and so it goes

Some of you have probably already heard the news: the requirements for adoption in Ethiopia are changing again. Specifically, families will now be required to make two trips to Ethiopia in order to complete the adoption - one trip for the Ethiopian court date (this is new; families used to be represented by their agencies at court) and one for the embassy appointment/trip to take home your adopted child.

We learned very quickly last time around that the best motto for international adoption is "expect the unexpected," so we are taking this in stride. Surprised that the unexpected is upon us so soon into the process, but not getting too worked up about it. I figure we have a good year (at least!) to go before we are traveling to Ethiopia, and I can only imagine what other surprises are waiting for us!

That is not to say that this doesn't get us talking. Even though we are nowhere near having to worry about travel, I can't help but start running the possibilities through my mind.

Will we take Simon with us? Initially, we thought no - although we very much look forward to the day when we will be able to take Simon on a trip to Ethiopia (hopefully, more than one trip), he will probably be only 3 or 3 1/2 when we travel for adoption #2 and at that age, I don't think he will be old enough to appreciate much about the trip. To the contrary, such a demanding trip where our focus will be elsewhere is likely to be more confusing and stressful for him, than it is exciting and enlightening. But two big trips away from him in a period of just a few weeks or months is also difficult to imagine. So maybe he comes with us on trip 1 and vacations at Grandma's and Grandpa's during trip 2? Hmmm...

Will we take advantage of trip 1 to see more of Ethiopia? We regretted last time that we did not spend time touring Ethiopia (outside of Addis) when we traveled to pick up Simon. Of course, we were so anxious to meet Simon that we couldn't really imagine being in Ethiopia and not going directly to meet him. And I expect we will feel the same this time around. But as we will not be able to travel home with our child on trip 1... well maybe that makes it the perfect opportunity to do some touring.

There are lots of other thoughts and questions too. Will these changes affect other aspects of the process? What other surprises lie ahead? How will we ever manage to leave Ethiopia at the end of our first trip and the opportunity to meet our child? Are we really going to be able to stay cool and calm throughout the rest of the process? I already know the answer to that one: of course not! ;)

And so it goes. Our perspective is different this time, having been through the process before, but for sure the process can still be challenging. But we are up for it.

In more immediate news... other than this little surprise, we are moving along fairly well in adoption round 2. We have our homestudy tomorrow (talk about a different perspective - this time in 2007, we were frantically cleaning every nook of our apartment; tonight, I'm chilling on the couch (and blogging)). And we are closing in on the paperwork requirements, although I still haven't set foot in my bank. No matter how cool and calm we may be or how much we learned from our last adoption, some things just don't get any easier!