18 Months Waiting...

So March has been interesting. The first two weeks saw all three kids get ear infections (when 2 out of 3 had never had one). I thought I was fighting a nagging cough/cold and came down with a raging fever. I had - can you guess? - an ear infection AND pnuemonia. I could barely get to the doctor, and it hurt so bad to try to breathe. I figured I had either mysteriously broken some ribs or I was really sick. Thankfully, I was able to utilize our wonderful family babysitter, and the doctor gave me lots of shots and prescriptions. I thanked him about three times for letting me take care of it at home instead of making me go to the hospital. I want to send a special shout out to the wonderful people at our church who brought us meals. Thank you so much Martha, Heather and Jackie, we really needed the love and prayers! So anyway, my husband is the only one that got through it with no antibiotics. The second half of March was much better, and I have been thanking God for every day that we have been healthy since.

Ethiopia announced that parents will now have to take two trips, and it would go into effect April 9. Then it was postponed indefenitely because the judge went out of town. Then the announcement came out yesterday that there was a meeting about it where it was decided the rule would now go into effect May 9. So it seems both my husband and I will be required to appear in court after we have met the child, then we will have to go back 6-8 weeks later to finally bring her home. This would all happen after we have finally recieved a referral. Sigh. I have a lot of opinions about this, but I don't think I have them clearly articulated enough in my head to lay out for public consumption. Needless to say, it has just added roughly $5000 to the expected travel. And I haven't even figured out how we're going to work with my husband's lack of vacation/sick time. There are other families out there that will have to pull out of the program completely because there is no way for both parents to appear in court.

So where are we at? Well, we're much closer than we were last month, but what the heck does that mean? There were about 17 families that recieved referrals last month, and it seems many were toddler referrals. That took off everyone on our UNofficial list that was ahead of us for 18-24months. What does that mean? I have no idea. Theoretically, we could recieve a referral tomorrow or we could be waiting for another three months. It really depends on what kids come into their care center, along with many other details. Frankly, with this new two trip rule, I'm not sure I want to be at the front of the pack while they implement it. That's what I'm telling myself anyway. I think we're ready to start guessing on when we recieve the referral. I used to wonder if we would be traveling before summer, but now I'm just hoping we make it to court before they close for the rainy season (Aug-Sept). My how our hopes and expectations change.