One Step Closer to Knowing

Hey, How are you? We're fine, just a bit tense and busy and not hanging out here lately. I've been regretful about having no news to report. At a certain point you start feeling like a liar - telling everyone it is so soon and then - a while of nothing much to say. At this point it might be wise to fill you in on what happens after we hear that our agency has found a baby boy who needs a family as much as we need him:

After we receive THE CALL from our agency they will email us a description of the boy they have available to us and his medical history and we will have a chance to review this information and accept or decline the referral. When we accept a referral, our agency will arrange for a court date for us in Ethiopia. This is not a date that we will be present at - we have given our agency power to act on our behalf to legalize our adoption in Ethiopia. Our agency will be making all necessary arrangements to organize documents needed for this critical day in court. Right now it appears that our court date will take place around 3 months after we receive a referral.

If at our first court appointment all of our paperwork satisfies the judge, our adoption will be legalized and our boy will become a Bullington. We will travel to pick him up a few weeks later.

And then he will be home.

Sounds simple, right? According to our agency around 30% of families do not "pass court" the first time. This means additional documentation has to be provided and your case may be delayed by weeks or months.

And courts are closed during August and October. So if we are delayed by much we will have an additional wait time tacked on. I try very hard not to think about this, but it is out there on the horizon like a dark cloud that may come this way or may not. So I feel compelled to mention it so you can see what I see.

This morning I woke up gripped by the fear of that scenario.

But overwhelmingly right now the feeling is of hope. The Rogers family, whose paperwork travelled to Ethiopia in the very same package as ours got referred an infant girl yesterday! They had requested either a boy or a girl baby, so that means we are very close to the front of the line.

I hope to have more to tell any day now. . . .