My sister is in the process of adopting a baby from Ethiopia. Exciting right?
International adoption is a terrible waiting game. And paperwork game. And waiting for paperwork. Ugh.
First there is the initial round of crazy paperwork. Qualifying to be a parent. Getting fingerprints. Sending the paperwork to all of these different places, including the State Department, adoption agency, foreign government...
Then you wait for a referral. And wait and wait and wait.
In the case of Ethiopia, once you get your referral, you get a court date, travel to Addis Ababa, go to court, and go home. Without your baby. Hopefully you pass court then, though most likely you don't. Then you eventually pass court and wait again for an embassy date. And wait and wait.
Then you get an embassy date. Then you get to go back to Addis Ababa, go to the embassy and then you get to go home. With your baby!
The process is incredibly frustrating for me. And I'm not even the one getting the baby. Though I am getting an incredibly cute niece! Yea!
We got our referral back in November of last year. The Mr and I planned to go to Ethiopia with my sister for her first visit, the time she went to court, but didn't bring home the baby. So we'd been waiting for the court date since November. Waiting and waiting.
And wouldn't you know it? We get back form skiing and my sister calls - guess what? We have to be in Addis in 4 weeks!
Exciting! Except we have to plan an international trip in less than a month. The Mr and I wanted to add on some other travel as well. We figured that as long as we are flying to the other side of the world, we may as well see something else and we decided to add 11 days in London and 7 days in Paris to our 5 days in Addis.
About three weeks of crazy preparation, both at home and at work, and we were off to London!
Mhnaty!
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International adoption is a terrible waiting game. And paperwork game. And waiting for paperwork. Ugh.
First there is the initial round of crazy paperwork. Qualifying to be a parent. Getting fingerprints. Sending the paperwork to all of these different places, including the State Department, adoption agency, foreign government...
Then you wait for a referral. And wait and wait and wait.
In the case of Ethiopia, once you get your referral, you get a court date, travel to Addis Ababa, go to court, and go home. Without your baby. Hopefully you pass court then, though most likely you don't. Then you eventually pass court and wait again for an embassy date. And wait and wait.
Then you get an embassy date. Then you get to go back to Addis Ababa, go to the embassy and then you get to go home. With your baby!
The process is incredibly frustrating for me. And I'm not even the one getting the baby. Though I am getting an incredibly cute niece! Yea!
We got our referral back in November of last year. The Mr and I planned to go to Ethiopia with my sister for her first visit, the time she went to court, but didn't bring home the baby. So we'd been waiting for the court date since November. Waiting and waiting.
And wouldn't you know it? We get back form skiing and my sister calls - guess what? We have to be in Addis in 4 weeks!
Exciting! Except we have to plan an international trip in less than a month. The Mr and I wanted to add on some other travel as well. We figured that as long as we are flying to the other side of the world, we may as well see something else and we decided to add 11 days in London and 7 days in Paris to our 5 days in Addis.
About three weeks of crazy preparation, both at home and at work, and we were off to London!
Mhnaty!
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