Adoption update

No, nothing exciting yet. But we get lots of questions about "how is the adoption going?" and figured all 5 of our blog readers might be curious as well.

- All our paperwork has been submitted and sent to Ethiopia (in November). The next milestone is a referral, basically some pictures and info on the child we've been matched with. We signed up for an "infant" girl (usually 12 months or younger) so that is what we expect. When we submitted our paperwork, our agency was saying 4-6 months for a referral. November to April is 5 months, so we are hoping for a referral in the next few months.

- The next step is... well, we aren't quite sure. We just found out that Ethiopia is changing their process for adoption. When we signed up, the process was that we flew to Ethiopia and stayed for 10 days to finalize paperwork, and then flew home with our new munchkin. Now it appears that the process will be changed to require two flights, one for your court date in Ethiopia, at which point you accept and officially adopt the child, and then a second flight several weeks (months?) later to complete paperwork at the US embassy and bring home your child. We are still trying to figure out exactly what this all entails, if we both have to fly for both trips (although neither of us is volunteering to stay home), how long we are required to stay, etc. We are hoping we can learn from the families who are going through the new process before us as to exactly how this new system works. Not exactly good news, but we didn't expect this whole thing to go perfectly smooth either.

So that's about the only news in the last several months. The next adoption update should be a note about our referral and new daughter!