Finally!!!

After nearly 7 weeks we have moved up one spot on the sibling waiting list. We are now #10 with 5 families on hold in front of us!!! This unofficially makes us #5 since those families are not currently able to accept a referral for personal reasons such as a pregnancy. Our agency has definitely had a slow down for the past 6 weeks, but this week has been a busy one. 3 families received referrals, however we only moved once. 2 of the families were only on the infant girl list. Several families also received court dates today which is also a great sign that the process is improving within Ethiopia!! There are also several families preparing to travel for their embassy appointments. The embassy appt. is the final step!! Can't wait until it is our turn to travel. :)

It's been a long time.........

Yep!! It's been a long time with no referrals with our agency...one month to be exact. They say there is a lull right now because they are working to make sure all kids' paperwork is complete prior to giving out a referral. They also say things should pick up soon. We'll just keep praying that is true. :)

We moved another spot!!

So exciting...we moved up another spot to #11. We have been on the waiting list for nearly 5 months, so we're hoping we are close to a referral. :)

There is still uncertainty within the Ethiopian adoption process with MOWA. We have been told unofficially that MOWA has agreed to process 20 cases a day which is still lower than they were processing, but much better than the 5 they were originally threatening. Apparently the director of MOWA has stepped down and along with a few other employees. The US government seems to be working diligently with the ET government to continue to process adoptions ethically and timely. Unfortunately a few corrupt folks cause many problems for everyone.

Wait List movement and...uncertainty...

We moved up a spot!! We are now #12 with 4 families on hold in front of us...so we're sort of #8. That is the exciting news of the week!!!

The difficult news of the week is MOWA (Ministry of Women's Affairs) in Ethiopia announced they are cutting their processing from 50 cases a day down to 5 a day...threatening to reduce the number of adoptions approved from 4,000 per year to as low as 500 per year (those are world-wide numbers, not just the adoptions to the US). This becomes effective on March 10th. There are rumors that this may be temporary, but currently no one really knows. There is a US State Dept. conference call on Friday for the adoption agencies to address the issue. Also, a coordinator from our agency is on her way to ET to try to figure out what is going on. Hopefully we'll know more in the next few weeks. If this becomes a permanent policy with MOWA it will most likely become a significantly LONG wait.

more movement today -- we're #13!!

A little boy was matched with his forever family today, soooo that means we moved up one more spot to #13. Congratulations to the happy family!

List movement today!

Whew!!! We were starting to get a little bummed, but finally some good news...we moved up one spot today, so we are now #14. There were actually 2 referrals accepted today, but only one of the families was on the sibling list. So happy for both of those families!!

Good news today!

Woot woot!! We found out this afternoon we have moved up one spot and are now #15!!

We received an email from our coordinator about 2 1/2 weeks ago telling us there were 3 families 'on hold' in front of us so our numbers could change at any time. This means there are 3 families in front of us currently not able to accept a referral for some reason, so we are sort of #12.

The ET government (and the US embassy) have added on additional paperwork requests and additional investigations, so it seems to be slowing things down a bit. While it makes the waiting for us a bit more difficult, it is certainly for the best to maintain ethical practices!