Disappointing News

At the end of the day Tuesday, I received an e-mail from Julie, our case manager, with a follow-up phone call later that evening. Below is an excerpt from her e-mail:

The Ethiopian government has implemented some changes in how the adoptions are being approved. The government has stated that these changes are being put into place in order to reduce the number of children with living parents adopted internationally. In addition to this, the government seems to believe that this added step in the processing will ensure that relinquishments are done in an ethical and legal manner. Recently the Ethiopian Government started requiring all of the relinquishments to go through Central Authority for an additional approval before continuing onto the Courts. Even if AGCI has already previously been scheduled a court date for a family, the file will be required to go back through this new channel before the court date can be approved and a decree given.
Currently we are seeing that the courts are scheduling court dates for more than a month out. We are also seeing that the new Central Authority, which is called the Civil and Social Affairs office, are not sending their approvals before the previously scheduled court dates. For this reason we need to prepare you all, that unfortunately the timeframe of your adoption and travel dates will most likely be lengthened more than the timeframe we have previously been providing to families over the last a few months.

Our agency is not anticipating that any families will travel before the Christmas holidays.

I would like to ask for prayers for 2 things:
1. A miracle!!! Our first court date is Monday, Nov 3. There is a very small chance that we could make it through this first time.
2. The wait. Patience for all 4 of us waiting for James to come home. The kids were really saddened by this news. Christmas will be hard without all 3 kids home. And pray for James while he is in Ethiopia.

Thanks to all you awesome AGCI women and your words of encouragement!! As I told Jana on Tuesday, at least I know I'm not in this alone!

Discouraged

I have really been feeling discouraged the past couple of days. For the past two weeks, I have expected to hear something, anything about court dates, yet every Friday night I go to sleep completely bummed. I am really starting to feel like we were passed over and our file is lost somewhere in Ethiopia and we aren't going to have a court date at all, ever. It's the most horrible feeling to truly feel like I will never get to hold my son. Although my head still tells me that God's timing is perfect and that James is not my child, but the Lord's, my heart is aching with longing to kiss his sweet face.

Beyond that, I am going crazy with not being able to plan my life. With 2 doctors in the house, we usually have a pretty good idea of what will happen at least a month in advance, or else we'd end up both being on call and having no kid coverage. So not knowing if we'll be travelling half way around the world 2 weeks from now is really killing me. And if I'm not in Ehtiopia, I'd really like to go meet my new nephew shortly after he's born!

Apple picking!

Last weekend we went apple picking at a fruit farm north of cincinnati. The kids LOVED it!! I think this will become a Linam fall tradition. I just have to figure out what to do with all the apples.....

Be Still My Soul

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end

As I sang this hymn this morning in church, tears were streaming down my face. This is my prayer: "Leave to thy God to order and provide...Be still my soul."

Crazy Dreams

This week I've had two dreams about our adoption both of which have been absolutely nutty! I don't know if it's the stress of waiting or what, because I usually don't remember my dreams.

The first one was Monday (which may have been our court date). I dreamt that AGCI, our adoption agency called us and told us we needed to go to Portland to meet with them face to face in their office. So we went all the way to Portland, only for them to tell us that our court date had been set for October 21, but they already knew that all of our documents weren't going to be ready for court, so we should plan on a November court date.

The second one was Wednesday. Let me give some background first.... When you travel to get your child, you normally get the child the morning after you arrive. The child then stays with you for the rest of the trip. So in my dream, we didn't get our child when we arrived. They made us wait until we were about to leave. Then, instead of our sweet, beautiful, healthy James, they told us we had to take a 3 year old who was trach and ventilator dependent and had some sort of genetic syndrome. Not that a child like that isn't worthy of a home, but it's not what we agreed to, or what we are approved by the US government to bring home. So we had to come home empty-handed. I just kept wondering where my James was and no one would tell me.

Thankfully, I know these are dreams and not reality. I honestly have gained (again) a real peace about the wait and have faith that James will be home in God's time.

OPERATION PRINCESS HAIR BEGINS!

Meet Abby. She is a beautiful little girl adopted into a loving family from Guatemala. Now she is also a dear little warrior fighting for her life. She was diagnosed with Leukemia and life suddenly took a radical turn for this amazing family. Her concerns of which princess dress she should wear have turned to whether she will get poked or be able to keep her food down today.
This is sweet Abby right now....Just one of the MANY things she has been forced to give up is her GORGEOUS princess hair and it makes her very sad.... What is it like to be the mommy that has to tell your 3 year old that she has to take medicine that will give her horrible sores, make her throw up constantly, and cause her to lose her hair? What is that like? What is it like to watch tears slide down your sweet baby's cheeks even in her sleep cause that's how much it hurts.

What we can do is give Abby back her princess hair. It's expensive and not something this family needs to worry about during this stressful financial time of paying for medicine and gas and hospital bills. We can not make this all go away but we can give Abby back her hair and make her smile.

OPERATION PRINCESS HAIR BEGINS!

Monthly Call

We received our monthly call from Julie, our case manager, last night, and I have no news to report. We are still waiting. Which was surprisingly good news last night. Several of the families in our position had their court date this week and did not get the official decree. They had to reschedule their date, and the next available time is November due to the huge backlog of families from the courts being closed.
As far as I know, our court date has not yet happened. Julie thought it might be mid-Oct (next week?) but wasn't sure. So we are praying that everything is in order in our file when it is our turn to go to court (actually the orphanage director goes for us with our POA), and we will get the decree first try. Hopefully the next post will have good news, like dates!

Virtual shower

A friend of a friend of a friend ....Amy is expecting 5 babies.... Yes you read that correctly. FIVE! Nope- no typos. She is expecting 5!!! The due date is projected to be 4-6 weeks from today and she just found out she was going to have 5 more babies 2 days ago. :0) AMAZING! You think THAT is amazing??? Wait till you hear this...


she already has 7 children at home. Oh yeah. Now we are talking. Now she will add 5 more beautiful babies to their family. Now this family needs 5 more beds, 5 more car seats, 5 more dressers, 5 more seats at the table, clothes for 5 more, etc. etc. And no, they have no idea what they are going to drive! The new kiddo's are a sibling group of five coming to them through the foster system -but they are no longer foster children because this precious family is adopting them. They are ages 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1.

If you're interested in learning more, click here

Thanks for your help!!

New Pictures!!

We got a CD in the mail with about 50 pictures of James!! He remains so incredibly cute, I can't wait to hold him!!

Grace Caroline started crying last night after her soccer game. she hadn't wanted to play, and Matt and I got pretty frustrated at her refusal to participate, so I thought she was crying because she thought we were mad at her. When I hugged her and asked her what was wrong, she said "I miss James! I want him to come home right now. I can't wait." So I am praying that time flies and he comes home so soon. I can't bear to comfort her in that sadness too many times, because I feel the same way!!

Happy 4 month birthday to our sweet baby boy!!