Ray of sunshine!

Ah, the rollercoaster of international adoption! 

We would like a big family with several (many!) children, and have no intention of being a "one and done" family, but the pain of this "labor" will have to fade a lot before we would consider another international adoption! Maybe, like childbirth, this gets easier with successive children...?

Anway, here's today's hopfully good news:

I just got off the phone with someone helpful from USCIS who said we are being assigned a caseworker today (we were apparently in the next batch of cases to be assigned).  Please pray with us that the processing will go quickly and we will receive this I-171H in the mail early next week!

Last year the courts closed from August 6-September 28 for the rainy season. When they re-open there is a backlog of cases so it can sometimes take longer to get a court date then.

So, with a new normal of 6-12 week wait (or longer) to hear a court date and a 5-12 week wait (or longer) from learning our court date to when it actually happens, and then often another week or two until the MOWA letter is ready and we officially pass court...if we get our I-171H next week and get our completed dossier authenticated and sent to Ethiopia in the first two weeks of April, there is still a decent chance that we can pass court before the closing (Embassy appointments continue during the rainy season...). After April 15 I think our chances will start to rapidly decline.

Of course, with all this work on our end, being ready to pass court assumes on B's end that the agency staff in ET have assembled all his paperwork in accordance with the new and ever changing guidelines, that his lifebook is ready (a documented thorough investigation of his history and how he came to be at the orphanage that our agency is now issuing to help provide clear documentation to the Embassy and ensure as best they can that everything about how B came to the orphanage was ethical and that adoption is the option his remaining relatives want for him and really the only viable option for him), and that there are no big glitches in the system. We keep checking-in with our agency re the status of B's paperwork, birth certificates, death certificates, interviews, government paperwork, lifebook, etc. and just keep hearing that they know it is in process but they don't know how close to being done it is...

B's birthday is at the end of October.  He already had his second birthday in an ophanage, we are really hoping that his third birthday will be with his mama and ababa in NYC!