Not only were we not submitted to the embassy, but we found out that Temar's birth year was misprinted on her court decree, birth certificate and passport. It all has to be redone. It's been six weeks since we passed court, and she became our daughter, but we still don't have a single piece of paperwork we need to bring her home.
In this two year adoption process I have lost count of the number of times we've gotten phone calls that have been game-changing and flat-out depressing like this one. News that ruins everything.
It started as soon as we were accepted into the AWAA Ethiopia program and the Ethiopian adoption rules were changed so that we would have travel to Ethiopia twice. Meeting our child and then leaving her there. We were devastated and wondered how we could pay for a second trip and how we could possibly meet our child and then leave her. And that was just the beginning of it.
When we mailed off our dossier to the Virginia office to become DTE we found out that there were mistakes in the state certification. It took weeks to get those papers worked out and we became DTE weeks later than we'd expected- ultimately making our wait for a referral months longer.
Then came the phone call that I had a brain tumor.
And then we had the entire summer of 2011 without a single infant girl referral given to anyone.
And then finally in January we got our referral call, but paperwork issues kept us from getting our court date for three months, while other families moved ahead of us.
Finally a court date came and we passed. But now, as other families are submitted to Embassy and cleared to pick up their children, our paperwork is wrong again and we wait. Watching families, who got their referrals weeks after ours, already bringing their children home.
Not one step of this process has been easy. It seems like in every place a problem could arise, it has. We have gotten used to these horrible phone calls. We've gotten better at processing bad news. We've become more patient. Because we're learning that every single time that something goes wrong, HE makes it right.
Ecc. 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time... yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
When we were in Ethiopia for our court date, we were thrilled that the rule had been changed and we had to travel twice. We are are thankful that we'll have two trips to see our daughter's country and that we had time to spend with her while she was six months old.
If we hadn't been delayed by the state certification of our dossier and our dossier had been submitted earlier, we would not have gotten our referral for Temar. She wouldn't have even been at the transition home when it would have been our turn for a referral. Since the day we first saw her photo we have been thanking God for putting us on the DTE list right where we were.
We were able to go to one of the greatest acoustic nueroma hospitals in the world and my surgery was done by one of the most talented surgeons in the field. I am fine now and the outcome was better than what seemed possible in the beginning.
When we were miserable last summer that we didn't have a referral, Temar wasn't even born yet.
Of course, we wished we could have gone to court sooner, but once we were there it didn't matter! We were able to spend most of our trip as the only AWAA family and so we were able to go where we wanted to go, see the things we wanted to see, and ask the questions we wanted to ask. We had hours and hours alone on the porch with Temar. We wouldn't change a thing about our court trip.
And so now, as awful as the news is about her paperwork. As much as we want to cry, and stomp our feet, and get angry... and we have a little bit.
By now we've learned...He makes all things beautiful.
Even though right now we can't understand what He is doing from beginning to end, it will make sense eventually.
We've already seen the beginning of it. Two weeks ago, we discovered an additional donation of $600 in our Both Hands grant and thanks to our great friends we raised $400 in a yard sale. An extra $1000.
With this holdup we've decided that we're going to do an additional investigation into Temar's case. A little extra information we can submit to the embassy and also hopefully answer some of the outstanding questions we have about her case. We've felt a quiet nudge to investigate since we were in Ethiopia. The price to begin the investigation: $1,000. We had the money a week before we even knew we needed it.
In this two year adoption process I have lost count of the number of times we've gotten phone calls that have been game-changing and flat-out depressing like this one. News that ruins everything.
It started as soon as we were accepted into the AWAA Ethiopia program and the Ethiopian adoption rules were changed so that we would have travel to Ethiopia twice. Meeting our child and then leaving her there. We were devastated and wondered how we could pay for a second trip and how we could possibly meet our child and then leave her. And that was just the beginning of it.
When we mailed off our dossier to the Virginia office to become DTE we found out that there were mistakes in the state certification. It took weeks to get those papers worked out and we became DTE weeks later than we'd expected- ultimately making our wait for a referral months longer.
Then came the phone call that I had a brain tumor.
And then we had the entire summer of 2011 without a single infant girl referral given to anyone.
And then finally in January we got our referral call, but paperwork issues kept us from getting our court date for three months, while other families moved ahead of us.
Finally a court date came and we passed. But now, as other families are submitted to Embassy and cleared to pick up their children, our paperwork is wrong again and we wait. Watching families, who got their referrals weeks after ours, already bringing their children home.
Not one step of this process has been easy. It seems like in every place a problem could arise, it has. We have gotten used to these horrible phone calls. We've gotten better at processing bad news. We've become more patient. Because we're learning that every single time that something goes wrong, HE makes it right.
Ecc. 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time... yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
When we were in Ethiopia for our court date, we were thrilled that the rule had been changed and we had to travel twice. We are are thankful that we'll have two trips to see our daughter's country and that we had time to spend with her while she was six months old.
If we hadn't been delayed by the state certification of our dossier and our dossier had been submitted earlier, we would not have gotten our referral for Temar. She wouldn't have even been at the transition home when it would have been our turn for a referral. Since the day we first saw her photo we have been thanking God for putting us on the DTE list right where we were.
We were able to go to one of the greatest acoustic nueroma hospitals in the world and my surgery was done by one of the most talented surgeons in the field. I am fine now and the outcome was better than what seemed possible in the beginning.
When we were miserable last summer that we didn't have a referral, Temar wasn't even born yet.
Of course, we wished we could have gone to court sooner, but once we were there it didn't matter! We were able to spend most of our trip as the only AWAA family and so we were able to go where we wanted to go, see the things we wanted to see, and ask the questions we wanted to ask. We had hours and hours alone on the porch with Temar. We wouldn't change a thing about our court trip.
And so now, as awful as the news is about her paperwork. As much as we want to cry, and stomp our feet, and get angry... and we have a little bit.
By now we've learned...He makes all things beautiful.
Even though right now we can't understand what He is doing from beginning to end, it will make sense eventually.
We've already seen the beginning of it. Two weeks ago, we discovered an additional donation of $600 in our Both Hands grant and thanks to our great friends we raised $400 in a yard sale. An extra $1000.
With this holdup we've decided that we're going to do an additional investigation into Temar's case. A little extra information we can submit to the embassy and also hopefully answer some of the outstanding questions we have about her case. We've felt a quiet nudge to investigate since we were in Ethiopia. The price to begin the investigation: $1,000. We had the money a week before we even knew we needed it.
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