First Impressions

(From our first day back together, April 18th!)
*She's as beautiful as we remember!
*We've never seen her feet! They are long and skinny with a cute little birthmark on the bottom of her left foot.
*She is incredibly flexible and plays with her feet like they are toys.
*Her muscles are very weak. She is very wobbly and unable to sit up. Sadly, this is due to the fact that she was mostly laying in a crib for the first seven months of her life.
*She can roll well but she prefers to stay on her back.
*When we hold her up, she doesn't know to put her legs down. She doesn't seem to have ever put weight on her legs.
*She has two tiny, crooked bottom teeth.
*Her language seems to be developing well. She babbles and "talks" all the time. Her favorite sound is "Da" and Bobby is working very hard to help her know that is his name.
*She has very expressive eyebrows, like her Daddy and a long torso just like our other three.
*To sooth herself to sleep, she likes to rub fabric on her lips. If a blanket is not available, her sleeve or the front of her shirt will do. She prefers to have her face partially covered by her arm or a blanket while she sleeps.
*Her hair is about an inch long, in tiny curls against her head.
We are in LOVE!

Embassy Trip

There are so many things that I want to write about our second trip to Ethiopia and our first few weeks as a family of six, but I don't know if I will ever get it typed out. : )

When we said goodbye to Desta in November, we never imagined it would take us five months to travel back to pick her up. Of course, we all prayed for her and continually kissed her picture telling her that we would be back for her. I wish that she would not have had to spend ten months in a "less than optimal" environment. (That's what they say in adoption circles.) It certainly was less than optimal, and I can't understand why God allowed all of that to happen. But we trust that He was the one who directed our steps and He will heal her heart from that time.

Our transition has been incredibly smooth. Our family finally feels "whole" and we are enjoying every minute of being together. After being home for a week or two, I realized how light I felt. Even after adding another child's needs to our daily life, the emotional weight of trying to get Desta home is finally over. I didn't realize how much energy it was taking and how much stress it was adding. Our daily struggle of trying to stay focused on our life here, while wondering if there was anything more we should be doing to speed her homecoming, was exhausting. I don't think we fully realized that until now. It feels WONDERFUL to have her HOME.

Still Waiting . . .

We are still waiting for clearance from the US Embassy in Ethiopia. Several families that were submitted after us have already cleared, so that is a little worrisome. We are hopeful that we will get some kind of update on our case this week.

Until then, we have our suitcases ready to go and we are trusting in the ONE who called us on this crazy adventure.

Last Hurdle

We are finally there, finally at the last adoption hurdle! Embassy. Our paperwork and Desta's file including her brand new birth certificate and passport, were submitted to the embassy last week (the 23rd). They will look over the file and either CLEAR us for TRAVEL or ask for more documentation for our case.

In January, our friends that we met on our first trip to ET were going through the Embassy process and every single family had a hard time. They all had to wait several weeks before being cleared for travel. In one family's case, they are still waiting to be cleared. : (

We are obviously praying that we would be cleared immediately! It's time for her to be HOME!

We should hear this week . . . We'll let you know!!!

Photo updates, Seven Months

We had so many emotions when we opened these pictures! She has grown so much since we saw her in November!! She has so much hair and it's so curly!!

Love her!! : )

Desta Joy Erickson

It's finally official! Desta Joy is an Erickson legally from the Ethiopian government standpoint. We are so grateful to God that He has chosen to bring her into our family!!

(This photo was taken in November when we were visiting Ethiopia for our court appearance. She was four months old.)

Pending . . .

HI Tyra,

There were MOWA letters forwarded for two cases yesterday, but not yet for your case. The judge is not setting new court dates for all of these pending cases, she is just approving cases one by one as the MOWA letters are received by the court. I would anticipate we will hear of one or two approvals each day this week. We will let you know once we hear news of your case.

No News . . . but a PICTURE!

Just wanted to let you know that we did not hear about court. The results of court did not make it to us today.

However, they did send us a new picture of our sweet one and we have been floating around ever since. I'm SO in LOVE!! She has grown so much and has tons of hair. Her hair was fairly straight when we saw her three months ago. Now it is kinky curly! She is so pretty! Can't wait to be able to post pictures here.

We also got a doctor's assessment. He said that she was healthy and sitting with help. Can't wait to get her home!!!

Thanks for hanging in there with us!

Court Dates 4 and 5!

I don't know how tired you sweet people might be getting of this emotional torture . . . but Bobby and I have had about as much as we can handle. : ) The Ministry of Woman's Affairs (MOWA) has not been writing approval letters since our paperwork got back into the court system. . . all just paperwork, sitting on a desk, keeping us from our girl.

We had another court date set for Monday, February 7th. The MOWA office was closed last week so none of the approval letters were forwarded to court.

Our case was already rescheduled for this Friday the 11th. We are asking God to get that letter to our file before it goes before the judge, even if He has to reach down and move it himself! : )

Please pray with us that God would show his incredible POWER and glorify Himself by allowing us to pass court tomorrow.

That's our prayer.

Next Year

Our sweet girl was six months old on Christmas day. We were disappointed that we had to celebrate without her this year but we are all looking forward to having her with us next year. I got a little pink in my stocking . . . so fun. We love you sweet girl! Can't wait to see you in these.

Christmas Creations and Good News

Today has been a good day! I got to have lunch with Bobby and his staff to celebrate the end of their semester. The boys are very close to finishing all of the school that we (I) wanted to finish before Christmas. Our agency received the letter they needed and our new dossier will be sent to Ethiopia soon! (Yay!) We are all warm and cozy at home with the snow falling hard outside. Thank you God, for restoring my peace.

Bobby caught Austin and I in action tonight making some goodies for next week. Aiden is always in the middle of the messes.

Fighting . . .

I'm fighting tonight. Fighting to keep a sense of peace. Fighting to focus on my life and the necessities of keeping this house running. Fighting off a weight that keeps creeping on me.

When we first realized that our adoption would be delayed, February 9th seemed like an eternity away and I was sad that it might be our embassy date instead of sometime in January like we had originally thought. Tonight I realized that we needed to pass court TODAY to be eligible for the Feb 9th date. As far as I know, our paperwork is not even in Ethiopia yet. It's unlikely that we will pass court before Christmas.

It could be March before I see my baby girl again . . . and that makes my heart hurt.

(After we pass court it takes about 6-9 weeks to get the paperwork in order for the US embassy (court decree from Ethiopian Gov., passport, birth certificate, etc.) and that needs to be submitted to the embassy two weeks before the appointment. Every agency has specific days for embassy appointments. Our agency has appointments on Wednesday: January 12th, January 26th, February 9th, February 23rd, March 9th, etc..)

What now?

Several of you have asked, "What's next?" and the truth is that we really don't know.

Our updated dossier is now at our agency in Washington (state). Our two papers that had to be certified at the State Department in Washington DC are still in route. We sent them by courier early last week and hope it will only take two weeks to get them back. I'm really hoping that they will show up early . . . Monday would be nice!

Once everything arrives at our agency, they will ship it to Ethiopia. At that point, no one really knows what will happen. Most likely, it will all need to be translated before it goes back to the judge. We don't know yet if we will have a scheduled court date or if the paperwork will just be reviewed when our agency submits it.

Obviously, we are just hoping that it will go as fast as possible!

After we pass court, it will take another 6-9 weeks before we can go back to pick up our girl. So we are very anxious to pass court quickly. It would be a great present to pass court before Christmas! Let's pray for that.

Perspective

Wednesday did not go as we hoped. It was a pretty hard day actually. However, today we are feeling hopeful again and are able to see all of this new news in the proper light.

We woke up Wednesday hoping to hear early the results of our court date. We emailed back and forth with the other families in our court group who were also waiting to hear. By noon, none of us had heard anything and we all started calling the agency. Two familes emailed that they had passed. We were so excited. Bobby called the agency and was told that both of the people that could tell us about our results were not available. He left a message and we waited another hour.

We called again and got the answering machine, "We are now closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. Please call back on Monday." I can't tell you how disappointed we were. We really wanted to hear before the holiday weekend and were so sad that no one had emailed or called.

During the next hour, we heard from the other family in our group that they had also passed. They had recieved an email earlier in the day. Bobby and I were confident that we had also passed, we just had not heard officially.

When the phone rang and our agency was on the other line, I was nervous that this was not going to be good news. Their office had now been closed for several hours and if we had passed they could have sent a one line email like they had done for the other family. My hunch was right, it was not good news.

The court decided that our dossier (complied in November and December of 2008) was now too old to be processed and must be completely redone.

Our agency was completely shocked by this news. They have facilitated thousands of adoptions over the last 20 years and this has never happened before. In the past, as long as each family had an updated homestudy, which we have, an older dossier was not a problem. Our agency said that this is how they discover policy shifts by the court. There is no advance warning. A family doesn't pass and the court says that this is the new standard.

It took us several months to compile our dossier the first time around and the news just seemed ridiculous and horrible at first. Now that we've had time to look at what we actually have to do, it seems very doable. The things that took the longest amount of time before do not have to be done again (homestudy and immigration). It is not something that we were prepared for or expecting but we can do it. In fact, if everything goes perfectly smooth, and we drive some of the paperwork to Santa Fe ourselves, we might even be able to finish it in a week.

It is against my nature to be optimistic : ) but I'm going to take a chance on this one!

Here are some of the things we keep telling ourselves:

*It's just paper work. We can do it and it is worth it.

*Our sweetie is being well cared for. She is safe, warm and well fed.

*This will most likely delay the process a month or two. Not years. It's just a few weeks really.

*Even if it takes months, she is still very young.

*We still feel confident that the Lord is adding her to our family regardless of how long it takes to bring her home and that is worth celebrating!

Waiting. . .

Last night while we were sleeping, our paperwork was at the High Court again in Ethiopia. We should find out today the outcome of our second court try. If we did not pass again, we will have a new court date and that will delay bringing our girl home. We are desperately hoping that we passed!

Please say a prayer for us, for our paperwork and our sweet girl . . .

Ethiopia, Day Three

Day three went much faster than I had hoped. We packed after breakfast and then went to spend more time with our sweet girl. We were moving pretty slow and then we had a difficult time finding a driver so by the time we arrived at the orphanage it was almost lunch time.

When I would go back to the baby room, I loved watching the workers changing and feeding a room full of babies. They work so hard. When they were changing a child they would say their name and talk with them. Sometimes they would clap as they said their name to get the baby's attention. The babies all wear cloth diapers, plastic coverings, warm jammies with feet and then an outfit on top. After they changed them they would smear vaseline all over their face and hair. We laughed that they always had an amazing shine! (It is really dry in Addis right now.)

This was my favorite day with her. She was more animated and excited to see us. She smiled at me when I leaned over her crib to pick her up. We noticed that she made more noises and when we laid her on the couch she kicked and moved around more. We were also all alone in the office with her for almost an hour. On the other days people were coming and going and another family and their little boy were also in the room with us. It was special to be in the room alone with her and get to know each other. She loved smiling at Bobby!! And we loved that she loved him!! It was so cute to watch them together.

As the time drew near to leave I was worried that I was going to come undone. Instead, a great peace came over me. I began to cry out of shear JOY that God was adding this precious life to our family. What an amazing blessing. We are so lucky to get to be her parents and one day soon she will be home with us for good. I was overwhelmed with God's goodness to us and so grateful that He is giving us another sweet life to enjoy and cherish. Only God could turn such a potentially sad day into something beautiful.

I did still have a really hard time laying her down in her crib for the last time. She cried when I laid her down and she had not done that before. I think we spoiled her a little in just three days. I held her as long as I could and then laid her down and walked out as quickly as I could. This entire process has required that we trust that the Lord is holding our baby when we cannot. I just had to go back to that place, the place of waiting and trusting.

We spent the rest of the day finishing paperwork and buying a few souvenirs before heading to the airport that evening.

As I imagined traveling to Ethiopia, it never occurred to me that there would be other families there with us. We were all experiencing this amazing trip together. We were so fortunate to have a wonderful group in Addis for the same court date as us. It was an unexpected blessing for me to get to know them and the children they are adopting, hear their story and journey that God has brought each of them on to this exact place. We hope that we will all be together again picking up our children in January!!

Ethiopia, Day Two

Our second day, we walked to our agency's compound and had a tour. There are offices for the staff, Wanna House (an area housing babies up to two and a half or three years old) and Layla (school/children's home for the older children). All of those are situated on a very small piece of land behind the large blue gate in the picture.

We had been told to be ready for leave for court at 1:30, but shortly after our tour, we were told our court time had been moved to "right now." Five families piled into a very small van and drove thirty minutes across town to the High Court. Once there, we waited in a large waiting room with 25 or 30 other people, some were familiar faces that we had met on the airplane. One by one, each of the couples were called in for a very short conversation with the judge.

The judge was a beautiful, soft spoken woman behind a desk piled with files. She had us sit in chairs adjacent to her desk and then her quiet questioning began. She asked us if we had children at home and if they were aware of the adoption. She asked if we knew any other families that had adopted Ethiopian children and if we had been educating ourselves about Ethiopian culture. The only question that was difficult to answer was if we had prepared ourselves to deal with issues regarding raising a child of a different race. We said that we had begun to prepare ourselves and she said that there would certainly be some challenges.

Before we went in to see the judge, our lawyer told us that we would not pass court. All of the families in our group were missing the recommendation letter from Ministry of Women's Affairs, a government agency that facilitates adoptions in Ethiopia. It was disappointing but not altogether unexpected. Adoption is an exercise in patience. : )

When we finished with the judge, she told us that our file would be reviewed again on November 24th and that our agency could represent us at that time so that we did not have to come back. It was very simple and seems a little crazy that we had to fly around the world for that three minutes. But since we got to see our sweet angel, see where she is living and fall in love with her . . . it was SO worth it!!

Ethiopia, Day One

We are home safely from a whirlwind trip! We flew through Washington DC and Frankfurt to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. A driver that works for our agency was there to pick us up at the airport.

We stayed at our agency's guest house. We had a nice master bedroom with a bathroom and small balcony. The kitchen was set up for us so that we could fix our own meals or we could sign up to eat the meal that the cook prepared. The guest house is a short walk to AAI, our agency's office and children's home.

However, our pun'kin is currently at the Missionaries of Charity orphanage across town. When Gail from our agency picked us up the first morning we headed straight there to meet her. After driving through a huge metal gate and parking in the courtyard, we met with Sister Joan of Arc. She escorted us to a large office and we waited there for her to bring in our baby.

Bobby got the cameras ready and I stood shivering all over, nervous and excited. A young Ethiopian nun dressed like Mother Teresa walked through the door holding a bundle of blankets. I couldn't even see a baby in there. She spoke softly, "Desta."

That was us. That's our baby. I walked forward and saw the most precious face. She looked just like the referral picture but now two months older. She has very distinct features and the tiniest nose. She had a very serious look at first and this displeased the nuns. They spoke Amharic with her but it was almost as if we could understand them saying, "Come on sweetie, show them your smile! Where's your smile?"

At their urging, she giggled and smiled and Bobby and I were completely smitten! She has the most gorgeous smile! This story would be so much better if I could post pictures with it! But I have to wait until we pass court for that.

Yes!

Back to our special referral day . . .

It took a little while to find Bobby. He was on campus at a meeting and my calls were not going through. I tried the office but they said that he had not returned from his meeting. Finally, I texted, "We have a baby!"

I got a call a few minutes later from a very happy husband walking back to his office. We agreed that I would wait until he got back to his office so that we could open the email at the same time. When he was finally at his desk, he called me back and we opened the email to see the sweet face that will, Lord willing, become our daughter. Mine did not immediately open the photo attachment but Bobby's computer did. I heard him sigh, "oh, how beautiful!" And I knew that he was crying. I'm still frantically trying to open my attachments. : )

"What? What are you seeing? You can see her?"

Finally, I got my picture up and the boys and I all stared at the precious face on the computer. It was a sweet moment.

Bobby invited Serena and Kyle (the staff in the office at the time) into his office to celebrate with him. We were all celebrating and talking at the same time. I remember Serena asking if I would know how to fix her hair. The answer is "no" but I hope to learn. : )

I sent the medical exam and lab report to my sister for her to look over but I knew that there was nothing that would keep us from saying, "Yes!"

So, I wrote an email back to our agency in Washington and said that we would like to adopt this precious girl.

They sent a pile of paperwork for us to sign. We needed to sign every page, including a copy of the picture that we have of her. However, we are not allowed to publish the picture here until after we pass court in Ethiopia.

Please pray with us that she has all of her needs met by very tender and loving hands. We will now wait for a court date in Ethiopia to meet with a judge to decide our case. Now that we have a name and a face, we are ready for that day to be tomorrow. : )

The Call!!

Tuesday morning everything was quiet and calm at our house. The boys were busy doing their school work and I was getting Aiden out of the bathtub when I thought I heard a woman's voice coming from the living room. We have a land line that we never use and the only people who call consistently are solicitors, so the ringer is turned off. But our adoption agency is one of the few that has that number!

By the time I made it to the answering machine, my cell phone was ringing and my heart started to pound. I picked up my phone . . . Call from . . . AAI!

Hello?

Hi Tyra. This is Merrily from AAI. Did I catch you at a bad time?

No!

I'm calling to talk to you about a baby girl . . .

She went on to tell me all the information that they know about this precious baby girl. She is tiny and around two months old, although I think she looks a little older than that. Merrily told me about the medical exam and the lab reports and that she is in need of a family.

At the end of the conversation she said, "I bet you thought I was never going to call." : ) I was in complete shock that she was telling me about the girl that we have been praying and hoping for. How can you wait for something and still be in shock when it happens? I don't know but that's how it went for me.

Merrily told me that she would email the file and the picture as soon as we got off the phone. We could give the information to our pediatrician and case worker to get their opinion and feed back, then we would need to give them an answer.

To be continued . . .