I wish I had started this blog last year when we made the decision to adopt. The best I can do is try to recap our experiences over the past year. After reading other blogs regarding international adoption, especially those adoptions from Ethiopia, I want to try to give information for matters on which I really had questions/thoughts.
Rick and I began this journey in April 2006 when we decided to complete our family with a little girl through adoption. After investigating the different options, we found that international adoption was the only route for us, and for various reasons, we chose Ethiopia. Thus the mountain of paperwork began!! It took several months of gathering all the items needed to complete our Gladney application, CIS application, and the foreign dossier. We actually got through everything fairly quickly and thought we were on track for a trip to Ethiopia by the end of 2006. Due to a small delay with CIS, we did not get final approval from Immigration until the middle of February, so our visions of an Ethiopian Christmas didn't pan out. But the best thing still happened ... I sent our official approval form from CIS to Mary at Gladney on a Friday in February. Three days later on Monday, Mary called me. I thought she was only going to tell me that she received my envelope, but she went on ... she had a referral for us! Needless to say, I was completely shocked! We had been told that things happen quickly in the Ethiopian program, but this was beyond quick! The only reason I can think of that expedited this for us is because we had requested a toddler. We wanted a little girl who is younger than, but close to Carson's age of 4. And we got her! We were introduced to beautiful little Kalekidan Yoseph through photos and medical information. It took less than 24 hours for us to reply to Mary that we knew she was ours! Her name means "promise" in Amharic, which is absolutely perfect. We decided to keep Kalekidan as her first name and we will call her Kali (think Gov Schwarzenegger trying to say California!) for short.
Rick and I began this journey in April 2006 when we decided to complete our family with a little girl through adoption. After investigating the different options, we found that international adoption was the only route for us, and for various reasons, we chose Ethiopia. Thus the mountain of paperwork began!! It took several months of gathering all the items needed to complete our Gladney application, CIS application, and the foreign dossier. We actually got through everything fairly quickly and thought we were on track for a trip to Ethiopia by the end of 2006. Due to a small delay with CIS, we did not get final approval from Immigration until the middle of February, so our visions of an Ethiopian Christmas didn't pan out. But the best thing still happened ... I sent our official approval form from CIS to Mary at Gladney on a Friday in February. Three days later on Monday, Mary called me. I thought she was only going to tell me that she received my envelope, but she went on ... she had a referral for us! Needless to say, I was completely shocked! We had been told that things happen quickly in the Ethiopian program, but this was beyond quick! The only reason I can think of that expedited this for us is because we had requested a toddler. We wanted a little girl who is younger than, but close to Carson's age of 4. And we got her! We were introduced to beautiful little Kalekidan Yoseph through photos and medical information. It took less than 24 hours for us to reply to Mary that we knew she was ours! Her name means "promise" in Amharic, which is absolutely perfect. We decided to keep Kalekidan as her first name and we will call her Kali (think Gov Schwarzenegger trying to say California!) for short.
We were still in the authentication process at this point and the next round of delays began! After reordering birth certificates (apparently the "original" I had ordered for Rick was not truly an original), sending another copy of my birth certificate to the Secretary of State of Indiana (they lost the first one), and lots of overnight Fedex-ing, we got the word that our paperwork was now in the capable hands of Belay in Ethiopia.
Last Wednesday night, my ESP kicked in ... I had a dream about holding Kali and kissing her sweet face. Thursday afternoon Mary called with the good news that we have a court date of May 23rd! We flew off to Chicago for Landree's graduation from Wheaton College with this great news and we were able to thoroughly enjoy the weekend!
So, we are now at the point where we have to decide on an airline and a room in Addis. Gladney recommends both Ethiopian Air and Emirates Air. Price is comparable on both. Channing recently flew Emirates from India to London and said the airline was fantastic. But, I think we are leaning toward Ethiopian Air for the pure fact that there are no layovers anywhere. It appears to be a direct flight from Washington to Addis with one stop for refueling. Emirates has 2 layovers there and 2 on the way back. That is too much deplaning for me when you have a small child with you! We will post later to give more insight into Ethiopian Air. As for hotels, I was worried about Kali making another move from the orphanage to the Gladney foster home. I was even more worried about her stress level when these two strangers come in and whisk her off to a hotel to stay with them, away from her comfort zone. Abby has assured us that the transition for Kali should go well. She also said that the hotels are quite near Kali's orphange so we would be close to her old "home". We are relying on her, and I think we will choose the Hilton. Again, additional posts to come later.
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