A Little Lift

What cute little toes

Well, today we received 15 new photos of Delylah. Our agency sent 5 and our friends Tymm, Laura, and Meron sent us ten photos from their trip to get baby Meron. That was a definate lift in our spirits because we have been so down about not knowing when we will get to bring our little girl home. We also received a little update on her weight and she is a little butterball at 15 and a half pounds. I am now hoping that Lennah's clothes will fit Delylah after all because Lennah was just shy of 15 pounds when we brought her home at almost 8 months and Delylah just turned 5 months on Friday. Hopefully, we will hear something about Delylah's orphanage starting to process cases soon. Keep us in your prayers.

Still NO News

Well, things are getting frustrating. We were out of town last week and were hoping that something positive would come to light and that we might by some miracle beat the court closing after all if cases started being processed again but no such luck. We did have our friends Tymm and Laura go to pick up their little girl Meron last week and visit with Delylah but of course we would rather be holding her ourselves. We also have another fellow Illien adopting family heading there this week to visit their baby and our kiddos and they will be giving Delylah lots of love. I am just praying that something changes soon. I hate the wait. We just want our little girl to come home.

Depressing News

I cannot really get into the details but things are a little shaky where Delylah is at right now. This will now cause a hold up on her adoption and Keith and I are so sad that she will not be home for several more months. It should have been around August when we brought her home but some issues arose in the orphanage she is at and this is causing major paperwork delays. In turn we will not beat the court closing for the rainy season which lasts from August 6th-September 25 this year. Please keep this oprhanage in your prayers, the other families adopting from there right now (who are in the same situation as us), and the children. We hate knowing that our Delylah is growing up right now without her mommy and daddy and it is going to take even longer to bring her home.
Also pray for our friends Tymm and Laura who are leaving Friday to get their baby girl Meron. She is Delylah's crib mate and they were the ones who brought us to our Delylah.

A little lift for spirits

I just received three new photos of Delylah from our agency. Our girl is growing and getting more and more cute every time I see her. She has hit the 12 pound mark. I just hope she doesn't grow too fast and out grow the clothes we have for her. We have a lot of clothes from Lennah that are in great condition and bought Delylah several new outfits because every little girl needs something old and something new. This definately helped me feel better today after not getting the best news yesterday.

Good News Bad News

So it appeared that the agency made a mistake and Delylah's abandonment period was up on Saturday May17th. We were so excited because we would have just had to wait for the Women's ministry to release her paperwork and we could have filed for our court date and brought home our baby soon. Well, this is not happening as we thought we are still waiting on approval from our government which normally takes 90 days and we are only at half that so our agency called the local USCIS office today to try to get this pushed through quicker. Well, that does not appear to be going to happen. The person in charge is out of town for a week and a half and the person currently working the cases can't promise anything. She told our agency to call back around June 10th or so. This news is putting a damper on things because we are concerned that we may not make the court closing. We are just praying that something comes through.

Mother's Day and Two Weeks

Delylah's hand I wish we were holding it

Hopefully, I am not being repetitive since I posted on Lennah's blog but we had a wonderful mother's Day. Even though Delylah is not home Keith got me a gift from both the girls. It was a beautiful carved photo album from Lennah and Delylah. It was a wonderful day but it would have been even better if Delylah was home. Next year will be even better than this years.
Well, we are down to only two weeks left until Delylah's abandonment period is up. This means that once this period is up, the orphanage will apply to take over custody this could take any where from one to four weeks. From there they will apply for a court date for her to become ours. So hopefully they will schedule a court date for mid July and we should travel mid August. I just hope everything goes as planned.

Fingerprints Done

Yesterday Keith and I had our fingerprints done to complete our I-600A application. I guess when you go in the middle of the week it becomes a quick process. Of course I had to miss work and we did request a Saturday appointment but they quickly disregarded that request. I am becoming anxious because Delylah's abandonment period is up in 19 days. We are just praying that our paperwork comes through so we can beat the court closing. Even though Ethiopia is now allowing children to be free for adoption 60 days after they are abandoned it is taking about another month to get clearance from the MOWA. So we should accoding to my calculations have a court date around the end of July and travel the end of August.
We also have not heard a lot of news about Delylah recently. With the power outages in Ethiopia our agency is having a really hard time getting in touch with their in country staff.
Hopefully, we can touch base with more families traveling to her orphanage so we can get some updates and photos from them.