70 and counting

Today our social worker let us know we were #70 on the overall list and #27 on the list of people waiting for a boy 0-15 months old. Yipee. It's getting closer. (and pretty good considering we were #280 something on the waiting list for Vietnam).

We though we'd tell people when we first got on the waiting list, but it's been a month since that happened and we haven't moved too far down the list yet, so we're still just holding out a bit more. Maybe once we're number 5 or 10 on the list and the call could come any minute, we'll officially let the kitty out of the bag. :)

A close call

Today our agency sent us an email notification that they had lost their Hague Accreditation. Yikes! That's basically the international license that countries use to say "yes, we'll agree to guidelines set out the Hague Treaty about how we'll handle children and international adoptions." For a long, convoluted reason that had something to do with some admins not following the proper notary procedures, the agencies accreditation wasn't renewed. Obviously that sent us into a tizzy, b/c no accreditation means no adoptions.

The good news is that Ethiopia is actually a country that doesn't abide by the Hague guidelines, and the agency's ability to continue adoptions from Ethiopia isn't in any way affected. That's a major relief, since we've already been waiting so long, and we already went through the Vietnamese drama that meant we needed to switch countries.

Hopefully, everything will be fine and our little son will be home with us soon. Will this ever end!? (or should i say, begin...)

We picked a name!

So, today, we were driving to Myrtle Beach to do a little vacationing with the fam, and we had lots of time to just relax and talk. In all our ramblings, we talked again about our son's name. This topic is a tricky one, b/c we kind of want to be respectful and just let the kid keep his birth name, since everthing else in his world is changing. But then again we don't want to have a kid whose name is botched his whole life (oh, kinda like wynne and radames!).

Anyway, the way names work in Ethiopia is that the kid's first name is his chosen name and the last name is the father's first name. (Every name is about honor and family tradition and connection back to the dad and then mom.) So, when we leave Ethiopia, the kid will legally be Whatever Radames. Kinda funny, huh? We can make him be named whatever we want when we legally re-adopt him here, though, which we'll have to do.

Anyway, we've been struggling to figure out a given name that is somehow connected back to Ethiopia and that will have cultural meaning to his birth. But we do want something that sounds good with Tyree-Rodriguez, since that's already messed up enough as it is. Radames likes Miles (as in Davis), which i think is kinda cool, b/c it's also connected back to how many miles we'll have to travel to find him. :) He also likes Langston (as in Hughes) and Luca (don't ask!), Akeem (okay, i just can't be the mother of a kid named akeem!), Alexander (because he thinks it's powerful). I've been in the camp of something crusty and white like Holden or Devan. It was looking like it'd be Miles, because at least we can agree to that one.

So I was on YouTube watching more Addis Ababa videos and it totally came to me! It's the perfect name. I said it out loud and Radames said it was perfect, too. It's done. It's a great name. It's American and easy to pronounce but it's perfectly connected back to Ethiopia. I can't wait to share it, and it's meaning, but i won't spill the beans yet...in case some of you don't like it. We don't want to hear about it. :)

This is major. Finally having a name makes him feel more real. He's just been a bunch of paperwork so far, so finally having a name helps us wrap our heads around the fact we'll actually have another child soon. Yipee!

Yikes! The Travel Guide Arrived

So, today the "Prepare for Your Trip to Ethiopia" guide arrived. It was only a week or so after our dossier was sent to Ethiopia, so it totally caught us by surprise. It seemed a little surreal that a trip to Ethiopia could be in our future. We spent all afternoon and evening reading it! There's some crazy stuff in there that we totally weren't prepared for - like the fact that I can't wear shorts there! That's the biggest crock of sexist shit I've ever heard! I yelling for like an hour about that. And then there's the 8500 ft. in the air altitude of the capital city we'll be going to. It's like two Denvers stacked on top of each other..and they recommend altitude sickness medicine b/c it's hard to breath there. So, compound 1000 degrees + no air + pants and long sleeves b/c I'm a woman, and I'm already having a virtual panic attack. Radames also made me read and re-read the line about "things happen on Ethiopian time and you have to be extremely patient". I've got a lot of prep work to do. Then there's the taking anything and everything you will need to take care of your child permanently, b/c they give you your child as soon as you get to the House of Hope. Technically, our son will already be ours when we get there, b/c we have signed over power of attorney to the agency to go to court for us and adopt him. (We just wait for a week or so for him to get his travel visa to get home with us.) So, we've gotta take diapers, formula (which we've never even used!), clothes, blankets, snacks, bottled water, lice medicine, scabies medicine, diaper rash med, etc. It's so friggin' overwhelming that Radames got a migraine and had to go to bed, and I just sat in the bathroom floor in some sort of drug addict coma trying to process it all. I mean the list of stuff we have to take is out of control! And then there's all the papers and what to sign and not sign and not to give to such and such a person but to only give to this person or what hours we can go back to the orphanage so we can hang out with our son's caregivers and friends, etc....and how we can't eat anything we don't boil, cook or peel...and how the Muslim morning prayers start at 5am on the citywide loud speakers (as the roosters crow)..and how not to give the millions of people who will ask us for money any money even though you'll want to...and on and on and on. We are totally unprepared for this. The trip itself just seems so overwhelming. And since there's not really a son to get excited about, all we are focused on is the travel detail that i'm sure will be forgotten once it's all over. Right now it just seems so insurmountable. And how about the fact that the plane ride home is sometimes the time your child decides to freak out and realize they've been...well, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped from everything they know...and you don't even know how to sing them a lullaby in their native tongue. Oh, lord, when are we learning Amharic. We can't even pronounce the name of the language! Can we do this!?