He's at House of Hope Now!

So, we got an email today that our little one has been moved to the House of Hope. That's our agency's "carriage house" where the babies are moved from their orphanages for their "pick up" from thier new moms and dads. Most travelers from our agency also stay there at the HOH so they can bond 24/7 with their new babies. It's basically the meeting place that our agency runs. But kids don't get brought there unless "it's time"...which is exciting because it means he's officially in our agency's care now (which will mean better care), he's officially just hanging out and waiting for us :( and it also means we'll probably get more regular pics of him.

It's really exciting, b/c it's just another step in bringing us together. He's actually more ready than us now...since we're still waiting for the doggone CIS approval extension.

We also got updated medicals on him today. Our agency retested him for everything. His white blood cell counts are still slightly high, but like 16, when they should be like 8-12. Ella's are probably 20 this week as she hacks up who-knows-what, so we won't complain. And our doctor already told us that WBC are not correlated in any way with any chronic illnesses. They are basically elevated to ward off infections, which could be from anything from a bugbite to diaper rash. Who knows. We're just happy that he's at HOH now and that we got new medicals on him. :) He's perfect.

Cross Your Fingers for Us

So today we mailed back to CIS the addendum to the updated homestudy that we had to have our social worker do because she didn't write exactly what they wanted in the updated homestudy. Cross your fingers that we've now been so overly specific that they'll have no choice but to extend our original approval. At this point, it's just simply ridiculous.

We just really need them to send us an "okay, here's your updated approval to bring your son into the country" letter already. Is it really our fault that the process has taken so long that we even have to request the approval extension? This is just so emotionally fatiguing. It would be really nice to think about our son rather than the fact that our approval has now expired.

At this point, we just can't really emotionally invest in the fact that we'll soon have another child. It's sad because we now know who he is and he's sitting and waiting for us, and we still don't know if we're going to be able to bring him home...until we get the next letter from these gov't fools. We have three or four boxes of brand new stuff for his nursery sitting in the boxes in his room, but we haven't even opened the boxes because we just can't emotionally go there yet.

Jeez. Can we just be done already!? And it doesn't help when Radames jets out at 5 o'clock to make sure the paperwork gets out to the CIS office on Monday and the racist idiot who works at the post office says, "Oh, are you applying for your citizenship?" as Radames hands him the packet to overnight. Radames nicely said, "No, I'm not." I would have gone off on the guy. I'm still fuming just thinking about it. But then again, that's why Radames goes to do these things instead of me. These things infuriate me. Ditto on the trailor park bi-otch who said to Radames, "Uh, were you born in this country?" as we checked in at the local health department where we had to go to get our hepatitis and menengoccocul (sp?) vaccines. I almost went off on the chic. Hence Radames handles all local interactions... :)

Ridiculous Bureaucracy

We'd been in panic mode about getting our immigration paperwork extended before it expires on 2.28.09. We got our new home study done and sent away the most beautiful and perfect packet of every goodie possibly imaginable on the 17th of Feb.

Well, we got the government's response letter back on Wednesday, and lo and behold, they did not approve our petition. They said that our homestudy "failed to address that the petitioner's home continues to conform to state regulations" and that our old home study said we wanted a 0-12 month old healthy boy and that this one made reference to a 0-15 month old boy. The second one is legit and is an error on our social worker's part. The first one is just beyond ridiculous. I was fuming. But what's new with this process.

We now have had our social worker write up another addendum and now we wait for it to get notarized and approved by the agency and then sent to us and then we send to CIS and then we wait again. Hopefully they'll say we're good to go. If not, we're really screwed because we obviously can't bring him home if we don't have gov't clearance to bring an immigrant into the country. We wouldn't even be allowed to travel there until our gov't has cabled the approval to their gov't.

Jeez Louise! Make this paperwork and approval nonsense end already. There's a kid waiting for us in a third world orphanage. Hello!

We Got Our Dates! Woo Hoo!

We got an email from our agency today that our court date for little boy blue is finally set. May 8th is the big day. A representative from CHI that we've signed over power of attorney to will be going to the court for us. We don't have to go there on this day. But after this day, he will legally be ours in the Ethiopian courts eyes. :)

We then have to wait 3 weeks or so for him to get his travel visa, which allows us to bring him home. We do have to be there for his visa appt, b/c we're his parents, and we have to be there to legally request his travel docs. The visa appointments are only on Thursdays, so our date is tentatively, according to our agency, Thursday the 4th of June! That means we'll travel to Ethiopia at the very end of May/first couple of days of June. We have to be there for the 5th, and ideally settled, bonded, etc. and ready to travel back on the 6th or 7th.

Everyone cross your fingers that these days stick. The way the courts work is that they can just change the dates/postpone at any time, for no reason whatsoever. It'll really suck if these aren't the real dates, because it's already almost 5 months past our match date that we get to pick him up.

Another Frustrating Week of Waiting

This has been another crazy week of waiting and disappointments for us. We are still waiting for our new homestudy report to get written and finalized, but our social worker is telling us that she found out that she has to check the national registry of child abusers before finalizing it. The goofballs in the Nashville state registry office - only one guy, mind you - just don't seem to have time to pull our records, so we are still just waiting and waiting as our previous approval gets closer to expiration and our new approval can't happen without the updated homestudy...which can't happen without the new registry clearance. Every day has been this powerless frustration of wanting to move things along, but we can't. The good news is that none of this is effecting our wait time, from what we understand. Ethiopia has no clue we are doing all this, so they are still moving full steam ahead on their end. If everything works out perfectly, we'll get the home study report next week, mail it off to CIS and then they'll say "congrats, your approval has been extended" and we'll just keep on keeping on.

When will this ever end!? Is it all just an evil, beaurocratic plot to distract us from sitting around and counting the days until we can go to Ethiopia?

NO! Say it Can't Be So!

So, this should be the week that we are celebrating the fact that we've accepted our referral and everything is moving along nicely.

We knew there was an outstanding detail to be taken care of, which was to have our immigration clearance extended. In short, CIS has already approved us to bring our son into the country. But the approval is only good for 18 months. And because it's now been almost 18 months, we have to apply for a free extension, which should just be a formality.

Well, we sent off our extension request a week or so again, and this week got a letter back that said...well, the details are boring...but in essence we finally got in touch with someone via email (because they won't pick up the phone!) that said we can't get an extension unless we have an updated homestudy! Okay, so that is the worst news ever!

The homestudy is the final write up from the social workers and adoption agencies that includes any and every detail of your life - financial, physical, mental, historical, educational, etc. - plus the details of home visits they do. When you go through the process to compile everything it takes about 3-4 months! It involves everything from getting notarized letters from your local sherriff's office that state you have no criminal record to having your doctors offices write and notarize letters that state they've cleared you mentally and physically and that they recommend you as adoptive parents to having your accountant write and notarize statements that detail out all of your finances...and they have to match your financial declarations and tax statements to the penny or they aren't valid. Hearing that we'd have to do all of this all over again...and by the time the end of Feb rolls around, was the biggest blow ever! How could they expect this? Why did no one tell us we'd have to do this? How are we ever going to get all of this done all over again in a matter of weeks!? It involves dozens of people doing things they don't want to do for no pay...and a level of detail that warrants a PhD at the end for everyone involved.

We got in touch with our social worker (who does the home visits) and our program leader at CHI, and they both said they'd do whatever they could to help move the process along. We're just still so pissed that we didn't see this coming. And this should be the relaxing homestretch and here we are again at square one, but doing it under amazingly ridiculous time constraints that have us up all night, with papers all over the house, and quite frankly...at each other's throats out of frustration and resentment about the process. The good news is that our social worker has agreed to come on Thursday to redo our home visit. She has to write up the the home study, so getting her on board asap is critical. Jeez, are we really back to cleaning up the house, mapping out our family fire evacuation plan, checking all the batteries in the smoke detectors and...most importantly, acting like we live in a calm, relaxing house that would be welcoming to an infant!? Is this for real?

The Joys of Naming our Son

This morning began with us brainstorming for a middle name. We've already decided on the first name, but we had thought we'd keep his birth name as his middle name, just out of respect. Now that we know that we'll never know his real birth name, we've gotta come up with a middle name. And if you've ever bounced ideas around with Radames, you know that it was a most hilarious adventure. He migrated from Castro to Smokey as I laughed hysterically. He also seriously threw out Coletrain (as in Miles) and Hendrix (yes, as in Jimmy). I'm sure he thought my ideas were just as ridiculous, but nothing topped Ella's contributions once she joined in the morning brainstorming party. She recommended (First Name) Left Foot Tyree-Rodriguez and then opted instead for (First Name) Bacon Tyree-Rodriguez. Now do we live in the South or what!? Good times. :)

We Said Yes

After conferring with our dr and dropping off his medicals at Ella's pediatrician, too, we're feeling like there's not a lot left to think about. So, on Wednesday, we checked the "approved" box and Fed Ex'ed our yes away to Children's Hope International. :) So exciting! Is this real!?

They received it on Friday the 30th and said we're a go. Next steps are that the Ethiopian office of CHI starts to translate our dossier and petition the court for a court date. Toni (our consultant) said our court date will probably be in early April. We've signed a power of attorney that gives our agency rep there the right to go to court on our behalf and legally adopt our son for us. Then, once he's adopted and ours, we wait about 3 weeks to get his visa for him to travel home with us. We travel over a few days before he gets his visa and then leave with him a few days after, when we're ready. We only have to stay there about 6-7 days. It'll probably be towards the end of April or in early May, if we're doing the math correctly. Woo Hoo!

What the Doc Said

Our first order of biz today was to get to our doctor and share all of our son's medical records with her and get her to tell us what it all means. Our referral information came with pictures, all of the basics about where he was found, on what date, his (estimated) birthday, his habits so far, and three pages of medical tests. Our "job" between now and when we decide to "accept" the match is to do all of our homework on him based on everything they know and that we now have.

He's negative for HIV, Hepatatis, and all the other big chronic diseases we'd be super concerned about (which is why he was even referred to us in the first place - we only requested a healthy boy) and all of his bloodwork looked good. His white blood cell count was high, so that's one key thing we had questions about.

Well, our doctor said that everything looks great, and that white blood cell counts that are high are very common, are basically a sign that he either had or has or is getting an infection. She said there's no direct correlations between elevated WBC counts and any chronic diseases. She also said that drinking cow's milk (which is his diet right now) can elevate a baby's WBC. Our agency already told us they are going to re-check him anyway, but this definitely made us feel better.

I asked a million questions to our dr, in my classic information-hungry fashion, and Radames just kind of sat there and stared at both of us. We got perscriptions for a bunch of immunizations we should get before going to Africa (Malaria, Typhoid, Hep A, Hep B, Yellow Fever and i can't even remember what else). We then left and went out side to process it all. I asked Radames how he was feeling about what she said and if he was feeling like we should approve the referral and make it a done deal. He just sort of looked at me innocently and semi-confused and said, "I don't even know what you people were talking about in there...he was already my son before we came here." That's why I love him! And he's right...sometimes facts aren't the best way to a make a decision. :)

January 26th, 2009 - The Call We've Been Waiting For

It's about 3:30PM when our business phone rings. I dont pay too much attention because I am thinking Wynne or Terrance will answer it. Wynne answers it and calls for me telling me it's Toni. I'm thinkng, "Who is Toni?" Wynne comes down to the basement with the phone and it's Toni, our adoption representative. She asks us how we are doing and beigins by saying, " Before I tell you anything, I have to get some legal stuff out of the way." She tells us the legal junk before she finally says, "Congratulations. You have a three and a half month old, healthy, baby boy waiting for you." Wynne and I just look t each other with a look of absolute confusion. Is this really happening? I am expecting this call to come on a Friday, not on a Monday afternoon. 3 boys had been referred on Friday, so we were up to bat. But we were not expecting it to come so soon. we thought we had to wait at least another month. If you would have seen us, all you would have seen was smiles as wide as they could humanly be on Wynne's and my face.

OMG! We're #1 Now!

So, on our weekly update yesterday, we found out that three healthy infant boys were matched this week! Unless our math skills are slipping...YIKES!...that means we're next on the list of families waiting for a boy! Woo Hoo! Oh my goodness, that means we could literally get a call any day now. As soon as the next healthy infant boy needs a family, we'd be next on the list! Stay tuned...

They Found It!

We got an email from our agency today that they forwarded from Ethiopia. They have our Visa 37 afterall! This is SO major. We had 4 days of inordinate stress, while trying to be professional at a conference in FL, only for them to say, "oh, we found it" as if it were no big deal. This is the biggest relief! Just the thought of how we would even begin to replicate the process made me want to start injecting IVF drugs asap.

My friend Stephanie told me to tell them to hurry up and give us our son before they misplace him. It made us laugh. Goodness knows we needed it. It is kind of hiliarous thinking about it. Especially when we got an email that said the wait time from match to travel is now looking like 4 months, because there only 2 judges in the entire country that hear adoption cases and that they are getting backlogged. Crazy!

Devastating News

So on the weekly update from our agency today, we not only heard that this is the fourth week that there were no referrals, but we also got an email from our program leader that said our Visa 37 wasn't at the consulate in Addis Ababa. Okay, so in regular people's lingo, that basically means that our dossier that we worked almost a year to complete and get every piece of paperwork approved (and that they'll open when we finally get matched)...that should have been sitting in Ethiopia for quite a while...is not even in the country!!! I got the email after 5pm while driving home from Ella's school that said "Ethiopia does not show you have a file there". By the time I got home, Radames was on hold with the National Visa Center already. We both just looked at each other and didn't say a word and almost burst into tears in each other's arms. All we could think about it is how we're 2 year in and the rug has been pulled out from under us and that we might have to start over again b/c some fool lost our dossier as it got cabled from DC to Ethiopia.

Radames had to leave to take Ella to her karate testing for a new belt. I stayed at home on hold only be told by the NVC that our file had been sent to the Ethiopian consulate months ago and that it wasn't their problem if they didn't have it...and if it weren't there that we'd have to have our agency call USCIS (which is the US citizenship and immigration service; the former INS) and that they would have to "re-request the visas be cabled to Ethiopia." CIS then has the NVC send it to Ethiopia. Now i have no idea what the hell a cable even is...let alone how you re-cable something that's an original, but whatever. All I knew is that there was nothing we could do about it until at least Tuesday (b/c Monday was MLK day) and we had to stew on this with no info for three days!

I missed Ella's karate testing, which devastated me, and we just spent the night sort of speechless and depressed. Then I started to think optimistically about it and realized that (1) the only reason they even know that it's not there is because our agency knows we're on deck and is now doubling checking that everything is where it should be and (2) at least we are finding this out now, rather than once we get our referral and are delayed while we get it resolved. If we can get to the root of it, we can get it resolved before the match even happens.

To make myself feel better, I wrote an email back to our agency and said, PLEASE tell the consulate to look under another name...Tyree or Rodriguez or Radames...or Tommie Tyree...any and all iterations of our name...and that maybe they've just overlooked it and PLEASE call CIS first thing on Tuesday morning to get it re-sent.

Please let our file re-appear! It's too much to handle.

No Referrals for Three Weeks :(

This week's update (from our adoption agency) was a bummer. For the third week in a row, there have been no referrals. :( We were hoping that we'd hear something, but no such luck. We're fine about it though, because we know it'll happen at the right time. And we're just being patient and using this chance to tell people and talk more to Ella about it. The past week we've spent a lot of time explaining that her little bother will be black. She's been pretty disillusioned about it, b/c she thinks her new baby brother should look like her, mommy or daddy. We're whipping out all the 4-year-old appropriate explanations of some pretty deep stuff - the concept of adoption, the concept of interracial adoption, and...well, we haven't gotten to the international/Ethiopian thing yet, bc her concept of geography is about as sophisticated as "I live in Tennessee...in the Ridges." She doesn't even know she lives in the US. And honestly, the geography lesson is a little less important than helping her understand we're still gonna love her even if she's not our only child and that some babies come from their mommy's tummy and some don't. Anyhoo...we've got plenty to do - from learning Amharic in our "spare time" to reading our cultural sensitivity manuals to continuing the dialogue with Ella to telling all our friends to getting a bunch of vaccinations and on and on. We're sure there will be more referals soon. The drought tends to be followed by a deluge, so it'll happen soon. The wait time for a boy referral is 6-9 months after being put on the list and we've already been on the list 6 1/2 months.

We Told Radames' Family

We went to New York last week, and we had a great time. We told Radames' parents and extended family and they couldn't have been happier for us. They were so sweet and congratulatory about the news. We also got to meet up with a lot of friends and tell them about our adoption plans. Everyone that we had time to tell was super sweet to us. It felt good to start to tell people, b/c it's making it seem more real. We'd just love to have people know before we send out a picture of kid and say "hey, here's our new baby!" That's kinda funny thinking about. :)