Yellowstone National Park

This is our annual trip to Yellowstone National Park in April, before vehicles are allowed on the roads. We're only 90 miles from West Yellowstone. We could have bicycled or walked and this year we walked. Although we had a lot of snow this spring, this particular day was very warm. A bison calf (in the second picture) had been born that morning on the road. The snow was too deep for the mother to give birth elsewhere. She was trying to find something to graze down the road, and the baby was still wobbly and decided to take a nap. We were concerned at first that she showed little interest, but later she finally turned back and called him until he responded and stood up. What a great day! We are so lucky to be able to live here!

Discouraged

We can't get any answers from our agency. I've e-mailed or called them almost every day for the last month and nothing's happened. They told me our dossier would be going to the placement agency this week, but that never happened. I have to ask and ask to get anything. When I expressed my frustration, they were snippy. What are they doing?!

Ethiopia!

We have decided to adopt from Ethiopia. Everything just felt right, even though we ran into a lot of opposition about our decision. We've read about the country, the people, read adoption stories, and she's there. Now we're frustrated with our agency because they have all of our dossier paperwork, but still haven't changed the home study. I've joined a blog group online and I'm learning tons. We thought we may have her escorted from Ethiopia, but now we're thinking we should go and see where she came from and see the country. I got a catalogue the other day with the cutest girls' clothes in it. It's all I can do not to buy a bunch of stuff right now. I've been obsessively looking at videos of families picking up their children from Ethiopia. They make me cry!

Introduction to Ethiopia

It seems like the process in China is taking longer. Now we're facing a possible 3-year wait. We talked to our agency about other programs and they mentioned Ethiopia. Mike and I had never considered an African country, only because we assumed we'd have an Asian daughter. But we wondered if we wanted to start over with an infant in three years and have that much age difference between her and the boys. I talked to Mike about it and he was immediately in favor of adopting from Ethiopia. Just like him. I want to do some research and find out much more. We don't know anything about Ethiopia. I started looking at some pictures of children adopted from Ethiopia and fell in love. They're so beautiful! I didn't have this kind of an emotional reaction with China. Maybe this is the country where we're supposed to find our daughter.

James, the Big Brother

James was pretending with me the other day and told me he was a race car driver who had to go pick up his baby in China. He talks about "his baby" a lot. We talked about "Emily" as being her name and he said there was a train on "Thomas the Tank Engine" named Emily. So if we do choose that name, we'll have quite a connection to the show (James, Thomas, and Emily). James is so bossy and jealous of Tommy so I asked him one day how he thought he could take care of his sister if he couldn't even be nice to his little brother. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Because I'm waiting for my little sister. I didn't wait for Tommy; he's already here!" Quite the logic.

Home Study Visit

Our home study visit went well. Today we went to the adoption agency for another visit. The social worker was very easy to talk to. The boys were wild when she was at the house, but they didn't go with us today. Most of our paperwork is done. China has gotten very strict lately on who qualifies. Does this mean things will speed up? We're doing some reading on attachment issues. Mostly it's for older children, but we need to learn as much as possible.

Decision Time!

Well, two agencies that I checked into showed that Mike is too old for us to request an infant from Korea. One agency that I talked to said we couldn't request a girl at all since there's such a long list of people wanting girls. So we have decided on China. It will take at least two years, but we can start saving miles on the credit cards! We picked an agency and sent in our preliminary contract. We have a list of things to put together for the dossier and the home study visit will be in the next few weeks. It's a little overwhelming. No wonder if takes several months.
We started telling some people, but the other day, our daycare lady asked me why James was talking about a baby sister coming. Apparently he's telling people, too! He's so excited and said he could sleep in the same room with her so that he could take care of her in the middle of the night. How sweet! It's funny, though, especially considering how jealous he still is of his little brother!

Korea or China?

We're looking into whether we can adopt from Korea. Now that we're actually looking, we're assuming it will be an Asian country, but I don't think we really care. I'm doing some agency research online to see what the requirements are. Since Mike's in his 40's, I don't know if we qualify to get an infant from Korea. It's exciting!