A lot has happened since our last post... from terrible news to great! We found out about a month ago that our agency would not be receiving their license anytime soon, if at all. Apparently there is a hold on licenses being issued and it is undecided as to when that hold will be lifted. Upon finding this news out, the director of our agency quickly began looking for another agency to take on our case (and the other families stuck in the same situation as us). This news was devastating to receive, as it was a definite possibility that this would all just fall through! Fortunately, one of the agencies contacted did agree to take the cases on, so we have officially transferred our case to this other agency. Yeah! We will be eternally grateful to them for helping us! They have been wonderful to work with and our original agency has also been great in making sure the cases transfer over smoothly and quickly. The director of our new agency has expressed several times how quickly she would like things to progress with our cases, as they know we have all been waiting a long time. Fine by us!!! So, over the past few weeks we have been flying through any paperwork that needs to be changed or updated.
Several months ago, the court process in Ethiopia changed. We originally did not need to be present at the court date, since we were filed in the system before the change took place. We will now be filed as a new case though, so it is mandatory that we attend court to meet our child before the hearing actually takes place. If all goes well in court, we will then come home for 4 - 8 weeks while they prepare her new birth certificate, passport & visa. Then, we will return to pick her up and to attend an appointment at the US Embassy where we will receive her birth certificate, passport & visa. After that, we will finally be able to bring her home :)
We will hopefully have our case re-filed in the courts within the next couple of weeks and shortly after that has been done, we will then be notified of our court date & begin making our travel arrangements to go there for that & to meet our little girl for the first time! The children were moved over to our new agency's foster orphanage this afternoon. Please keep her & the other children in your thoughts as they spend their first night in a new place (while I am typing this)! We are worried of how "B" & the others are handling it, but comforted that they were moved together. In order to move forward with things, this move was necessary. So, that part of it makes us feel beyond excited right now! It is a HUGE step forward! We finally feel a sense of relief that this is going to happen & we are going to bring her home!
Thank you again to all of our family & friends for being there for us throughout this journey that has been much longer than we expected! It really does mean so much to us! We will continue to post any updates as we receive them!
