I Should Have A Baby Bump By Now...

We are now 4 months along in our waiting. The last group of referrals given out were for people with DTE's in August. Our DTE is in February, so according to that timeline we will have to wait for the people in Sept-Jan to receive their referrals before we will. We received an e-mail update several weeks ago with some disturbing news from Ethiopia. Apparently, the government there caught a police officer turning in children to orphanages stating they were "abondoned children". This was not the case, as some of the children had homes with families that had not, in fact, abandoned them. Unfortunately, this has led America World (our agency) to no longer refer any of the children in their system labeled as abandoned. We were not led to believe that this is a forever situation but until they can review and investigate the children they currently have, they do not want to put families into a situation where they are referred a child, and then the court does not pass the adoption due to the abandonment question hanging over children's heads. America World stated in the e-mail that up to 25% of their children come from "abandonment" so we are expecting a decline in the number of referrals for the coming months. However, we are still encouraged as referrals are still coming out and we are moving up on the list.

On a brighter note, John and I recently had our first authentic Ethiopian experience. We drove to Chicago over the weekend and ate at Ras Dashen. Pictures and more explanation to come!...