Information from our Agency

A few days ago I did a post about our wait to referral. The next day I emailed our agency to touch base. They asked that we contact them once a month and in the past if I haven't made contact, I've gotten an email from them. It's a nice change of pace from Lili's adoption where we rarely heard from our agency.

As usual, I gave our coordinator a quick synopsis of what's going on and told her that I was handling the wait well and wasn't feeling anxious about our referral. I explained that it didn't mean I wasn't interested in current time lines or what was going on with referrals, but I just wasn't stressing over ours. I didn't hear from her for a couple days (which isn't normal), but finally last night I got a response. She apologized and explained her reason for not being more prompt in her response and then went on to explain that they had received word from the attorney that while the Ethiopian courts began working again on October 5th (the scheduled date of courts reopening), they are conducting training for some new laws that came into place during the summer. As a result, they won't be hearing any new court cases until November. Until cases begin passing court, parents can't travel to pick up their children. Until children are picked up by their new parents, there isn't room in the orphanage for new children who are eligible for adoption. However, there were children who left the orphanage over the last couple of months. These were cases that passed court prior to the courts closing. As a result, there will be some referrals, but it appears these cases won't be heard until at least November. This also means that new referrals will be delayed a bit as well.

The other piece of information I wasn't expecting is that the attorney has informed our agency coordinator that we are getting close to the top of the referral list. I don't anticipate us getting a referral in the next round of referrals, but possibly the following round. Maybe it's time to start getting serious about painting Naomi's room and shopping for nursery furniture. And for those who are wondering why we just don't use Lili's furniture - Lili's crib is convertible so we are going to convert it into a full sized bed for her and get Naomi her own convertible crib. We figured we would end up spending about the same amount of money on a bedroom set for Lili and I haven't been able to find anything I like as much as what she has now.

Like I said earlier, some children left the orphanage to their new homes during the court closure. As a result, this did open up space in the orphanage for new children. Yesterday I heard some good news from a couple families who are adopting from Toukoul. Please read their news here and here.