The Next Step

We've had lots of people ask us what the next step is for us in the adoption process, so I thought I'd write about it.  The next thing that needs to happen is for our case to be submitted to court in Ethiopia.  Until the past month or so it usually did not take very long for cases to be submitted to court.  The process has slowed down.  We found out last week that the list of documents that have to be gathered before a case can be submitted has grown longer.  I don't know exactly what all is needed, but I do know that the court needs a birth certificate for the child, a photo of the child's birth family, and a death certificate of anyone in the birth family who has passed away.  Sounds simple, right?  Wrong.  It can take weeks, if not months to acquire these documents.  Our agency is now telling families to wait 3 months after accepting a referral to ask if their case has been submitted to court.  After your case has been submitted, your court date will be in 6-8 weeks.  So,  three months from now is the end of May, and then another 8 weeks after that is the end of July.

We are hoping and praying that we can travel for court before the end of July because the rainy season in Ethiopia usually begins in early August.  The courts close for approximately 8 weeks during the rainy season, and we are hoping that we can avoid that delay!  Our social worker told me today that the earliest we could possibly travel for court is June.  Our anniversary is in June, so maybe we will be spending our tenth anniversary in Ethiopia! 

When can we expect to have her home?  That is hard to say.  We are just hoping to have her home by Thanksgiving, but it could be sooner than that. If we don't get to travel for court before the rainy season, it would be October before traveled, and then we'd have to wait another four to eight weeks for her visa before we could bring her home.  If we do get to travel for court in June, we could have her home by the end of the summer!