crazy-ish

Where do I begin?

Every time I sit down to write a blog post - and I realize it's not that often that I do - I feel like there are a million things I need to share, and yet at the same time, I have no sense of how to organize my thoughts, condense a month's worth of madness into a few paragraphs, and, oh, keep it (fairly) interesting.

And it shouldn't be that hard... We've had a crazy month. A lovely family vacation to the Turks and Caicos, Mother's Day celebration with family, a business trip to Germany (me), a few birthday parties, a business trip to Tanzania (Ryan (totally beats Germany, right??)), reached eleven months on the waitlist for a little girl, and did I mention the EJ incident? That being the day he decided to break into Simon's babysitter's bag while they were at the park... the bag that had an easter chocolate bar for Simon? a chocolate bar that was then devoured by EJ (chocolate being toxic to dogs)... yeah... that incident. The one that happened the day before we left for the Turks and had me racing to get him to the vet for emergency (read: ridiculously expensive) treatment.... So, yeah... like I said, it's been a little crazy here.

I guess that's a good thing too. I'm exhausted and already in need of another vacation (note to Ryan if you are reading this - I do have a birthday coming up ;) ). But, it also means that eleven months on the waitlist have, dare I say it, gone by fairly quickly. Mind you, I would be a zillion times happier if I never had to write the words "eleven months" on this blog, since we never really anticipated waiting this long for a referral. But here we are, and we are trying to see the bright side of things.

To that end, we are happy to report that things do seem to be moving in the Ethiopian adoption programs. Slower than they were. And it seems that they will continue to move slowly. But they are moving, and I think we can probably say with some confidence that we are within a few months of referral. Perhaps another birthday referral for me? I could live with that....

So that's the good. Unfortunately, we learned today that the slow down in Ethiopia's adoption process (and, I'm sure, the overall continued difficult state of the US economy) has had a real impact on the amount of humanitarian aid going to Ethiopia. As the program has slowed down, families have pulled out - often looking instead to domestic and international programs that they perceive as more stable or simple or whatever. And that means the aid they contribute as part of the adoption process moves with them. It's not all bad, especially if you assume that in many cases their resources are still going to places that need them. But, still, a difficult thing to hear... Anyhow, that's my not-so-subtle way of saying that there is great need right now in Ethiopia (other places too), especially for orphaned children, and if you have the ability to give a little something, well, you should do it.

ontheirown.org
hannasorphanage.org.uk
gladney humanitarian aid
worldwide orphans

ten and a half-ish

Hello there readers (are there any readers left??).

It seems that my ability to blog gets worse and worse, even as my intentions to blog more frequently get greater and greater. Alas, life is often crazy-busy, the adoption process is sometimes emotionally draining, and I can't seem to find more than 3 minutes at a time to spend at my computer.

But here I am.

As per the (not so original) title of this post, it's been almost ten and a half months since we were officially put on the waitlist for a referral. You remember, right? Back in the days when referrals were expected approximately 8-9 months from that exciting day when one was officially "on the waitlist" (which, ironically seemed soooo long in light of the 3-4 month wait we expected when we were put on the waitlist in 2008 and even compared to the 5 1/2 it actually took for Simon's referral). Oh how things look different in hindsight!!

Well, 8-9 months clearly was not to be. And neither was 10, and now we don't really expect 11 to be it either.

The good news is that things are starting to move again - more slowly than in the recent past, but not as slowly as we had started to fear. And while we expect delays to continue and suspect additional changes will be made to the Ethiopian adoption process, it does continue to be a strong and viable program, and for that we are grateful.

So maybe we will celebrate a year on the waitlist (though I'm hoping maybe we won't celebrate 13 months) and quite likely we will have to wait until 2012 to travel to Ethiopia. But somehow that actually seems okay right now... believe it or not, even pondering 8-10 more months in process doesn't seem so bad (I'm not saying it's great, but...) and we can actually see the end in sight (okay, just barely, but we can).