Aug
7
There is much joy to share.
The ever-wonderful Ricki and her husband Bruce FINALLY got their referral… a beautiful, chubby little boy, 3 months old! After a long wait and months of wondering, they have a son they will soon be able to call their own, a little boy who answers all their hopes and dreams. I can’t tell you how happy this makes us, and many others out here in this adoption community!
Also getting great news this week is Dynamite Dianne and her husband, who got a referral for a tiny, perfect, 2 1/2 month old girl! Sounding very much like our own daughter with her dislike of the paparazzi, this little one has been eagerly anticipated and is already much loved. We are all so happy for them!
And then there is us.
Yes, we got good news this week too. Late this afternoon — after a phone call to our agency yesterday confirming that none of our paperwork made it out of the Ethiopian courts before the annual closure — we got a call telling us all our paperwork is out of the courts. Yes, it’s ALL DONE and in Nairobi. (Or en route to Nairobi. Who knows? I was too busy flipping out at the time to make notes.) And I mean, ALL of it. Her birth certificate, her passport, everything. At any rate, it means we gain back 8 weeks, and all that is left is to get our travel visas to Ethiopia, which takes about a week, and to obtain one single solitary facilitation visa from the High Commission in Kenya.
One single document separates us from travelling to finally meet our daughter. One document, and some travel arrangements.
We’re a little stunned. Needless to say.
Our case worker said, with the absolute best luck, our best case scenario to travel is two weeks. Calm down… that’s the ABSOLUTE BEST, Hail-Mary-pass, miracle scenario. More likely, we will be travelling sometime in September, if all goes normally. (Plus there are problems for families trying to travel with getting flights in August, so September’s probably better anyway.)
A few weeks ago, we were pushed back to November or December. And in one day, we’ve gained it all back again.
Some days, there’s just so much joy it’s dazzling.
Aug
7
It was inevitable.
We recently received some updated pictures of our daughter. All that beautiful hair I marvelled over and cooed over and bragged about? Is GONE. It all fell out.
Now, I was a bald baby. Bald as a cue ball. Bald and looking like Winston Churchill until I was 2 years old. And my sisters were bald. And all my nieces were bald. So the novelty is one reason I was so delighted with a baby with a lot of hair!
I didn’t know it could all fall out. But apparently, it can. It happened to BDH when he was a baby: born with a ton of hair, and then it all fell out.
So I guess it’s another way she’s taking after her daddy.
Kelly blames the delays in paperwork. She said that our daughter’s hair fell out when they told her that there was going to be a delay in when we could go pick her up. She also said it might explain why she looks so shocked:
<Image removed. Sorry.>
She said I should send before and after pictures to our local government officials and tell them, because of these delays, MY BABY’S HAIR FEEL OUT FROM SHOCK!
And with the look on her face… I’d have to agree.
(I love the giant clothes. But, to paraphrase Bernard and the Genie, there’s more to my daughter than FANTASTIC PANTS!)
