace about all of it. As we get closer, and make progress around the house so I can SEE how close we're getting to them, I've begun to feel more and more peaceful. Our children and beautiful and are thriving. I'm sure we'll make plenty of mistakes as parents, and I know twins is a scary thought for many people. Yet, I know Joe and I will manage and do we'll be an awesome family! We truly have been doubly blessed!

That's all for now... back to making progress! (I got the lower portion of the nursery painted, now I've just got to get the top half done... then we'll be ready to put up the mural!)

Taxes are D-O-N-E -- DONE!

Yep, that's right! Finally got my booty in gear and did our taxes this afternoon! I would have loved to have been painting the nursery (which is now skim coated and ready to go!), finishing the baby quilts, or running some errands that I need to do, but instead I forced myself to get those darn taxes out of the way! I knew I was quickly running out of time, so it feels great to have one more thing checked off the to-do list!

Now... on to errand running (my CostCo coupons expire TODAY!) and then maybe painting a bit!

Hooray!

8 days until court!!!!

Ever wonder if time has stopped?

It's one of those days where I'm beginning to wonder if time has stopped. Maybe it's ceased to exist and we're just frozen in this moment. Okay, maybe it's not quite THAT extreme, but seriously, time is not "flying" by. I imagine that will begin to happen once we're through court and preparing to travel. Who knows.

Yesterday I had a weak moment and splurged on my dream stroller. It was such an awesome deal I couldn't pass it up... I just COULDN'T! ;-) I bought the 2008 BOB Revolution Duallie in Mesa Orange! Oh yeah, I'm so excited for it to come! I may have to put our two dachshunds in it when it arrives and push them around the neighborhood! Oh course, the whole time they'd be barking and fighting to get out of the seat and run around! Our dachshies are total spazoids when it comes time to go out for a walk. Particularly Cooper... he goes NUTS and squeals, yips, pulls, and wiggles until we are through the gate and into the park. Ugh. He makes it sound like we're beating him or something. People come out of their homes and stare. Is it embarrassing? You bet. Do I hate it? You bet. Can I get him to stop? Heck no! We've tried... I think we need a visit from the dog whisperer - Cesar Milan!

There are still a number of things around the house that need to be finished. Joe installed the first of 3 baby gates last weekend, the one at the bottom of the stairs. Now he just needs to get the one at the top of the stairs done, and the one between our kitchen and living room. THEN he needs to get the skim coat on the wall in the nursery so we can finally hang the mural! Oh, and I still need to paint that room too... but not until after the skim coat is done!

In the meantime, I'm working on finishing up the baby quilts. They would've been done long ago, but I had a VERY hard time finding a fabric for the outside border and backing of the quilt. Now that I have that, I'm in the process of quilting the layers together on Olivia's quilt, and will then do Ezra's. Once those are done, it's time to decorate their bumpers! I bought bumpers that are an off-white, minky dot, super soft fabric. I'm going to sew on some ribbon and fabric pieces that I used in the quilts to tie them together! Oh, and when I'm done with THAT, I'm going to have a bunch of baby blankets to sew out of all these adorable fabrics mom and I keep finding! :-S

Ok, back pretending I can focus on ANYTHING!

To be a mom...

A friend emailed this to me... I love it... so funny! Talk about some serious talent, I couldn't sing all this! Thanks Leslie for making me laugh!

Our life... the whirlwind

(21 days until court - including what's left of today!)

Yep, it's official. Our lives now seem to be a whirlwind of activity. While on the one hand, it feels as though court and meeting our little angels is still so far away, we have plenty of things to keep us busy. I need to get a more extensive list together so I can check items off as I go. It's become more than my brain can manage on its own, I think.

Over the weekend, I did manage to get paint colors selected for the nursery, and hope to begin painting in the next two weeks. Before I paint though, Joe needs to put a skim coat on the area of wall where the mural will go, so the wall texture doesn't show through the mural. I picked a light, off-white/cream color for the top half of the walls, and below the chair rail is a light yellow-green that I will use for the base color. Over that, I'm planning to use the two darker greens to create a grass type of effect, hopefully somewhat like the grass in the Serengeti. I'm no artist though, so I hope it turns out OK! If not, I'll have to paint over all of it and stick with a solid color. How boring! :) The mural will go up after the room is painted, and then lastly we'll stick up the chair rail. Whew, what a lot to do!

I finished the tops of the baby's quilts a week ago, and just need to find a border/backing fabric I like. Then, I can finish assembling the quilt and actually quilt the layers together. I also need to get busy and finish up making some baby blankets. I got some adorable fabrics when out with my mom a couple of weeks ago, and want to make some baby blankets - both for Olivia & Ezra, and to take and leave at Toukoul when we go. If I find the time, I also want to get busy making the sock dolls I've been slowly gathering supplies for - they're too cute, and apparently not too difficult to make.

My mom and I went on a small shopping spree Friday afternoon, and returned home with bumpers for the cribs, 4 ADORABLE wall hangings, two great children's books, and a number of cute outfits! Yeah, it was so much fun! Shopping trips like this help make this craziness feel a bit more real... I'm going to be a mommy in 3 weeks! Exactly 3 weeks from today, we should get word of our successful (please, oh please let it be successful the first time) court appointment, and we'll be Ezra and Olivia's parents! Then, a couple short weeks later, we should be in Ethiopia to meet them! WOW!

At this point, I'm not anticipating the nursery furniture will arrive before we head to Ethiopia. If it comes in earlier than anticipated, that'd be great... but I'm not counting on it. The anticipated date is April 10th and they give a window of up to 1-2 more weeks! So, I think we'll try and do two pack'n'plays in our room initially. We've been considering having them be in our room for a while anyway, so it's easier to get to them at night. We'll see... I know it'll all be an experiment until we find what works!

I also had a blast this past weekend beginning to work on their life books. So far, I've just been able to create a few pages in each of their albums, so there's lots left to do. I still have to fill in things on the pages and add pictures once we get them. I really need to spend some more time on this in the coming weeks, as it's something that I'm sure I'll have a hard time FINDING time to work on once they're home! I think the pages I have so far are a great start though, and I'm really pleased with how it's turning out! Many thanks to my teacher and guide in the process - Sabrina! I couldn't have done it without you!

On Sunday, I spoke with a travel agent and he's going to start helping us come up with a tentative itinerary and give us some airfare costs for the approximate dates we're thinking we'll be traveling. I also emailed the guide that comes highly recommended from a friend I met online through the WONDERFUL Ethiopian adoptive family forums, and hope we'll be able to use him for our trip south to Awassa. I definitely need to do a lot more research and make some decisions on where we want to go during our extra time in Ethiopia. Joe may not be able to join me for the first week now due to his work schedule. I'm so bummed. I can't imagine seeing Ethiopia without him, but we may have no choice. I think it's so important for at least one of us to see whatever we can while we're there, for Olivia and Ezra. I don't want to see only Addis Ababa, as I know that won't give us a good picture of Ethiopia in general.

The last big item is that this morning I had an "impromptu" interview and will be starting on site for "H" tomorrow morning. This new client is in Torrance, so I'll be on the road a bit and will lose a lot of productive time in the mornings and evenings because of this. Such a bummer with all I have to get done! But, it'll be good to be billable again, even though it's not a long term solution for my job. I'll be on this project for the next 5-6 weeks, basically until we travel. Then, whenever I come back to work, I'll be looking for another contract or job transfer - ugh! My hopes are still that I will get another job lined up so I will be remote again and be ready to hit it hard when I come back from leave! Wish me luck... it's been a LONG time since I've had to work on site anywhere... no more loungy clothes workdays! Super bummer!

COURT DATE!!!

Drumroll please... we have a COURT DATE!

Our court date is March 17th! Saint Patrick's Day, yeah!

(24 days until court!)

Quick update

Sorry guys... still no news. I am definitely checking myself into the loony bin if we don't get a court date in the next few days! I've lost all ability to focus on tasks and have practically broken the F5 (refresh) button on my computer from constantly checking for updates! I told you that this was going to be tough for me! Times like this make me wish I'd learned to master patience as a child. Heck, I could never even wait for Christmas day to open presents! I was always snooping around the house until I found them, and even sliced open the scotch tape to peek in packages with my brother a couple of years!!! (Don't deny it Zak! You TAUGHT me how to do it!). So yeah, patience is just not my virtue. Grrrr.

But, I DID get a response from my agency today. I sent an email yesterday asking if there were ANY updates yet... just in case an email didn't come through to me or something (*grin*). Well, I've been told that APPARENTLY a court date has been assigned and we're waiting for it to be given to us. Huh. Ok. He says it'll be "very soon." Right. WHAT?! If we know we have one assigned, why don't we know when it is?!

Ok - breathing deeply now. Ooooommmmmm, oooooooommmmmmm - wish I'd gotten into yoga, I could really use the relaxing & deep breathing about now! I don't know what I'll do with myself once we have our beautiful babies home and I don't have all this craziness to obsess about! ;-) (Of course I'm kidding... I think twins will keep me plenty busy!).

So, as a distraction, I'll post a short blurb about myself. There are plenty of you out there I've never had the good (or bad??? I've had some nasty comments early in the process - some mean folks out there :-S) fortune of meeting, so you probably only know a little about me. Well, I talk a lot. Apparently, this is true. Oh, and not only do I talk a lot, but apparently I talk VERY quickly... especially when excited. Poor Joe probably hasn't understood much of what I've said over the last 3 weeks since referral - cause yeah, I've been pretty excited the entire time. I also LOVE dogs. Animals in general actually. I used to ride horses and had two beautiful mares before moving to Southern California. I am loving and compassionate, and fight tooth and nail for the ones I love. I can be totally stubborn, and completely obsessive sometimes. (Who would've thunk it, right?) I feel it's my job and my right as a human being to do what I can to help others in need. For two summers, I worked in orphanages rehab centers, and hospitals in Romania - it was an incredible, challenging, life changing experience. Oh, and I definitely have a serious travel bug. Yup... international travel is something that makes me ridiculously giddy. And yes, I've been excited to become I mommy since I was itty bitty myself.

There ya have it. That's me in a very short nutshell. Cool, eh? Ok, maybe not so cool, but who cares!

That's it for now. Thanks for reading this far... it feels good to ramble a bit and get it all out there. I don't know how people get through 5 months between referral and travel... and hope I don't have to learn about it firsthand!

KEEP ON GUESSING THOSE COURT DATES! :-D I'm liking the March 24th guess the best so far!!! April 16th?! Yikes! Hee hee hee.

A poll - since I have nothing better to do :-D

Ok, so we still have no news on our court date. So, I thought in order to have a little fun and see what people think, I'd do a poll.

-- When do you think our court date will be? --

Here are the basics of our timeline to help you decide:
- Referral on 1/28/08
- Accepted referral on 1/29/08
- Children taken into care on 12/22/07 (3 months in care prior to court rule applies)
- Told to expect to hear about our court date in approximately 3 weeks (which would be today!)


So, go ahead, have some fun, make your guess, do the court date dance, or whatever you can do. Comment away with those court date guesses, and I HOPE that anyone that guesses SOONER than later is the one that's right!

Waiting...

Oh yeah, we're still waiting. No news whatsoever. I finally emailed our agency just to make sure there we no updates of any kind yet, and was told "we are still expecting to hear news of your court date soon." I do realize it's not been 3 weeks quite yet (and that's how long we were told it could take), but Tuesday will be the 3 week mark... so we're almost there. In this stage it's becoming increasingly difficult to not compare ourselves with the timelines other people (even with our same agency) have had from referral to court date to court itself. We aren't setting any records yet for how long it's taking, but I'm still struggling with the wait for news at this point. I THINK (keyword is think here) that I'll be a bit more at ease once we at least know whether or not they are giving us a court date at this time, or making us wait until Liv and Ez have been in care for 3 months and then reapply for a date at that time.

It's all part of the process, and I am doing my best to wait patiently. I just can't say it's easy. Some days our little angels seem like more of a dream than a reality. Having heard nothing new about them since the day we first heard of them... it starts to feel like none of it's real. This past week became increasingly difficult since we are waiting and hoping that we may get an update and new pictures from a wonderful new friend that was there picking up her daughter at the same orphanage. Once she gets home and settled in, we will hopefully get to lay our eyes on new pictures of our babies!!!

Ok, now pray for my sanity as we wait "patiently" for news. Poor Joe is doing so well tolerating my whining and baby talking obsession, but I know we both need an update soon!

OT - We took Chloe to see the oncologist and another neurologist today. The oncologist felt that since we are still able to control Chloe's symptoms with Prednisone and Cyclosporine after all this time, that it likely IS NOT Lymphoma! No guarantees... but it was hopeful news. He said if it is Lymphoma, that we should expect to see her declining very soon, so it'll be a tenuous few weeks/months. Our little girl is so precious to us, so we'll do whatever we can to keep her comfortable and help her fight the bad zee-bees attacking her brain! Go Chloe! She's such a fighter... even after 4+ months of this!

Some days up, some days down...

Yep, I hate waiting. I know it's only be 2 weeks now that we've been waiting for a court date, but it feels like a lot longer. Other families with our agency have gotten court dates in just under 2 weeks, and since we don't know what'll happen with our court date (will they give us one or make us wait until after 3 months to assign a date), the waiting is particularly difficult.

A cyber friend of mine is currently at Toukoul picking up her beautiful daughter. While she's there, she's planning to look in on our precious ones, and possibly even take some pictures if she can. On her blog today, there was a post from her stating that she'd met her daughter, and would be trying to get info on our kiddos soon. Oi! It's harder and easier knowing that someone is going to see them. Obviously I'd rather it be me over there meeting them and wrapping my arms around them, but since it can't be... yet... I'm just thrilled that she's going to take some time and learn what she can. I'm dying to know what they're like. Are they laid back, fussy, smiley, what?!??! Any little piece of information would be so exciting. Just knowing someone else has seen them, makes it feel that much more real.

So, to add to the adoption roller-coaster, we're still battling whatever mystery illness Chloe has. When we finally got to try reducing her Prednisone from 2x per day to 1x per day, she spiraled backward. Her neurologist is NOW thinking we may need to reconsider the original diagnosis and consider some of the other possibilties that he'd mentioned to us. Particularly... Lymphoma. This is obviously not good news at all. Our options are: 1) to put her through another spinal tap and send off more fluid samples - one to test for Lymphoma, the other to test for infectious disease, 2) give her a shot of aspariginase (sp?) which is the chemotherapy drug that would be used to treat Lymphoma - if it is Lymphoma she should show signs of improvement after 24-48 hours, 3) continue with the increased dose of CycloSPORINE and do no further testing.

It's obviously a difficult situation, particularly now that we're waiting for news on our court date and then travel. Lymphoma is a terrible diagnosis, because even with chemo, we're being told she'd have maybe a year. Putting her through chemo sounds awful, but apparently some dogs do great and it's only a few treatments, so most of that "year" she'd be feeling pretty good. Not doing anything doesn't sound fair to her either. When she's on a high dose of Prednisone and CycloSPORINE, she seems to feel comfortable. Tomorrow we drop the Pred back down since the increased dose of CycloSPORINE should be starting to kick in. It took a few days after dropping her dose before to see the negative result, so it'll be a stressful few days of watching her and praying she doesn't get sicker and feel so awful again. It's gut wrenching to watch her shivering and shaking in pain.

To top it off, she'd developed a mild ear infection, and definitely seems to be in a bit of discomfort from the 1/2" diameter bladder stone we've learned she has. I have added ear drops to our twice daily medicine routine, and the ear drops have left her beautiful, soft, long ear hair greasy and gross. Poor Chloe looks sickly and rather miserable. She's still got a fighting chance though... especially if it's not Lymphoma. Please keep her in your thoughts, your prayers, or whatever it is you do. She has been our little love bug for over 7 years, and I am definitely not ready to lose her. She's got so much attitude and spunk, if anyone could pull through it, it's her! She's got a consult with a new neurologist and an oncologist on Saturday... so hopefully we will be further enlightened after a new set of eyes look over her charts.

So, yeah. We've got a lot going on. My dad flies in late tonight for a visit and baby planning and celebration. While he's here, we hope to do whatever room re-arranging we need to do in order to start setting up for babies. That may include having him help us start prepping the mural wall with either a liner paper or a skim coat to smooth the texture. The tracking info on our mural shows that it's supposed to arrive on Thursday - Valentine's Day! That day is ALSO my dad's 50th b-day... so it'll be a fun and busy day! I also have to get the fabric for the baby quilts cut, and then get sewing! I have to paint the nursery, but can't pick out paint colors until I get the mural here. I think in a couple of weeks I'm going to be wrapping up a number of these projects and then I'll really start going nuts with waiting! Once the nursery is finished... I know I won't be able to stand waiting much longer to bring Ezra and Olivia home!

Just for laughs

For those of you needing a goofy pick me up... this should hopefully do it. Joe shared this with me this evening, and I have to admit it's pretty funny! Don't ask me how he had time to be watching goofy videos on YouTube with all we have going on though! ;-)




Hope you enjoy!

Baby steps forward

I can tell you one thing, my heart is still receding from my throat back down into my chest. I don't know why my heart leaps into my throat anytime I see an email or phone call from our agency now. Well, I guess I do know why... until Olivia Yodit and Ezra Tewodros are officially ours, I'm on edge a bit. Anyway, I just received an email from our agency (in response to an email I sent yesterday), and saw it had an attachment. I immediately figured it was either more pictures somehow (I know, keep dreaming!), or some sort of bad news. In general, my philosophy on life is to be optimistic and look at the cup half full. Why can't I do this now?! I am so afraid of the uncertainty of this part of the process.

The update from our agency director was all good. One more step in the process of getting to court was taken, and for that I'm thrilled. According to the agency, we will hear something about our court date "in the next weeks." A bit vague, but I'll assume it means 2 or so more weeks since we were originally told it'd be 3 weeks or so after accepting our referral that we'd hear back about our court date.

I can't say I haven't been busy lately, and that should be helping pass the time. Late last night I began trying to design the quilt pattern for Ezra and Olivia's quilts, and I can't say I'm feeling like this is my forte. I love being crafty, sewing, etc., but rarely do I do it. It's been a couple of years since I've sewn a quilt, so who knows how these will turn out. I'd be thrilled to use a pattern from somewhere, but haven't found one that was easy for me to visualize it working with the fabrics and prints I have. I'm using a light pink fabric with brown accents for Olivia's, and a light blue with brown accents for Ezra. They will both use some brown/white zebra print fabric, and a brown leopard print. I also got a number of fat quarters in various light tans/browns to mix in if needed. The quilts will be the same other than the pink/blue fabrics.

Room and furniture arrangements is still in the works. Hopefully we'll get this decided upon sometime in the next week or so. We have a big, beautiful desk with a peninsula on it in our office, but since the office is the larger of our two rooms, it looks like we may have to set it up as the nursery. It's fun to figure it all out, but also a bit difficult. Once we move our big honking desk, I don't want to decide we don't like what we decided and move it again later! I also want to be able to put up the mural when it arrives, and that means we need to start prepping the wall we're going to put it on.

All in all, I'd say we've got plenty going on to keep us busy. Soon enough, we'll be getting a court date, becoming Ezra and Olivia's parents legally, and then hopping on an airplane to go meet them! :-D

And my productivity soars...

Well, I can tell you one thing our referral has done... it's increased my productivity enormously! On Thursday, my mom and I got the cribs and dressers ordered (which should be arriving April 10th or so). Yesterday, I finally decided I WAS NOT going to find the right crib bedding sets, and should just make my own. Do I have the extra time for it? Maybe, who knows. I will MAKE time. I bought fabric and am ready to start laying out the quilts for our beautiful babies.

The most impressive step we took was in deciding on names for them! We are happy to announce that their names are Ezra Tewodros and Olivia Yodit! I spent a lot of time stressing over how I could incorporate my late Grandma's name, Sue, into Olivia's name, but didn't want to give her 2 middle names, and we really didn't want to get rid of their Ethiopian names. Tewodros means "King of Ethiopia" and Yodit means "Woman from Judea." With such strong, meaningful names, we knew they had to stay. :-D



I ALSO splurged a bit and ordered this AWESOME wall mural last night for the nursery. I've dreamed of having a Safari nursery for years, long before I knew we'd adopt from Ethiopia. I worried about whether that would be cliche since our children are coming from Africa, but decided that was silly to stress over. So, I ordered a big mural (10'2" wide by 4'8" tall) to put on one wall of the nursery. It is called "The Sentinels" and is a landscape of the Serengetti with a tall Umbrella Thorn tree, three giraffes, and some zebras. There were SO MANY cool ones, it was a tough choice. I finally decided this one had a level of calm to it that some of the stampeding zebras didn't... as cool as they were! Check out the mural we chose (and others) at: http://www.muralsyourway.com/myw4-design.cfm?pid=MMIARK2003. I'll tell you what I think of it once I get it here and put up. THAT will be the challenge for me! ;-)

Joe thinks I'm nuts with all the projects I'm taking on... but staying busy is a GOOD thing for me. Since I can barely stand to be halfway around the world from Olivia and Ezra, I have to keep working on things that make me feel closer to bringing them home. Even the unnecessary things like making the neatest, most fun nursery for them that I possibly can! The biggest challenge has been trying to make it a nursery that has a little boys element AND a girly element too. Hence... I'm making my own crib quilts and bumpers! Wish me luck, I'm sure I'll need it. Sewing isn't the trouble, it's the layout that always gives me the most trouble with a quilt.

As for my job, I'm still working on a resolution. I have a meeting with my boss at 3:00pm today that I'm admittantly dreading. Her lack of enthusiam aside, I know she wants me to be working on finding a new job, and until I have one, that's stressful. Especially considering that our "side" business now looks like it'll be able to take over my job and income in the next couple of months! Not trying to count chickens before they hatch or anything, but THAT would be awesome! I KNOW we can do it! And in the meantime, I'll do whatever I can to work with my boss and try and make sure my company is happy with my efforts. I agree with everyone that's said not to let her thoughts get to me, and try to live my life that way. There are people that aren't supportive of adoption and don't understand where you're coming from. That's why I'm so glad I've met so many wonderful people to share in the excitement! Thank you to all of my wonderful friends and family, local and distant, that have supported and encouraged us every step of the way. Your love and support means the world to us!

Back to work... make it a great day!

Tiny distractions...

While it's still a little hard to believe that we are really only a matter of months away from meeting Yodit and Tewodros, the fact that they are in Ethiopia waiting for us is definitely starting to sink in. How in the world am I to get any work done when I have these two beautiful faces to look at? There is so much planning to do, we are still working on their names, and I desperately need to get my job situation figured out.

Speaking of my job, one thing I've come to realize is that not everyone in this world is equipped with some of the basic courtesies we often take for granted. When talking with my boss, W, I had no idea she would show so little respect and professionalism. Although I have never felt she has good interpersonal skills, and realize we've never had any sort of relationship beyond the basic yearly review and touch point here and there, I still expected SOMETHING different when I brought up the fact that we'd received our referral. There's no way I'm going to give her the satisfaction of dragging on about the frustrating conversation we had, I will say it's time to find a new group within my company. Now that my *rant* is out of the way... I can move on to the exciting whirlwind that is now encompassing our lives!

Honestly, could it get more perfect than being blessed with a handsome little boy and a beautiful little girl?! I'm sure there are days when we will be exhausted, sleep deprived, and questioning our abilities as parents, but there is no way I would ever have it any other way. As crazy as it may sound to those that haven't experienced adoption first hand, this was meant to be. When I look at their little faces, I can't imagine how I could already be so in love with them. Tewodros has such big, thoughtful eyes, and Yodit has such a sweet, cuddly look. I have no idea how much they cry, or if they make slurping sounds when they eat, but I know they weren't meant to be with us.

Tomorrow, my mom and I will be heading to Direct Buy (such a wonderful place!) to hopefully get the cribs and other bedroom furniture items ordered. They have some awesome prices on really great stuff. *I already KNOW this since I've been "window shopping" for a while now!* We know that we want some sort of whimsical safari sort of them, and have a few decorative items we've picked up here and there to use. If anyone has cute suggestions on a nice boy/girl safari type nursery, let me know!

I guess it's time for me to get back to it - working, baby name brainstorming, day dreaming, etc.! Make it a great day everyone!

It's TWINS!

I barely know where to begin! We got our referral this morning, and as you can guess, it was TOTALLY unexpected! I was so busy blogging and bumming about how I knew we weren't "ready" yet, and here it is! I must tell you, this is such an awesome feeling!!!

Details:
We have been referred TWINS!!! We have a beautiful boy, named Tewodros, and a gorgeous little girl named Yodit! They are teeny, and amazing. No, perfect. I don't even have words for how perfect they are. They are 5 weeks old, and are from Awassa. I am in UTTER shock, and I'm pretty sure Joe is too!

Ok, so this morning, I was busy working away. Since I'm still working out of my home office, some mornings I am slow to get dressed and ready to greet the day. I was still in pj's and had a mud mask on, when I hear my computer make the little chime sound that tells me I had an email. I open my email, and see a note from our agency. The subject is: See Attached Please. Since I hadn't gotten a phone call and had NO reason to anticipate a referral yet, I thought "Oh no, there must be something wrong with our dossier!" Who knows, right?

The email takes forever and a DAY to open (doesn't it always when you're sitting anxiously awaiting whatever it will contain?!), and when it does, I couldn't believe it! In front of my eyes were the words:
"Dear family
See attached the referral we just received for you... twins, boy and girl."

Then, there were 5 attachments, 4 pictures and the information on them. I covered my mouth as I SCREAMED "OH MY GOSH!!!" then JUMPED out of my chair (much to the dismay of my dogs that bolted from the room!) and began running around upstairs screaming, crying, and shouting "OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH!"

After a couple of minutes of this, I called Joe and actually caught him. I was still crying, laughing, and not making a lot of sense. I shouted "We got our referral! Get in front of your computer right now!!! I'm going to forward the email to you and we'll open the pictures at the same time!" After a couple of tense minutes waiting for him to get the email (it probably took half that time for me to type his email address into the To: line since I was shaking so hard!), he got the email.

Together, we opened the first picture and took our first look at our beautiful Yodit. She's incredible. She already has quite a bit of curly hair and big eyes. Her little nose is so adorable! Her arms and legs are skinny, teeny, and just waiting for their mommy to come and kiss on them!

After oogling at Yodit for a moment, we opened the next picture, of her brother Tewodros, together. He is just as amazing. This little guy seems to be quite lacking in the hair department, and has the same amazing eyes, and big, beautiful lips! He also has the teeny little arms and legs.

We opened the last two pictures, and then skimmed through the information file. I could barely read I was so excited. I did notice that they were born on December 21st, just after our dossier arrived in Ethiopia! We have Christmas-time babies!

Okay, I know I have so much more to say, but I have SOOOOO much to do! I will post more when I can get my brain thinking straight again and have a bit of time! I wish I could share their photos, but until they are legally ours, I can't post them. Just know they are totally adorable!

Hope you all have an incredible day!

Anybody else care about dates?

My DATE obsession:
Okay, so I'll readily admit that I've always been a tad obsessive about dates. Back in the good ole' days when my memory was an incredible, powerful force to be reckoned with, I remembered just about any date of significance that entered my brainwaves. Now, however, I've lost a lot of my incredibly long-lasting memory skills and find myself excited to remember what I had for lunch yesterday. Hee, hee... only partially kidding. ;-) Anyway, I've been getting increasingly distraught that I don't know the EXACT day Joe and I were considered "Officially Waiting" with our agency. I've emailed the director with that question a few times, and it never seems to get answered. I'm sure he doesn't care, and I KNOW it doesn't change a thing in the long run, but I NEED to know! I need to know in my head how many days, weeks, and eventually MONTHS we've been waiting. I just NEED to know. (Back to that topic of me being impatient maybe?!).

Referral ready???
It's not even like I'm READY for the referral yet. I am mentally, but the reality is there's lots that needs to happen first. The wait is going to be a good thing. I am working on getting on another contract with my job, and settling into my new position will take a couple of months. We are still working on getting the funds together to pay our agency the final chunk we owe them when we get a referral (a cool $5,500 is the last bit we owe them!), and we also need to get all our money together to pay for the trip to Ethiopia to pick up our babies! We're estimating that to easily be another $4-5,000, so we've got some saving to do while we wait. So, even though the wait is still a good thing, I'm still itching to play with dates and referral wait time estimates so I can get a better idea as to when we might get a referral, and when we might be traveling.

Our agency tells us to expect about 3 months for a referral, but that's too optimistic for what I think reality will be. A few others I know personally and virtually (through the wonderful world of adoption forums!) using the same agency have taken longer than that to get referrals for infants boys... and those are much more common that our request! So, I expect we're in this for a longer haul than 3 months. However, IF we were waiting 3 months, I think that means we'd be expecting our referral sometime in March! Which doesn't seem too very far away considering we're already approaching the end of January! WOW!

IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE PROCESS:
From the time we accept our referral, a number of things take place. From my understanding, our case must first be approved by MOWA (Ministry of Women's Affairs), then submitted for a court date. Court dates seem to be happening about 2 months after referral acceptance, since there's been a large backlog in courts after reopening following the annual closure, and the increased number of Ethiopian adoptions happening. Also, there seems to be an increased number of cases that end up needing to have 2-3 court dates in order to be successful. The Ethiopian government is making sure all the "t's" are crossed and "i's" are dotted. That's a GOOD thing, despite the stress and turmoil the family may feel while waiting to be the official parents of the children there were referred.

Once you are the legal parents, you get a travel date from your agency. This travel date is normally another 3-4 weeks from when you passed court. So, all those time frames taken into consideration, we expect it'll be about 3 months after referral acceptance that we'd be getting to travel.

ESTIMATED TIMELINE (remember, it's not an exact science, just educated guesses!):
If we get a referral in 3 months, that'd be in March sometime. Then, assuming it's 3 more months before we travel, that'd put us traveling in June... what a way to celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary! A trip to Ethiopia to pick up our children! WHOA! Talk about memorable and amazing! Nevertheless, I don't really anticipate getting a referral that quickly, so we should probably tack on 2-3 more months to start being realistic. Referral in May/June, travel in August/September??? I imagine by then I WILL be feeling the excitement, impatience, and anticipation much more strongly! Keep in mind, we waited from early July until DECEMBER to submit our dossier due to the job instability, so we've already been WAITING for 5 months in addition to our 1 month (or so) of being on the "Officially Waiting" list!

Done Ranting:
Well, I'd say that's more than enough ranting, estimating, dreaming, whatever for today. I need to get back to work looking for a contract, and returning calls and emails to people about our Fortune business. Which, by the way, is going quite well. Our decision to start our business has definitely been worthwhile, and I'd love to talk to anyone interested in learning more! I may just get to be a stay at home/work at home mom after all! ;-) Keep your fingers crossed for us!

And my brain color is...

An interesting little test tells me I have a PURPLE brain!

Your Brain is Purple

Of all the brain types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense. Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself.

What Color Is Your Brain?

Yep, that's me. I'm a dreamy, big thinker... not contesting that! However, I will say that I make MANY of my big dreams come true, so there! ;-) Want to know what color YOUR brain is? Go to: http://www.blogthings.com/whatcolorisyourbrainquiz/ and find out!

Article by Melissa Fay Green

Finding My Daughter's Roots
By Melissa Fay Greene
Published: January 13, 2008

With thousands of foreign adoptions taking place in the U.S. each year, many parents want to give their children a connection to their pasts. Writer Melissa Fay Greene recently took her daughter Helen, 10, to visit her native Ethiopia.

It's been five years since my daughter left an orphanage in Addis Ababa and joined our family in Atlanta. Today Helen is a top soccer player, a flutist and the student president of her school. She has gained much, but much is in danger of being lost: her fluency in Amharic, her Ethiopian manners, her sense of her own history and culture.

As we pack for our 10-day trip to Ethiopia, I realize that I have no idea what my daughter is expecting to find there.

“I want to do lots of shopping!” Helen says.

“Addis Ababa is not exactly a shopping mecca,” I warn. “There’s no Target.” I want to ask if she remembers the orphanage or the beggars who line the streets. “I’m packing my iPod!” Helen calls.

Arriving at the airport in Ethiopia’s capital a few days later, we descend by creaky rental van into the city, where cars compete for right-of-way with herds of livestock. Unemployed, sick and handicapped people limp or lie on the sidewalks and median strips. Homeless children dash alongside the heavy traffic.

“This scares me,” Helen murmurs. “I don’t feel like I came from here.” Suddenly, a tall boy leans close to the window and moans in English, “Stomach zero.”

“Give! Mommy, give!” Helen cries.

She ransacks her backpack and finds a bag of bite-size Milky Ways. At the next stoplight, she serves a gold-wrapped candy to another barefoot boy who approaches. He examines it, smiles and requests another “for brother.” The van begins to accelerate. “He needs a candy for his brother!” Helen yells. “Please stop! Let me out!” But there is no stopping. My daughter falls against me, weeping.

UNICEF estimates that 4.6 million Ethiopian children have lost one or both parents, many to HIV/AIDS. Tens of thousands of street children forage in the capital; hundreds more live underground in sewers and tunnels. Some find shelter at orphanages like the one we visit on Helen’s first day back in Ethiopia.

When we arrive, the orphan girls surround Helen. They want to examine her watch and purse, peer through her camera and try her headphones. Then they all sit down for a chat despite Helen’s protests that she can’t really understand what the girls are saying. She does discern that they all need shoes: pink Crocs just like hers. With my permission, she leads an expedition beyond the orphanage gates to a kiosk, where she purchases 30 pairs of fake Crocs for 11 birr (about $1.50) each.

Over the course of our visit, Helen falls in love. Each morning, 3-year-old Binyam runs to her, squats and makes a fierce smile. She lifts and carries him for hours.

“We have to adopt him,” Helen whispers one day as he naps. “He needs me.”

“I know, sweetheart,” I say, “but we can’t. Maybe when you’re a grown-up, you’ll come back to Ethiopia to adopt.”

She shakes her head. Tears start to roll. “Binyam will be too old then.”

In happier moments, Helen soaks up Ethiopia. She understands more Amharic every day. She claps at dance performances and races up the field in soccer games at the orphanage. She sits at attention beside the van window, holding birr in one hand, candy in the other. If beggars don’t approach the car when we stop, Helen taps on the glass to catch their attention.

Before our trip, Helen’s dreams of adult life included Olympic competition, a modeling career and the practice of medicine. Now she says, “I’m coming back when I’m older to build a beautiful shelter for the beggars, with teachers and doctors and pretty bedrooms.”

Helen did enjoy shopping in Addis Ababa, but not for herself. When she looks to the future, it’s with thoughts of how she will make life better for others. And when she sobs inconsolably on our last day, it is for the orphanage girls and for Binyam—sweet children with histories like her own, but with futures that look far less promising.

High Chairs

Well, we took a leap and bought our first real baby gear! I had to drop Chloe off at the neurologist on Thursday since her condition has continued to decline despite the increased dosage of Prednisone. My mom and I decided to stay up in the area while we waited for her, so we headed to Bergstroms, which was just down the road. When we arrived we saw they had a lot of items on sale. Both floor items and new in box. Close to the front of the store, I spotted some interesting looking high chairs. There were two of them (how perfect!), and the functionality was superb! The chairs are meant to grow with your child, from infant to adult. They have a tray, or can be used at the table with the rest of the family. I decided not to buy them, and that I would do some research online first. They were normally $299, but marked down to $129, and the woman told me she could sell each chair for $110. A bit more than I was ready to spend, without having done any serious shopping around.

Well, I got home and learned what a great high chair option they were, and that $110 was a fabulous price! I'd also found a really neat baby carrier made by Theodore Bean. It was made of black leather with a cute, soft zebra print on the inside. When researching online, I learned the carrier had great reviews, but the company had been bought out. The cheapest price I found for it online was about $30 more than it was in the store... so one more good buy. That was, if they were still there on Friday.

First thing Friday morning I headed to the neurologist to pick up an antibiotic for Chloe, and then to Bergstroms. I had to wait anxiously for them to open, and when I headed inside, saw that both chairs were still available! Yippee! I asked the salesperson what the best price she could give me was if I bought both high chairs. She went and talked to her manager, and when she came back, she said $75 each! And that's after the only price I found online had been $395! Woohoo! So, I left with both high chairs and the adorable Theodore Bean baby carrier. What an exciting day finally buying a couple of things that make the adoption feel a little more real.

Here's a picture of our high chairs! We have the blue/orange colored chairs like the one pictured above.

The carrier on the left with the zebra print is the one I bought. So cute, right?!

Oh, and our agency says that our dossier will be registered this week, and our wait will be official!