All of the Paperwork is In!!!

The court finally got the birth certificate and we should have our Court Date soon! We have been told to expect a Court Date sometime during the last week of July or the first week of August. Based on families who have recently received their Court Dates, we expect to be notified only a week ahead of time. Everything in country is arranged by our adoption agency; we just need to get ourselves there! Because of the short notice and this is a peak travel time for Europe and Ethiopia, the plane tickets aren't exactly cheap.

We will land in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia's capital) and remain there for our entire stay - about 6-7 days. Our adoption agency has a contract with a small hotel (www.yebsabi.com) and we'll have a driver to take us anywhere we need - for both he Court Date and to see some tourist sites. We have followed numerous families who have traveled, some as recently as a couple of weeks ago, and our adoption agency has everything required in-country down to a science. We have no doubt we'll be well taken care of.

We have managed to send our son three care packages with families who have traveled in the past month either for their Court Date or to bring their child home. The pictures (to include two short videos!) we've gotten from them are priceless, and we are super-anxious to share some of them with everyone. Evidently, he's quite the ham!

What Now?

Now that we have accepted our referral, what do we do now? We wanted to give everyone a snapshot about what we're busy doing before our court date - both for our friends and families and also for the Ethiopian adoptive families who may be following our adventure. I guess I could simply summarize everything by saying we're getting ready for a baby like any soon-to-be parents. Since our son will be about two and a half, we're skipping a few things like baby formula and heading right to baby-proofing the house - think of the movie Baby Momma but not so crazy.

I spent most of an evening Googling baby sizes because neither one of us have no idea what size clothes fit our son. My research has shown that he's probably a 2T (we found out the "T" is for toddler......yes, we're starting from square one), but we expect he'll grow into a 3T when he gets home. The Ethiopia children typically put on weight at a pretty good rate when they come home with their forever family because of the better nutrition.

We are also preparing for our trip to Ethiopia in a couple of ways.
- IMMUNIZATIONS. Thanks to Navy medicine, I am immunized against nearly everything. Hepatitis B was the only thing I was missing. HERE'S A WARNING FOR PROSPECTIVE ADOPTIVE FAMILIES - Hep B is a three-shot series that takes 7 months because of required time between each shot. Start early so you can finish before traveling for the Court Date! Alicia has to get a number of shots, and most of them are out in town, as the Navy medicine won't cover these types of shots for spouses.
- CARE PACKAGES and PHOTOS. We have asked a family traveling next week to take pictures of our son. The referral included two pictures, and we want as many as we can get. We are also putting together a care package for him that we'll send with another family traveling for their Court Date, probably in late June.

A family in Ethiopia sent us an e-mail and said our son appeared very happy in the Transition Home. He is in the same area as their son so they even had a chance to play with him. We are anxious to meet him and make him a part of the family.