Trip Beginnings

After years of feeling like this trip was never going to happen, on Friday May 10th, it did, bright and early.

We were all packed up and ready to go when our ride showed up on Friday morning at 6:00 AM.  We were at the airport by just before 7.  We checked our bags in, which was a huge relief.. One bag was slightly overweight, but as Hilary said, the scale started at 0.6, so our bag was actually bang on :).  We were incredibly blessed by the show of support from both of our families as well as my roommate from Bible School who is also in the process of trying to adopt from Ethiopia.  It was great to feel that support from all who were there.

We boarded the plane just before 9:00, and were off, basically right on time.  This flight was just a little hop skip and a jump compared to what lay ahead.  Hilary and I both watched a movie on the flight till Toronto, and had no issues with the flight.

Then we waited.  Our plane arrived at 12:30ish Toronto time, and our next flight wasn't until 6:50 PM.  Hilary had a nap at some point during the wait, we ate lunch, and mentally prepared for the rest of the trip.

The flight from Toronto to Frankfurt was a little bumpy at many points during the trip but was relatively uneventful.  One interesting thing about this flight was that the bathrooms were on a bottom level (and it was nice and cool there).  There were lineups basically the entire flight for use of these bathrooms.  The plane was quite hot as well, and it made it very difficult to get comfortable to get any sleep.  Neither of us were able to get any real sleep on this flight, and it made us both a bit cranky, and ready to get off the plane.

There was no rest of the weary, as our next flight left a few hours later from Frankfurt.  We were both a little frazzled as we navigated through the Frankfurt airport, which was a tad complicated....  In the end, we arrived at our gate 1.5 hours ahead of the next flight...  Hilary had a nap on the benches once again, while I went out in search of some food.  I got back to the gate, and it appeared that there was virtually no one left to get onto our flight... Something seemed a bit off, so I got online, and checked to make sure there had been no changes to our flights....  It turns out that they had changed the gate on us... We found this out just in time, as our boarding time was also the time I figured this out... So we ran off to find the gate where we were supposed to be.  We must have been among the last few to board.  Luckily, this flight was very empty.  It allowed us to sleep stretched out a bit more on the plane, and both of us got some good sleep time in.

I'm not sure anything really prepared us for the chaos that was the Addis airport.  We had made arrangements to be picked up, so at least we didn't worry about that at all until after we were through customs and purchasing a Visa.  We spent about 1/2 an hour in the lineup to buy a travel visa, and then another 15 minutes to 1/2 hour in the lineup to hand over our entry card or whatever it is called.  We had received this on the plane to fill out in preparation for this.  Then we went and got our pile of luggage, and walked out in another 15 minutes or so...  The lineup to put stuff through the customs scanner was fairly long and very chaotic... We were happy once we stepped out, but we did not see our ride...  It took a while, and a few phone calls, and we figured out that there had been a small misunderstanding and that our driver was waiting down the path rather than in the terminal which is what I thought we had been told...  When all was said and done, the driver was great, and soon we were checked in at the Guesthouse.

We unpacked only what we needed and got ready for bed, and zonked out.

Orphanage Donations

It's a little last minute over here, but we will be collecting donations for the orphanage that our dear son is in. Sadly, given the fact that we are packing for an extended stay, we will not have room for "stuff". Donations of $$$ for the orphanage would be much appreciated. 

The money will be used in 2 ways: 
1) to assist the orphanage with any current needs (in the past, this has included groceries, supplies, etc) 

2) buy fun things for the kids (some people have bought bubbles out there, or pencils, or candies).

The deadline for getting this to us is Wednesday, May 8th.

Court Date!

Most of the time, an article with that kind of title would not be met with a lot of cheering.  Today, however, it is a different story!

After years of waiting for a child, through 17 months of waiting for the girls, and 2 ½ months after accepting the referral of a boy.  We FINALLY, FINALLY, have a court date.

Hilary and I are excited to announce that we are going to ETHIOPIA!!!

We are doing, what many in the Ethiopian Adoption world would be called the “Long Stay”.  We will be travelling during the middle of May for the court date, and will return whenever we can get the citizenship paperwork completed.  This means that we will take custody of our son, shortly after the court date, and work on the bonding as a little family of 3.

Even though Hilary has everything planned to a T (at least the packing), there is much to do, and only 3 weeks to get it all done.  Please pray for us as we make the necessary arrangements, get things done, as well as mentally prepare ourselves for this life changing journey.  I believe the tough arrangements have already been made.  Zeke has a home while we are gone, and we have someone to live at our place.  Here’s hoping everything else can fall into place as we keep preparing.

We thank you all for your prayers and support.  We were overwhelmed by the support we have been shown thus far.  An overwhelming stat from today was the fact that we received over 80 “likes”, and over 30 comments on my facebook page announcing this court date.  We feel the support.

So hang on to this ride.  This blog is about to get more interesting! J

Update

We are still flying high one month after our referral. We are extremely excited about the possibility if welcoming this little boy into our home.


What have we been doing to prepare for the arrival of our little boy?

We have both been looking at completing some projects around the house, but Hilary has been preparing his room. If you remember from a previous post, Hilary was incredibly creative in her painting of a country scene on one of the walls, and then decorating it with butterfly decals. We felt that butterfly's might not be the most appropriate for a boy, so Hilary has painted a tree in the room, and some little animals on the wall.

We have also removed the bunk bed and put the mattresses on the floor. We are unsure of what he will be used to, so we will play it by ear when we finally meet him as to his sleeping preferences.


Also, yesterday we received news of one more step, and in many ways, it now feels as though we are further along in the process than we were before. We received a court file number. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is one more step.

Now we wait until we actually receive our own court date. With some of the new changes that are in place in the process, we don't expect to hear of a court date until mid to late April, so this may be a period of time again of no news. But we will continue to be patient. It's getting closer!

Hello Little One!!

After what has been a whirlwind couple months, We officially received a referral on Friday.  As most, if not all of you reading this blog know, we have been trying to adopt from Ethiopia.  This process has had many ups and downs, and 2 months ago, we had one of those downs.  Our adoption dream was halted due to some decisions made in Ethiopia.  We made a decision at that time, that we would be interested in getting back into the process, and maybe we could get a referral relatively quickly.

On Friday afternoon, WE RECEIVED THAT CALL!!!!

WE RECEIVED A REFERRAL FOR A BEAUTIFUL 20 MONTH OLD BOY!!!

The obvious questions are why only one child, and what does this mean for a potential travel date to Ethiopia.  We received an update from our agency (sent to all families) that basically stated that there were relatively few siblings available to be referred.  When we submitted our file, what feels like many years ago, we said that we would accept one or two children.  We are ecstatic that we may be so close to being able to parent a little boy, and are now anxiously waiting for a court date.  We have no idea how long it will take to get a court date, but our guess would be that the earliest we could be travelling would be mid March, but that all depends on how things move.  As was evidenced in the previous situation, nothing ever seems to happen exactly how we would expect it to.  Only God knows when this date will be.

Please pray for us as we begin waiting in earnest once again, and for this little boy as the orphanage prepares him for a very different life.  Please pray for the entire situation, that it would work out much quicker, and better than it did the last time, and that the end would be positive.  Please also continue to pray for the girls that we were not able to adopt, and whatever situation they are in.  Even though we have moved on in looking towards a new referral, we will NEVER forget these two girls.

We thank you ALL for the support, encouragement and prayers that all of you have been to both of us, and once again, we look forward to showing off our boy to the world.  (as an aside, we will not be sharing current pictures, and the story of his life, so please respect our wishes here)

Goodbye

It is with heavy hearts that we share this news.  After nearly 18 months of waiting for these 2 girls (which we were referred on June 17, 2011), we were told on Friday morning, that our adoption of them would not go forward.  We are devastated, but have started to come to grips with the reality of losing them.

We cannot share any details of the situation, but we want to make clear, that this was a situation unique to these girls and us.  It is a decision that has been made in the best interests of all parties, and we have assurances that the girls will continue to be loved and cared for.

We have felt a great deal of support from our "international' agency, our local agency, and the orphanage in Ethiopia.  We felt that they did everything they could in the situation to give us information when they received it, and supported us when breaking the news to us.  We also want to thank all those friends and family that have been incredibly supportive throughout this ordeal.  It means a lot to both of us.

We struggle with where to go from here, but we hope that we will still yet have some good news to share eventually.  We will be taking some time away from the blog, but will continue again once there is news to share.

Sheldon & Hilary

Happy Birthday!

We are still here and will keep on posting when we are able and/or when we have news we can share.

Today is S's Birthday. She turns 3. It has been nearly 500 days since we first saw pictures of her. We wish her a very happy birthday.

We love you dearly already, and hope that you had a great day. We hope that we will someday be able to meet you!  Have a great day, and enjoy playing with all your friends.  Hopefully you got a nice treat for your birthday, and we celebrated your birthday with this nice cake.  We wish you were here!!!

We Love You!