Best Book EVER!

Joel got me There Is No Me Without You for my birthday (yep its official I'm 32). I started reading it yesterday and about 5 hours later went to bed. If I were not sick I think I would have stayed up all night and finished it. I thought it was about adoption in Ethiopia. It is so much more. If you have not read it you should-even if you are not adopting.

Inter Country Adoption (IA): In a nutshell

I am stealing this from someone who posted it on an ethiopadopt group. I think this covers just about everything:

1. Fill out questionnaire.
2. Send check.
3. Fill out big questionnaire.
4. Send another check.
5. Get interviewed. (have a social worker inspect your home- panic)
6. Get fingerprinted twice.
7. Write check.
8. Apply for Visa.
9. Write big check.
10. Get more fingerprints.
11. Get copies of every official certified thing ever written about you
or files on your behalf.
12. Get your friends to write nice things about you.
13. Get them to write more and different nice things about you to put
into the file.
14. Wait forever for the INS to figure out you aren't a terrorist
training camp for toddlers.
15. Send another check with your completed file you've copied 9 times
because you want to be sure.
16. Send everything to the agency and hope that this is NOT the one
package they lose today.
17. Wait.
18. Wait some more.
19. Cruise the boards to find out who's getting referrals.
20. Worry that maybe you picked the wrong agency.
21. Wait some more.
22. Get Referral!
23. Send last check.
24. Wait
25. Wait.
26. Check prices for airline tickets.
27. Get shots.
28. Check Passports.
29. Check on Visas for Ethiopia.
30. Wait.
31. Get a court date!
32. Worry you won't pass court.
33. Blame everyone and everything for anyone not passing court.
34. Panic.
35. Pass Court (or not, skip back to 32).
36. Panic some more.
37. Finish the kid's room.
38. Buy more toys.
39. Panic some more.
40. Wait.
41. Get second round of shots.
42. Wonder why there are 6 pages of things you MUST pack for a 10 day
trip.
43. Wonder if ANYONE ever packed that much.
44. Wonder how anyone did and STILL brought things over to donate to the program (feel guilty you couldn't bring more).
45. Meet your child.
46. Joy, mixed with panic because all of the your fears and doubts and
everything else are staring you down and sizing you up.
47. More bureaucracy.
48. Travel back to the USA with a child that thinks he's just been
kidnapped.
49. Kick yourself for not test installing the car seat before you left.
50. Home. Sleep. Panic.
51. Read your child his first bedtime story (that he still can't
understand because he doesn't speak English).
52. Realize that it was all worth it.

I laughed until I cried after reading this.

(I would add one thing around #40: go to baby store and look at things you can't buy because you don't know the sex of your baby or their age/weight)

Simple.

3 Months

Not that I'm counting the days (hours and minutes) but today is 3 months that we have been waiting. This last month has been difficult. The first two months went really quick but this last month seemed like an eternity. At this point it looks like we will be getting our referral (with any luck) before the courts close for the rainy season . That means we'll have to wait for courts to reopen before we'll travel.

Thursday

We made even more friends! Ahdra and Greg have two beautiful children adopted from ET at the same time. We went out for Ethiopian food tonight at a place about a mile from our house. They gave us some very helpful advice.

Emily & Tim (also new friends from IFIF) leave on Saturday to pick up their THREE sons from Liberia. I can't even imagine. I hope they have a crew of people bringing them food and cleaning.