Time Line and One More?

People keep asking about the time-line we have for getting Isabella home. There is a HUGE amount of variance based on the individual children's cases and the agency involved, but here is our rough idea based on everything going smoothly. 


JD and I have fingerprinting appointments for March 9th, but we thought until this morning that we had to wait about a month for an appointment for Gabriel and Alei (anyone over 18 in the home has to be done.) This morning, JD called and they are processing the "big kids" in hopes of us being able to take them that day as well. This is the last thing that we have on the U.S. side of the adoption until visas before traveling. In the meantime, our dossier is on step four or five of six stops before it heads to Ethiopia, separately than my immigration paperwork. 


After both of those items arrive in Ethiopia, we should be scheduled for our court date as soon as eight weeks. Court is the point we travel for the first time; so could be as early as the end of May (or months and months later, but we are focusing on best case scenerio.)


After we travel for a week, we come home without Bella and the wait between trips is about three months. There appears to be some that go as quickly as six weeks and some that drag on longer, but we are planning on three months. I imagine that that time will be the longest in the adoption waiting game. So, we are praying for all to go smoothly and for her to be home by the end of the summer.


As for the portion of my title "one more," you may remember that we did our home study for three children and really hoped to come home with two. Isabella was paperwork ready, so we would have to be matched with another child that also has the beginning of paperwork done in order to not delay her. At this point, the agency does not have any children within our range that have paperwork that has made it to America, but they are going to visit the orphanages on the Ethiopian side and see if there is one. Our range right now is that we asked for any girls to be under Julia's age and any boys to be under Elijah's age. We should know for sure if there is even a child to consider within a week or so. We know that this will be our only Ethiopian adoption, due to our ages and the Ethiopian recommendation that families have less than ten children when they begin, so it's two now or Bella will be the lone Ethiopian in our family.


(The good news is that we haven't aged or numbered out of Uganda or China yet.)


So, there's where we are in a nut-shell; we covet any prayers for Bella and our family during this time.