The Purpose of This Blog!

The purpose of this blog is to give me a place to write about our Ethiopian adoption. My husband and I have been involved in adopting two baby girls from the Toukoul orphanage with the help of our adoption agency, Dove Adoptions. We have been waiting for a referral for 3 1/2 months, and, to be honest, the suspense is killing me!!!! Add the news that the Ethiopian government, as of yesterday, now requires adopting families to make two trips to Ethiopia, one to meet the child(ren) and appear at court and one to pick up the child(ren) and be present at the American embassy appointment. Before this new policy, adopting parents were required to make one trip to pick up their children and go to the embassy for visa processing. Power of attorney was given to our lawyer who would go to court on our behalf. This new policy was put into place for a VERY good reason, one that I am in complete agreement with. Apparently, before the new policy, some adopting parents were granted parental custody of the children, and when they went to pick up their child(ren), they, for some reason that is beyond me, would leave the country WITHOUT their new family member(s). A big HUH????? is in order here along with some severe head scratching and incredulous looks!!! For the life of me, I cannot understand why people would go through the grueling process of international adoption only to abandon their child(ren) in their birth country. For those people who have committed such a terrible act, I ask you WHY? In some ways, I am glad about taking two trips. I get to see my beautiful daughters earlier than I anticipated, and I get to spend more time in Ethiopia getting to know the country of my daughters' birth. Also, there may be an opportunity to meet members of their birth families when we go to court which is always a plus. On the down side, we have to leave our precious daughters behind after we love, kiss, hug, hold, cuddle, feed, talk, and diaper them while we wait for their visas to be issued at the American embassy. Yikes!!! I'm sure I'll be in tears and my momma heart will be breaking!!! Also, the added expense of two trips makes my heart palpitate wildly! It is a stretch to pay for one trip let alone two! I keep praying to God that He will see this through for us. I suppose that this new policy is meant to strengthen our faith even more. I ask you to keep our family in your prayers so we can smoothly and easily be united with our two new daughters.