2009 in Review

The countdown continues. Only 8 more days to court!!!!

I did my first blog year end review in 2007. At that time we had spent the entire year in adoption mode and little did we know that we were less than 3 months away from bringing Lili home forever. Like in 2007, we have spent all of 2009 in adoption mode and are only a few short months away from bringing Naomi home. And just like I did in 2007 and again in 2008, I now present a quick review of the past year.

In January we were well on our way to having all our dossier documents in place when Microsoft announced they were cutting 5,000 jobs. Because we had no idea if Dave's job was going to be one of those cut, we completely stopped our Ethiopia adoption and began researching other options. In February we discovered his job was safe and we were back on track and collecting the rest of our documents. By March we were still waiting on our home study report to be completed and by April we were waiting on our USCIS approval. In May our dossier was finally complete and in the hands of our agency. In June our dossier was in Ethiopia and we were officially a waiting family. July, August, September and October we waited then finally November arrvied and we saw our baby girl's picture for the first time. In December we were notified that we have a January court date and again we wait.

We also had some stresses during 2009.

In January Ben borrowed my van to run a quick errand in our little town and while driving back hit a patch of ice, slid into an older truck which totalled my van. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but insurance didn't cover everything and we now had the expense of purchasing a new vehicle.

In July we were informed that the agency providing services to Ryan over the past 4 years had made the decision to discontinue those services. We switched everything into high gear and began the tedious task of finding a new and more appropriate agency for him. We were under pressure to file an appeal and find a new agency before his services were completely terminated by not only the agency, but the state as well. In late July we had located an agency that appeared to be perfect for Ryan and in August we began making the 2 1/2 hour one-way drive on pretty much a daily basis so Ryan could have regular visits to the agency while the paperwork was being processed. In September the move was complete, we were very happy with the new agency and we began to relax a bit.

Then, in October, Ryan began having problems with seizure control and landed in the hospital for almost the entire month. By November the seizures were finally back under control and we sat back and tried to regain some normalcy in our house.

Fortunately, our year was not completely full of collecting documents and taking care of Ryan's needs. We actually made time to get away from it all and took a few trips.

In the spring we took a quick trip to St. Louis for a fun weekend with several other Guat adoptive families. During this trip Lili was reunited with the little boy who spent his last couple of months in Guatemala in the same foster home as Lili and I was finally able to meet his mom who I had spoken with on the phone and traded emails with during the last few months of our wait.

In June we too a trip to Memphis for the first time enjoying some Memphis BBQ and a trip to the Memphis Zoo. A trip back to Memphis is definitely in our future for more BBQ and another trip to the zoo.

Following our Memphis trip we went to visit family in the Dallas area where Lili experienced her first boat ride, Dave and I enjoyed our first experience inner tubing and I enjoyed my first shopping trip to Sam Moon.

For our last trip of the summer we headed east to attend the Guatemala Adoptive Families Event (GAFE) in New Jersey followed by a quick trip to Boston where we visited some good friends, tried cannoli's for the first time, visited the agency that handled Lili's adoption and saw a few sites in Boston.

In September we went back to Dallas to surprise Dave's sister for her 50th birthday and then our travels were over for the year.

2009 also allowed us the opportunity to be reunited with old friends as well as giving us the privilege of making some wonderful new friends.

We are looking forward to all 2010 has to offer and wish all of our friends and family a safe, happy and prosperous New Year!

Since pictures say 1,000 words, here is my 2009 Lili in review!

January
February
March April
May June July August September

October November December

Single Digits

We are now waiting in the single digits!!!!!!

The other exciting news is that the crib has now been converted to a big girl bed for Lili. To make it even more enticing, we purchased a Dora comforter and pillow cases. She was so excited about her new bed last night and as I complete this post, she is sleeping soundly under her Dora comforter with about a dozen stuffed animals. Let's hope it continues.

CTC and Snow

Only 10 more days until court. While I'm excited about our upcoming court date, I also realize that things often change in Ethiopia. Several families were expecting their cases to be heard yesterday only to be informed that they had been rescheduled to the first week of January. But for now, I'll continue to do my countdown in the hope that we really do only have 10 more days of waiting.

Every year I hope for a white Christmas and living in Central Illinois certainly makes the possibility real. We didn't get the white Christmas I was hoping for, but the snow did fall from time to time. However, the following day, as we were returning from taking Ryan back to Charleston, the snow really began to fall. It fell and it fell and it fell. We woke up Sunday morning to a blanket of white, which is what I had hoped to see on Christmas day. It finally stopped snowing Sunday afternoon so Lili and I bundled up and headed out for her first driveway shoveling lesson.

We started easy by having her try her hand at using the scraper on the driveway.
Then it was on to the more difficult task of walking through the snow.
And then she tried her hand at the actual shoveling of the snow.
She was very good about getting the snow on the shovel, but not so good about dumping it off the shovel.

She was good at playing in the snow though.

She really loves the snow!

Let the Countdown Begin

Now that Christmas has passed, I'm officially starting our Countdown to Court, otherwise known at CTC :-) 11 days to go. Less than 2 weeks. Yay!!!

A Photographer in the Making

Dave copied pictures off Lili's new camera onto the computer last night and I had a great time looking at her work. I hope you enjoy them too!

These are the "Lights of Christmas" display.


Then we have the "Feet in the Morning, Feet at Night" photos. I'm only sharing a tid bit of the foot shots she took :-)

Now for the ever popular "Nostrils." You might want to stand back a bit for these.




Please note, she was actually trying to take pictures of other things in the van but had the camera turned the wrong way. As a result, there were about a dozen close-up shots of her face. LOL!!!

Now I present, "Big Ben, My Brother."

And then we have "Daddy-O."

Considering there were probably 100+ pictures taken, this is truly just a small sampling of her work.

I hope you enjoyed Lili's first photography show. I know I certainly did.

A Christmas to Remember

I have had many memorable Christmas celebrations over the years, but this is certainly one that I will fondly remember.

For those who read my Christmas Eve post, you know that 6 weeks and 1 day post referral, we finally received word of our court date in Ethiopia. Our case will go before a judge on January 8th - 8 weeks and 2 days post referral. If all our paperwork is in order, the judge will declare Naomi to legally be our daughter. Of course in our hearts she has been ours since the first day we laid eyes on her, but the legal process must take place before we can bring her home and we are very anxious for that to happen.

On Christmas morning we were still excited about the news from the day before, but Lili made this day extra special. At 2 1/2 years of age she was able to understand more about Christmas and very caught up in the awe and wonder of it all. That is what made the day so memorable for me.

Being 2 1/2 also meant that she was under the impression that ALL the gifts under the tree were hers, but she quickly got into the spirit of giving each person their gifts to open. She would even sit patiently watching as each person opened their gift. Okay, she sat patiently as each person opened a couple gifts and then she was done. Really, what more could anyone expect from a 2 1/2 year old :-) Still, it was so much fun watching her excitement about not only receiving, but also giving.

There was a lot of laughter in the house as we opened gifts and a couple moments in particular stand out to me this year.

Ben had opened his first gift which included some new boxers and sock. It was at that moment I realized we had not shared our new family tradition with him so I began to explain 'F-A-M-I-L-Y' and that each letter described the type of gift that would be in the package. I told him, "F stands for . . . ." and at this point he interrupted me and said, "Fruit of the Loom." This was a ROTFL moment for me and we were fortunate to have caught the entire exchange on video. And yes, Ben is a really funny guy. I did explain to him that F stood for future, which would be a gift that would be used in the future, but I will forever remember F also stands for Fruit of the Loom.

We scaled down Christmas quite a bit this year. It was primarily out of necessity since we are desperately trying to collect the money necessary to travel to Ethiopia in about 8 weeks. However, in scaling back we came to the realization that scaling back will also become a family tradition. It's so easy to get caught up in the commercial hype during this time of the year and by creating our new 'F-A-M-I-L-Y' tradition and scaling back, we had new focus and put more thought into our gifts this year.

One of the gifts that I thought long and hard about for Lili was her own camera. For the last couple of months she has been picking just about anything that is a square or rectangular shape and using it as a camera. She was also very interested in using my camera to take pictures, which was okay when I was helping, but it was getting to the point that she wanted to be behind the camera instead of in front of the camera. After a lot of thought and research, I found a good deal on a VTech digital camera for her. If I would have known just how excited and thrilled she was going to be about this camera, I wouldn't have thought about it as long as I did. I'm sure she had taken well over 100 pictures and little did we know we would be so entertained watching her take these pictures. She tells everyone to say cheese, presses the camera up to her face as if looking through the view finder, but really not looking at anything and then snaps the picture. Since the camera tends to be tilted up or down when pressing the shutter button, I have no doubt the majority of pictures are of the ceiling and floor, but watching the joy as she snaps away is priceless.

Lili's Future gift was her own carry-on bag for our trip to Ethioipia. It's pink and the front is nothing but a huge picture of Dora and Boots. It is just her size with a sliding handle and wheels. She has been getting a lot of practice rolling it through the house and I really had no idea she was going to love it as much as she does.

There were other special moments throughout the day, but instead of continuing on I'll just share a few photos from 'My Christmas to Remember."

Santa left a few crumbs on the cookie plate. I also think that next year we need to put the cookies on a cut little Christmas plate :-)

The photographer in action!

Lili had to stop and try out each new toy before unwrapping the next gift. Here she is putting together her new clock puzzle. It wasn't overly challenging for her, but will help her with number recognition and learning to tell time.
In the not too distant future I'll post some of Lili's photography on my blog. I'm sure you will all be checking in frequently for that post :-)

And how exciting to know that next year I'll be including photos of our little Naomi at Christmas!!!! I'm sure Christmas 2010 will be another Christmas to Remember!!!!

Since I'm Posting

You know it's good news!!!!!

Court date - January 8th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A mere 15 days from now Naomi could legally become our daughter!!!!!!!!!!

This is going to be a very Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas

Unless we get court news or something else really exciting happens, this will be my last post until after Christmas. However, before I sign off for the week, I want to wish each of you a wonderful and magical Christmas.

Merry Christmas!
Feliz Navidad !
Melkam Yelidet Beaal!

The Weather Is Going to be Frightful and Guest House Dilemma

We got a little bit of snow over the weekend. Just enough to make everything white, but not enough to shut anything down. However, Mr. and Ms. Weatherperson are now telling us that we'll get a little more snow this afternoon, but by Wednesday we'll be getting ice, followed by a lot of rain, followed by a little snow on Christmas Day. Ice! I hate ice! Unless it's in my glass of water, tea or soda. But the ice outside that you're expected to walk or drive on is what I hate.

As a result of the forecast, Lili and I decided to go do some shopping. The fridge has enough food to get us through the week, including Christmas dinner and my plan is to spend the rest of the week enjoying the comforts of home. I suppose that's the good thing about hearing the word 'ice' come out of Mr. and Ms. Weatherperson's mouth. It forces me to jump ahead of the game a bit.

Speaking of jumping ahead of the game, I've become a little obsessed with our future trip to Ethiopia. Obviously I'm obsessed with when we'll get our court date and when we'll finally travel, but I've been putting a fair amount of thought into where we will stay in country.

Many agencies have guest houses for their traveling families to stay at while in country. Our agency is no exception. Technically, the guest house is owned by Toukoul, not the agency, but it is there for the traveling families adopting from Le Toukoul orphanage. Our agency would actually prefer that families stay there, but it's not required. As a result though, it seems like a great option for us. My problem is the cost. To stay at the orphanage for one week will cost us between $1100 - $1200. This does include 3 meals, drinks, transportation to the Embassy appointment, to Le Toukoul and babysitting at the guest house if needed. However, there are other guest houses in Addis Ababa that are considerably less expensive. And when I say less expensive I mean like $500+ less expensive for the week with the only difference being maybe 2 meals per day instead of 1, with the 3rd meal costing $5 per person and we would have to pay for transportation. However, even those additional expenses don't add up to $500. Then there is the fact that many Toukoul adoptive families will be staying at the Toukoul Guest House and there is something to be said about sharing the experience with those other families. Still, is it worth the additional money? I mean after all, the primary purpose of our trip will be meeting our baby girl for the first time, getting to know her, getting to know a little bit about Ethiopia, go to our Embassy appointment and then bring her home.

What is your opinion? To those who have stayed at Toukoul Guest House, was it worth the cost? Would you have had less of an experience had you stayed elsewhere? To those who will be traveling in the future, what are your thoughts and plans?

City Sidewalks, Pretty Sidewalks

Dressed in holiday style. In the air there's a feeling of Christmas.

It's no secret in our house that I "LOVE" Christmas music. I've been known to sing Christmas songs in the middle of summer, because I "LOVE" Christmas music. It just makes me happy!!!

The other thing I love about Christmas are the lights and decorations. You wouldn't necessarily know that by looking at our house from the outside. We have no lights on the house at all, although in years past our house has illuminated the neighborhood. I do have a wreath on the door and when you enter our house you'll see 2 trees up and decorated, along with holiday pictures on walls, decorations on shelves, tables and the mantle. Again, it's not as decorated as it has been in years past, but that is primarily due to setting limits with a 2 year old in the house. Still, the lights and decorations make me happy.

For the last few years, my sister-in-law and her daughter have come over to our house sometime before Christmas. We load ourselves into the van and head over to East Peoria, IL to visit the Festival of Lights exhibit. This is a 'big' event in this area and this year marks 25 years for the Festival. Last night was the night. We loaded up the van and made the 35 minute drive to see the lights. Apparently, everyone else in Central Illinois had the same idea. We waited in traffic for at least 1 1/2 hours and as we approached the entrance Lili says, "Mommy, potty again." WHAT?!!!! Seriously?!!!!! Lili can you wait until after we see the lights? She said she could wait and this little girl does have great bladder control, so I trusted that she really could make it. However, there was a bit of concern, so it wasn't quite the relaxing drive we an envisioned. Still it was, as usual, a sight to see and has certainly become a Weeks' Family tradition.

We did take a few photos and although many didn't turn out the best (I either need a new camera or photography classes, probably both), here are some that will give you a small glimpse of the sights from our trip last night.

What a Way to Start the Weekend

No, we didn't get a court date, but the next best thing at this point.

We received an update on Naomi!!!!

We now have 2 new photos and boy has she changed. She is smiling in one of the photos and has dimples!!!!!!! AHHHH!!! You can see some chub on her legs and she is getting more and more beautiful. She now weighs 13.45 lbs and is 24.02 inches long. She is reported to be active, rolls over from back to front, reaches for objects, has a good appetite and sleeps well. The doctor states she is healthy and she certainly looks healthy to me.

Come on court date!!! Mommy needs to go get her baby girl!!!!!!

Twas One Week Until Christmas

And all through the house, creatures were stirring, but fortunately no mouse.
Most gifts have been purchased, no wrapping is done. Maybe this weekend that war will be won.
The tree has been trimmed with sparkle and lights. Making each evening cheery and bright.
Excitement abounds as the Holiday nears. Caroles we sing full of laughter and cheer.
Cookies and goodies soon ready bake. Only for those who wish to partake.
Starting anew with a family tradition. Next year we'll celebrate our new addition.
Family and friends we hold dear in our hearts. Thinking of them though we will be apart.
Now to all those we cherish, friends old and friends new, have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you.

Let There Be Peace On Earth

This is from December, 2008. One of the most beautiful and moving I've heard. What a talented group of kids. Hope you enjoy it!

Today Marks

- 9 days til Christmas
- 5 weeks since we received our referral
- Naomi's 6 month birthday

I'm not done with my Christmas shopping yet.
We still don't have a court date.
I want my baby girl home!

Sounds like I need to go shopping!!!!!!

What to Do While Waiting?

Okay, obviously one thing I can do while waiting to bring Naomi home is complain about the wait :-) I'm skilled at that! The other thing I can do is prepare for Naomi's arrival, which I've now officially started by putting together a list of everything I need to accomplish prior to her homecoming.

Item #1 is clothing. Based on Naomi's size at referral, she is probably wearing 6 month size clothes, but just barely. By the time we pick her up, she'll most likely be wearing 9 months size clothes. Sunday evening I got out all the containers of Lili's outgrown clothes and started sorting through them. What I discovered is that Lili had A LOT of clothes. LOL!!!!! The other thing I discovered is that the majority of what I have starts at 12 month sizes. Assuming Naomi is in 12 months sizes this summer/fall, she will be set, but prior to that she doesn't have much. Apparently I need to do make a trip to Baby Depot. Darn!

Item #2 is painting Naomi's room. I decided months ago that I would paint her room a light sage green color and shortly after the 1st of the year I WILL paint the room.

Item #3 is getting the room furnished. This is going to be the most expensive of the preparation projects.

Item #4 is getting a new car seat for Lili. Actually, item #4 will need to take place sooner rather than later. We decided that it would probably be better for Lili if she gets a new car seat and starts using it for awhile before Naomi comes home and takes over the seat Lili has been in for almost 2 years.

I'm sure I'll think of more items to add to my list, but it's a start and I can start focusing on the preparations and not just the waiting.

No Court Date

Over the weekend, one family received word on their court date. This gave me some hope that maybe, just maybe the attorney had submitted several cases to court and we would receive news today that we too had a court date. After waiting all day, not getting an email, and realizing that my email is still having problems, I called our agency. I was told that we do not have a court date yet, but they hoped to hear something next week and would hopefully be able to give us a good news for Christmas.

But I want good news now!!!!!

I also feel like a horrible person right now because another family, with a different agency received their court date news today. They received this news exactly 3 weeks after receiving their referral and their case goes before the Ethiopian courts on 1/1/2010. I know I should be really, really happy for them and I will be, but maybe not until after I receive our court date. We've now been waiting 33 days and Wednesday will mark 5 weeks since referral. On top of that Naomi will turn 6 months old on Wednesday.

Getting through the paperwork part of the process is exciting and hard. Waiting on referral is exciting and hard. Waiting on the process post-referral sucks. I knew it would, but it doesn't make it any easier.

My Little Artistic Daddy's Girl

Lili truly loves being creative and is now into putting her artwork on the refrigerator.
A few days ago I asked her to draw a face and this is the result.
I'm not sure why this person is crying, but I must say I am highly impressed that at 2 1/2 she was able to draw a face this well. Granted, the last time I had a 2 1/2 year old was 19 years ago so I don't remember exactly how well the boys were drawing at this age, but again, I'm impressed.

Lili has also become more of a daddy's girl lately and recently I took some pictures of daddy and his little girl.
Good thing he's not wrapped around her little finger. Ha, ha, ha!!!!!

Court Date Scoop

I've been having email problems for the last couple of days due to our Internet service provider installing a new server. I think all my emails are pretty much caught up now, and we've received no word on our court date. However, another family who traveled a few months ago on their pick up trip got some information from the attorney in Ethiopia and while I was not happy to hear the information, at least it is an explanation as to why we haven't heard anything yet.

Here is the scoop.

The agency we are with, Tree of Life (TOL), is a partner agency of Adoption Avenues. All our information comes from TOL. All our questions go through TOL. They handle all our paperwork, collect our money, etc. However, Adoption Avenues is the accredited agency in Ethiopia, so although TOL does all the work for TOL clients, it is all done via Adoption Avenues. This means they use the Adoption Avenues in country attorney, who is responsible for submitting all the necessary paperwork to the Ethiopian courts.

Once the paperwork is submitted, it take 3 weeks to obtain a court date. However, because Adoption Avenues has more clients now, the attorney waits until he has several files to submit to the courts and submits them all at once. He does this once every 3-4 months. As a result, some families may be waiting 3 or 4 months post-referral, while other families may have just gotten their referrals and be submitted right away because now the attorney has a large group he can submit at one time.

Now, I understand the attorney wanting to save himself trips and time, but he is doing this at the expense of the children sitting in Toukoul without their families and I just can't understand why anyone would want a child to stay in an orphanage any longer than is absolutely necessary. That does not make any sense to me at all.

In addition, until children leave the orphanage, there is no room for other children to move in which means families waiting on their referrals wait that much longer.

All this information means is that we have no idea if we'll get word of our court date soon or if it will be 3 months from now. All we can do is wait and all Naomi can do is wait.

Raffle Winner

As promised, Lili drew the winning raffle ticket this morning. Before I announce the winner of the Xbox 360, I want to thank everyone who participated. It means so much to us that there were so many who wanted to help out and be a part of helping us bring Naomi home.

The winner is (drum roll please) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Joyce Eimer!!!!!

Congratulations Joyce!!!!!

Joyce is one of Dave's old co-workers. And when I say old I don't mean this in terms of age :-)

I did video tape the drawing this morning and I had hoped to post the video today, but that probably isn't going to happen. I'll get it copied as soon as possible though.

Another Day

Based on the comments I received from my 'Sad' post yesterday, I want to clarify a couple pieces of information about the little boy in Guatemala who moved into the hogar yesterday.

If this little boy's foster family had the money or knew they would be receiving the money to continue caring for him, they most likely would have kept him. However, Guatemala is working on a pilot program that will hopefully be started soon. If the pilot program is successful, there will be about 200 children who will be adopted. It is my understanding that all of the 200 children being selected are older children, sibling groups, and/or children with special needs. This little boy would potentially qualify due to his developmental delays (which have been helped significantly with therapy), but he needs to be in a hogar to improve the chances of him being eligible for adoption. In addition to no working adoption system, Guatemala does not have a working foster care system in place. The fees paid by adoptive families was used to pay the foster mothers. Guatemala is a poor country with no social welfare system, thus no money to pay foster families to provide care for so many children.

The other point I should have made is that the family who legally became his parents went to visit him during the adoption process. They knew he had developmental delays early enough in the process that they could have backed out, but for whatever reason, allowed the adoption to continue to completion and then didn't go pick him up. I understand situations in which families discover during a pick up trip that their child has developmental delays and they don't feel they are able to adequately provide for the child. I will admit that for very personal reasons, I have a hard time understanding why someone wouldn't at least try to parent the child that legally became their child. I know I wasn't prepared at the age of 20 to discover that my biological child was not developmentally on track, but we don't know what we are capable of until we are put in a position of finding out just how strong we are as individuals. Of course that is probably a post for another time and one that would most certainly cause some people to quit reading my blog altogether :-)

Today, though, is another day. Maybe it will be the day we get word that we have a scheduled court date or maybe it won't. Maybe it will be the day that Guatemala announces more details about their pilot program, but probably not. One thing I know for sure is that today there are adoptive families receiving calls from their agencies announcing they have a child or children for them; there are families meeting their children for the first time; and there is at least one family who I'm sure is still dancing on cloud 9 from the news they received yesterday.

While I will continue to feel sadness about the little boy in Guatemala and about the children all over the world who long for and need a family, I will also feel great happiness for the families that are being formed today. Most of all I feel happy and blessed that Lili is now a Weeks, living under our roof and being loved more and more everyday. Today I will be happy that one day, Naomi will become a Weeks and will also be living under our roof and even while we wait is being loved more and more each day.

Feeling Sad

Yes, I'm feeling a bit sad that we don't have a court date yet, but there is something else that is making me sad today.

For those not familiar with the old adoption process in Guatemala, let me start out by giving you a very brief synopsis and then I'll get on with the story. I will be leaving out names to protect the innocent and the guilty.

Adoptions in Guatemala were handled by attorneys. A birth mother would go into an adoption attorney's office seeking assistance in finding a family for her child. The attorney would have the birth mother sign a document giving the attorney legal guardianship of the child. The attorneys hired foster mothers, but some also worked with or even ran orphanages, known in Guatemala as hogars. Most of the children were placed with a foster mother who would care for the child until the adoption process was complete and the adoptive family came to pick them up. The process included social worker interviews of the birth mother, all documents being closely scrutinized by PGN, DNA tests by the U.S., new birth certificate and U.S passport issued and then the Embassy appointment. Some cases required more steps than this, but this was the basic process for most adoptions.

Lili's foster mother worked for the attorney who handled our adoption and her mother also worked for the same attorney. When we went on our pick up trip, Lili's foster grandmother had a baby boy that had recently been placed in her care. He had been with another foster family, but the attorney didn't feel he was receiving adequate care and moved him because she knew he would be well cared for with this foster family.

We were invited to Lili's foster grandmother's house for an authentic Guatemalan meal during our trip and met this baby boy. He had some developmental delays, but was an absolute sweet-heart and I had no doubt he would blossom with this foster family.

We returned home and have stayed in contact with Lili's foster family ever since. Several months ago, while chatting with Lili's foster sister, we were informed that this little boy had been abandoned by his adoptive family and left in Guatemala. The family allowed the adoption to continue to completion, but decided they didn't want him because of his delays and never went to Guatemala to get him. They allowed their USCIS fingerprints and approval to expire and this little boy was now caught between two countries. He was the legally adopted child of a U.S. family, but not yet a legal citizen of the U.S.

I could not believe any family would or could do this to their newly adopted child. I was very angry and wanted to find some way of making sure that this little boy found a home. However, there was no legal way to make it happen and so he stayed in Guatemala.

Adoptions in Guatemala have since ended and this little boy has stayed in the care of the foster family for almost 2 years now. Recently they were asked to go to PGN to discuss the possibility of keeping him permanently. The outcome of that meeting did not end as they had hoped. Since the foster family does not have the income necessary to adopt him themselves, they were offered the opportunity to continue caring for him or to place him in an hogar. The problem is, the Guatemalan government will not provide any financial compensation to the foster family to pay for his care. He has been getting physical and speech therapy and has been doing very well. Those therapies need to continue, but cost money they do not have. In addition, if anything would happen to him while under their care, the consequences could be very bad for them. They spoke with the attorney who told them that it would ultimately be in the best interest of this little boy to move him to a hogar. If he stays with the foster family, there would be no chance for him to be seen by a potential adoptive family and in the hogar he has a chance of being adopted.

Today, the foster family turned him over to the Guatemalan government to be placed in a hogar. He will now go from a child getting much love and attention from a family to one of many children sharing love and attention of a few caregivers. He is just a few months younger than Lili and I can only imagine the confusion and fear he must be feeling. My heart breaks for this little boy and for Lili's foster family who loved him as their very own.

This is the other reason I'm feeling sad.

It's Been 4 Weeks Already

I can hardly believe that 4 weeks ago today we saw Naomi's face for the very first time. Those big, beautiful dark eyes; her cute little feet covered by socks that are too big; lots of gorgeous black hair; the little chubby cheeks and beautiful mouth that long to be kissed; and her perfect little body that needs to be held in her mommy and daddy's arms. She is just perfect in every way.

How I wish we had court news to share, yet here we are 4 weeks later and we have no court date. No end in sight. No idea how soon or how far away we are from bringing her home. I haven't really worried about it much until two different people posted a note on the agency forum that they received their referrals in October and still don't have court dates. One received her referral on October 12th and the other on October 21st.

Now, I realize that these families not having a court date after all this time doesn't mean we'll have to wait just as long, but it does make me wonder what is going on? How much longer will we be waiting?

One thing is for sure, there is nothing easy or predictable when it comes to International Adoption.

Travel Shot Saga Has Ended - Before and After

Last month Dave and I went in for our 2nd round of the Hep A/B series. There was some drama surrounding this immunization and I left the appointment very frustrated. You can read about it here.

Yesterday I called the travel clinic to make an appointment to go in for our Yellow Fever vaccines. I was on the fence about this one, but after reading the opinions of others I decided it was probably best to err on the side of caution so I made the appointment. The woman making the appointment asked how many times we had been in which opened up discussion about the misunderstanding regarding the Hep A/B series. I explained what I had discovered in my research and told her that we anticipated traveling sometime in the next few months so she ended the conversation saying she was going to talk to the doctor today and would call back. A short time ago she called and told me that the doctor had once again reviewed the schedule for the Hep A/B series and is in agreement with what I had discovered in my research. So, Dave and I will be going back in next month to receive our final Hep A/B immunization and will no longer have to wait until May. I'm glad that I didn't just 'listen to the doctor' and really did my research.

Now time for some Lili pictures.

Last winter was Lili's first experience with snow. I got her all bundled up, grabbed the camera and got some good shots of her first time playing in the snow.
Yesterday and today we got a little bit of snow and she wanted nothing more than to put on her coat and mittens so she could go outside in the snow. So, we got ready, I grabbed my camera and headed out for a little bit of fun snow time. She has gone from having a little baby face, to having a little girl face. Boo Hoo!!! The other big difference between this year and last is that she moves a lot faster, so most of the time I was trying to take pictures of a moving target :-) And of course what's better after being out in the snow, than a yummy cup of hot chocolate?!!!