We received an update from our adoption agency today. Ethiopia will implement the two trip rule beginning May 9th. What this means to Steve and I is that we will need to take two trips in order to adopt our daughter. The first trip will be after we receive our referral and she has passed court in Ethiopia. We will have a court date with an Ethiopian attorney and judge. We will need to state that we have met our daughter and are aware of any health or developmental concerns she may have. The second trip will, most likely, be made by Robin and I. That is when we get to pick up Baby Girl Hagelin and bring her home to the United States.
I believe we still have awhile to wait for the referral of our daughter. The agency is currently processing girl referrals for families who submitted their dossiers in January 2009. We did not submit our dossier until July 2009. Please keeep our future child and her birth family in your prayers.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
April Update
Below is the most recent update from Merrily, the director of our agency.
I returned a week ago from Ethiopia following one of the most exciting trips in a long while.
There are many babies with stuffy noses in the nursery. The weather has gone from hot to cold and back again which always seems to bring out colds. No babies have been really sick, fortunately.
There are new babies in the nursery but we are waiting for more legal work to be completed before offering them to families. Therefore there hasn’t been much movement on the waiting list. The next family to be offered a baby girl is an old family whose referral had to be withdrawn, the next will be the last December family. For boys, we have one more family whose dossier went to Ethiopia in April of 2009 and they will likely be offered the next baby boy. It looks like the time from submission to referral will be getting a bit longer, though we expect to be doing some catch up once legal documents come through.
We have had a number of preschool children come into care and at the moment have two boys in the 5 to 5 ½ year old range waiting for families.
The discussion of whether or not families are going to ultimately be required to appear in court on their own behalf continues. It is not likely that this will be resolved soon. We will let you know when we know more. It is possible that this will become the case at some point but we just don’t know right now.
Only being allowed by the U.S. Embassy to do visa interviews for 10 children every two weeks may begin causing a back log of families. Gail is always careful in scheduling these appointments to be as fair as possible to all. Do be sure your fingerprints and homestudy are current. AAI doesn’t necessarily have this information and we don’t want to schedule visa interviews for families whose fingerprints or homestudy need to be updated.
Several cases have passed the court this week. One thing we are finding is that cases are not necessarily being heard on the date we are given, some are heard earlier, some later. It is very difficult for families when they are expecting news only to learn that the case was not heard. On the other hand some have been very pleasantly surprised to learn that their case passed though we didn’t know it would be heard that day. Such is working in Ethiopia, it is not possible to predict with accuracy!!
I returned a week ago from Ethiopia following one of the most exciting trips in a long while.
There are many babies with stuffy noses in the nursery. The weather has gone from hot to cold and back again which always seems to bring out colds. No babies have been really sick, fortunately.
There are new babies in the nursery but we are waiting for more legal work to be completed before offering them to families. Therefore there hasn’t been much movement on the waiting list. The next family to be offered a baby girl is an old family whose referral had to be withdrawn, the next will be the last December family. For boys, we have one more family whose dossier went to Ethiopia in April of 2009 and they will likely be offered the next baby boy. It looks like the time from submission to referral will be getting a bit longer, though we expect to be doing some catch up once legal documents come through.
We have had a number of preschool children come into care and at the moment have two boys in the 5 to 5 ½ year old range waiting for families.
The discussion of whether or not families are going to ultimately be required to appear in court on their own behalf continues. It is not likely that this will be resolved soon. We will let you know when we know more. It is possible that this will become the case at some point but we just don’t know right now.
Only being allowed by the U.S. Embassy to do visa interviews for 10 children every two weeks may begin causing a back log of families. Gail is always careful in scheduling these appointments to be as fair as possible to all. Do be sure your fingerprints and homestudy are current. AAI doesn’t necessarily have this information and we don’t want to schedule visa interviews for families whose fingerprints or homestudy need to be updated.
Several cases have passed the court this week. One thing we are finding is that cases are not necessarily being heard on the date we are given, some are heard earlier, some later. It is very difficult for families when they are expecting news only to learn that the case was not heard. On the other hand some have been very pleasantly surprised to learn that their case passed though we didn’t know it would be heard that day. Such is working in Ethiopia, it is not possible to predict with accuracy!!
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