The Fisher Adoption Journey

WE PASSED COURT!!

2009-08-20T06:44:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we passed court and Saturday, my Mom and I are leaving for ETHIOPIA! The Embassy appointment is on Aug 27th and I hope the decree and birth certificate are ready! This is an extremely tight deadline.
My coworkers donated a lot of things for me to bring to the orphanage! My friend Stacey also contributed items and helped me sort through a ton of Maia's old clothes to get ready for Miss Amara Danielle Selamawit Fisher!
I better start packing! lol

New Court Date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-07-11T07:26:00.002-05:00

We have a new court date!!!!! July 28th!!! Wow, that is coming up FAST! I was so happy when Molly told me that I couldn't speak! I just couldn't stop crying happy tears. I was really starting to think that it would be Thanksgiving before we could bring her home. IF we pass court on July 28th, we will be traveling at the end of August to go get her!!!!!

still delayed....

2009-06-07T18:43:00.002-05:00

Yes, our court date has come and gone. We are still caught in the delay of abandonment cases. We don't know when the investigation will be finished and when they will start to hear these cases again. We are sad about it, but we want to make sure that everything is done ethically with all ET adoptions. We trust that she will come home when its time!

Probable court delay

2009-05-12T10:14:00.002-05:00

We just found out that our court case will most likely be delayed. We are sad about the delay, but we are also glad that the government is investigating the spike in abandonment cases.
This is from our agency:

Rumor surrounding court outcomes for “Abandoned Children from Addis Ababa”:

We have received confirmation from BFAS-Ethiopia that the Ethiopian Court have been working to safe guard the Ethiopian Adoption Process. As of last week, a large group of children being processed in the courts for adoption finalization were listed as "abandoned". This prompted the courts to cease hearing cases involving children listed as "abandoned in Addis Ababa". The court is not failing these cases necessarily, it is simply investigating this issue right now. The court has so far not given any information as to how long this process will take. There is a possibility for some court dates to be delayed. Children abandoned in other areas of Ethiopia are still having their cases heard, as are children relinquished by family members and children orphaned for other reasons such as deaths of the mother and father.

This has affected some of our clients, as well as many clients with all other agencies that are processing Ethiopian Adoptions. Please understand that this is one of the “unknowns” we speak about throughout the FAQ’s and during your application process. BFAS is doing all that we can to remedy this situation for our clients that have children under this category. We have spoken to all families that have received referrals to this point, and updated them as to rather or not this will affect their particular adoption case. We ask that you pray for these families during this difficult time until a solution can be found. We will keep you as up to date as possible as this issue continues to develop.

COURT DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-22T15:42:00.000-05:00

We have a court date! It's June 4th! This means that our adoption case will be heard in Ethiopia that day (unless it's cancelled or something). We do not have to be there for the court case.
If we pass court, they will give us an Embassy appointment. We will be travelling the week of our Embassy appointment. The 2 dates for embassy appts after June 4th are June 18th or July 2nd. I am guessing that we will probably get the July 2nd Embassy date. We won't know, though, until we pass court and they give us the date.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy!!!!!

Second Care Package

2009-03-19T12:57:00.003-05:00

We sent Amara her second care package. It's a cute pink sleeper and some socks with rattles on the toes.

BFAS Guesthouse

2009-03-19T09:34:00.002-05:00

This is the BFAS guesthouse where we will stay when we go to Ethiopia.

Hanna's Hope House

2009-03-19T09:33:00.003-05:00

This is the BFAS Care House where Amara is living! Isn't it beautiful?

Family name...

2009-03-19T08:57:00.002-05:00

We found out that our daughter's name is Salmawit Daniel. This is very cool because my middle name is Danielle and my Dad's name is Daniel! I cannot imagine the pain her birthmother felt in making this very difficult decision, but I feel like this baby's soul was meant to be with us. There have been some crazy signs and things that have happened in our journey that are pulling us toward her.
So, it looks like she will have 2 middle names! We are debating these choices: Amara Salmawit Daniel Fisher; Amara Salmawit Danielle Fisher; Amara Danielle Salmawit Fisher.
By the way, Haile at our agency told us that Salmawit or Salamwit means "peaceful one".

First care package!

2009-02-18T20:37:00.009-06:00

We have put together a care package for our new baby. Our adoption friend Sarah is taking it to Addis for us next week, when she goes to get her new baby. In the care package, I put a soft photo album with pictures of us and Maia and all the grandparents plus Aunt Sarah. We included Maia's old "snuggly", which is a super soft bunny head attached to a super soft cloth. We also included a little pink bunny sleeper that Maia wore when she was a little baby. We know that there is a chance this care package might be lost, and we're ok with that. Here are pictures of the contents! BTW, as you can see, I need help getting the photos to go where I want them! grrrr...

REFERRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-02-13T14:42:00.001-06:00

Friday the 13th is my LUCKY DAY!
We unofficially accepted a referral for a baby girl. SHE IS AN ANGEL and we are soooooo over the moon happy right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
details to follow.

No referral yet....

2009-01-06T12:36:00.002-06:00

No, there is no referral yet. I called BFAS yesterday and Angela said that there is a referral identified for us, but that they are working to get her "paper ready". sigh.... In the meantime, here's a photo from Christmas.

In the meantime....

2008-12-12T08:24:00.001-06:00

No, I don't have any news yet. Well, a little news. Our agency said that there are referrals coming very soon and that they are getting all the paperwork together right now. That doesn't mean that there will be any infant girl referrals, but it will be nice to see SOME referrals.
ANYWAY, in the meantime, I'll post a few pics from Thanksgiving. We went to Dubuque to Steve's parents' house.

In the meantime.....

2008-12-12T08:19:00.007-06:00

maybe next week....

2008-12-03T14:56:00.002-06:00

So, Agitu is in Ethiopia and getting all settled in. It looks like there may be referrals next week, but probably not this week. And even if there are referrals next week, there may be no infant girl referrals.... *sigh*

still #1... come on, DECEMBER.

2008-11-21T15:59:00.003-06:00

OK, so I found out today that there probably won't be any new referrals until December (which is only a week and a half away). Agitu (the agency founder) is going to Ethiopia and she will be assisting in giving referrals while she is over there.
I was hoping to be able to tell the everyone all about our referral at Thanksgiving, but I think I will have to wait until Christmas now... that's ok, though. I am only a little disappointed.
I trust what my adoptive friend Sheryl told me (I am not "religious"(whatever that means), but I truly believe the words she told me). She told me that "God will give us the right child. The one that is planned for us. Everyone who is supposed to be at the dinner table will be there. "
Even as I type that, I am thinking of the son we lost. Apparently he was not supposed to be at our dinner table. His soul belonged to someone else, somewhere else.

maybe this week...?

2008-11-17T10:37:00.002-06:00

I am so anxious and nervous and excited and all that stuff. I THINK we are now first in line waiting for an infant girl. There may not even be infant girl referrals this week, but if there are, I might be getting "the call". We might see our daughter's face this week. We might get a picture that we will look at a million times. A picture that we will memorize every little detail of. I am dying to know what she looks like, who she is, how old she is. We requested a girl 0-12 months at referral and up to 15 months at placement. So, she could be a tiny baby, or she could be a year old. We have no idea yet, but we are on the verge of knowing! It's all I can think about!

Movin on UP....

2008-11-10T13:07:00.001-06:00

I think we're either #1 or #2 in line for an infant girl.
All the phone lines and internet lines are down in Ethiopia. I guess sometimes they go down for days. Our agency said that there are referrals this week, but they need to wait for the phone/internet lines to come up so they can get the medical histories and photos.
So, maybe we will get a referral this week. Or maybe not until Christmas. I am not getting my hopes up (ya, right).

CIS Approval and Movin' On Up!

2008-11-05T16:19:00.002-06:00

Update: We received CIS approval (Dept of Homeland Security/Immigration) AND, I think we are now #4 on the waiting list for a baby girl!

Miss Maia

2008-10-27T18:42:00.006-05:00

I haven't posted a picture of Maia lately, so here she is!

short line!

2008-10-27T18:38:00.002-05:00

OK, so of the 6 families that are part of the Oct 21 waiting group, 2 of the families have referrals already! wow, that was FAST! The other 4 families (which include us) are waiting for infant girls. Another family who is AFTER us said that they are #6 in line for an infant girl, which means that we are either #1, #2, #3, #4, or #5! ummm... I am very excited. Maybe we will have a referral by Thanksgiving...... maybe even sooner. I am sooooo happy we switched to BFAS! Of course, I still have a fear that something will go terribly wrong, like after the referral, the court will deny us for some reason, but I have lots of HOPE and excitement! yaaaaaayyyyy!!!!

OFFICIALLY WAITING!!

2008-10-21T19:09:00.003-05:00

We (and 6 other families) received an email tonight saying:

Hello everyone!

Your dossiers have been authenticated in St Paul and left our office today for Washington DC for processing. Once received by our office in Addis we will let you know. It should be about 1 week.

We are very happy for all of you. You are all officially awaiting your referrals!!!

Sincerely,

Angela Wagner

Program Administrator

Better Future Adoption Services, Inc.

Yaaaay!! They are estimating that we will be waiting 6 weeks until we receive a referral, and we may travel within 3 months of that, possibly longer. We're sooo happy!

DOSSIER APPROVED!

2008-10-17T08:47:00.003-05:00

So, BFAS received our dossier on Wednesday and by yesterday at 5, they approved it (that was fast!). So, now it will get certified, then authenticated in DC and then it will be on its merry way to Ethiopia! THEN we should be officially waiting. YAAAY!
My friend Meg found a great blog about what happens once you reach the top of the wait list, written by a woman who is near the top of the list at her agency:
http://www.kevindhendricks.com/abby/2008/10/16/10/

Our Dossier is off to see the Wizard!

2008-10-14T12:56:00.002-05:00

We're DONE with our dossier! I sent it overnight USPS this morning and it will arrive at BFAS before noon tomorrow. Then, they will review it and let us know if there is something else we need, or if they are approving it. If it is approved, they will send it to Ethiopia and then we just sit back and wait for a referral!

Parting is such sweet... its just sweet...

2008-10-09T14:19:00.005-05:00

OK, so... we're switching international agencies. The agency we were with (CHSFS) projects that there will be 12 month wait from dossier submission to referral (and then travel within 3 months after that). CHSFS is a very popular agency. I have no complaints about them so far, except that we don't want to wait that long for our baby! SO, I've been reading forums and I came across one where the family waited only 4 months from dossier to TRAVEL.... they are called BFAS (Better Futures Adoption Services). So, I read everything I could about them online, called them, compared notes and discussed the decision at great lengths with Steve and my friend Meg (who is also adopting from ET) and we decided (and Meg did, too) to switch agencies! BFAS has a 4 to 6 month wait from dossier to travel. WOW. They are a much smaller agency. They have a care center called Kinkunt (sp) and it sounds like the children taken care of really well. For some reason, they have access to all of Ethiopia to receive orphaned/abandoned children, whereas CHSFS only has access to a small portion of southern Ethiopia. We will only lost our app fee to CHSFS by doing this. So, we're doing it.
We applied last week to BFAS and we were approved yesterday. Now, we are getting all the pieces of our dossier together and we expect to send that out next week.
We might have a baby by summer or sooner! YAAAAAAYYYYY!

waiting and waiting

2008-09-24T08:59:00.002-05:00

We're all done with our home study and just waiting for our agent to send it to us..... it's been maybe 2 weeks now... I don't want to bug her too much, though... ugh! It's hard to wait! We're not even officially waiting yet! We have a lot of our dossier docs ready to go... COME ON! ugh....

this round of paperwork is DONE

2008-09-04T14:08:00.004-05:00

As of today, 09-04-08, we are done with this whole round of paperwork. Yesterday, we went to Milwaukee to get fingerprinted for the orphan visa. Tomorrow, I will send off the last bit of paperwork for this stage and then we will wait for our home study to be approved, then we will wait to hear from CHSFS as to what the next step is (sending the dossier to Ethiopia, I think). So, maybe within this month, we will be PAPER PREGNANT....

Our Final Home Study visit was 08-21-08.

2008-09-04T13:49:00.001-05:00

This time, our adoption agent came to our house! Needless to say, we made sure everything was clean and that all our smoke detectors were working and that all the outlets had safety plugs in them, etc… Our house was really already baby-proofed, but we just had to make sure! I remember our agent telling us that she likes unflavored, black coffee and unsweetened iced tea, so I made my favorite coffee (Organic, fair trade Lovebuzz) and I made fresh brewed iced tea and Steve went to the store and bought herbed cherve, some other kind of fancy cheese, and fancy crackers and iced ginger cookies. It might have been a little over the top, but we wanted to be good hosts.

Julie came over and we gave her a tour of the house. She made us feel very comfortable and she complimented us on how we decorated and the colors we chose for our walls. Then wee sat down and got to business.

We talked about the essay questions we had to answer for CHSFS regarding our cultural backgrounds and traditions we practice and how we will incorporate our new daughter’s culture into our lives.

We discussed how to deal with racism that our whole family will face. Steve thought we should take the “turn the other cheek” approach. I disagreed with this. Honestly, I think we will teach our children to deal with mean or ignorant comments by coming up with a calm, smart comment to say back to them, which points out the offender’s ignorance. I don’t know if this is the right approach or not. Julie reassured us that we will learn together how to deal with issues like this. We have zero experience dealing with racist comments now because we have never had to face them. We will grow and learn together as a family.

All we have left to do for this round of paperwork are our autobiographies, statement of net worth and medical exams.

Our Third Home Study visit was 08-06-2008.

2008-09-04T13:37:00.002-05:00

During this home study session, we discussed some of the more official paperwork that we need to complete, especially the application for an orphan visa, the I600A. Our adoption agent had us fill out a sample form so that we would not get it returned to us for being completed incorrectly. We also went over other paperwork we need to complete for the home study, including the statement of net worth and the autobiographies.

I know we talked about other important things, but I just can’t remember what those things were! That’s what happens when I put off updating my blog for a month!

On another note, we had a big birthday party for our daughter Maia on Saturday! She is 2 years old. The party was a lot of fun for everyone.

Our second home study visit was 07-29-08

2008-08-07T10:10:00.000-05:00

We had our second home study visit on July 29^th. The main topic of our discussion was the grief of the orphan. I had a fear that I had been thinking about that the baby would not love me. I told our agent about it and she said “well, of course she won’t love you, you are taking her away from everything that is familiar to her. You don’t look or smell like anyone she spent her life with.” She explained that love and attachment are processes, not events. It will take a while for the baby to build trust with us. She showed us some pictures of people meeting their babies for the first time and in the pics, the adoptive parents are just beaming, it is one of the happiest days of their lives. But the babies are crying, tense, or just shell shocked. For them, it is the worst day of their lives because everything they know to be familiar to them will be gone.

It really made me think. In my head, I realize now that I had high expectations. I pictured our baby just being so happy and loving us and rainbows and blue birds, etc… but it won’t be like that. It will take time for the baby to trust us and for us to attach to the baby. We need to think about the grief of the baby. NOT “attachment issues”. She said that she thinks that “attachment disorder” is like the ADHD of the adoptive world. People focus way to much on “attachment disorder” rather than the grief and loss of the child. Think about a child who lost his parents in a car accident or something. That child then goes to live with someone else. That child would not be expected to love his new parents. You would not think about “attachment disorder” or “why doesn’t this child love me”…. Absolutely not. You would address the GRIEF that this child has experienced. I had never thought of it that way. I am so glad she addressed that issue. Now I feel like I will have a more realistic expectation of meeting our baby.

Our first Home Study visit, 07-17-08

2008-07-29T13:49:00.001-05:00

We started our home study on July 17th. We went to the local agency’s office and our case worker showed us a video about the Children’s Home in Addis. It was very touching and helps us to better understand where our child is coming from.
We also discussed the importance of keeping our child’s story private. Her story (whatever it is) belongs to her. Our case worker talked about how important it is to teach the child (and our bio daughter) all about Ethiopian culture. She gave us things to think about and talk about with each other. We are struggling a bit with what it means to incorporate Ethiopian culture into our lives. We plan on joining a group of ET adoptive families in Madison. From what I can tell, they get together for picnics, to celebrate Ethiopian Christmas, etc… I am looking forward to joining them once we have our child.
We know our children will be exposed to different cultures, because Steve and I have always enjoyed going to various cultural events and we love eating food from all around the world. But what more should we do? I know I have to learn how to do African hair (Steve, too), but what else? We are American. The cultural traditions we celebrate are secular American things… our daughters are American. Yes, we will, of course, teach our daughters about the beauty and rich cultural tradition of Ethiopia. When we go to ET, we will buy ET art to display in the house. What else? We do not want our daughter stamped “Ethiopian” her whole life. Just as we are not stamped “German” or whatever. She will be an African American, after all, right?

The beginning of our journey.....

2008-07-07T12:31:00.000-05:00

My husband and I planned on having 2 kids. We never considered that one of them would be adopted. We have a biological daughter who is almost 2 years old. We became pregnant with our second child and at the 20 week routine ultrasound, we discovered that our baby boy had severe skeletal dysplasia and that he would be guaranteed to die very shortly after birth. All of his long bones were extremely short and his lungs would not have room to breathe. We were assured that our baby would not live more than a few hours.
We were stunned and so, so very sad. We read all we could about his condition and we knew that we did not want our baby to suffer, so we decided to terminate the pregnancy. During the termination, my uterus was perforated, I lost more than 2 liters of blood and had to have an emergency hysterectomy.
We had already decided that we wanted another child, we just had to figure out how to do this. We started talking about adoption almost right away. We also looked into surrogacy, but it is extremely expensive. So, we started reading about adoption, both domestic and international. We read many blogs and informational sites. A friend of a friend referred us to a local agency. We set up a meeting with the local agency and we found out that the countries we qualify for are India, Russia and Ethiopia. The agent told us that an Indian baby would be between 2 and 3 years old and have special needs. We decided that we wanted a healthy baby, so that now narrowed our options to Ethiopia, Russia or domestic. A Russian adoption is significantly more expensive than an Ethiopian adoption. With a domestic adoption, we would be waiting for a birth parent to choose us out of a book and that process could take years. We were not interested in the heartbreak of foster care. So, all roads led us to Ethiopia.
So, we applied to both the local and international agency. We were accepted into the Ethiopian program and we are starting our home study now!