Apparently, today was the day for referrals. Everyone in the Ethiopia program has been on edge a little bit because referrals are scheduled to stop June 1 (which is a Sunday, which really means May 30.) although last year they stopped referrals June 15 but still squeaked in another group of about 15 referrals after the 15th of June and those people all made it through court before the courts closed in early August.

Here’s a rundown of what happens - you get a call for a referral. Once you accept the referral you wait for a court date in the Ethiopia court system. It can take anywhere from 2-6 weeks to get a court date but they average about 4 weeks. Once you make it through court the baby is yours. Your names are on their Ethiopian birth certificate as the parents. Your visa is processed and you are officially allowed to bring the baby out of the country. After you make it through court, you are given a travel date (Children’s Home Society has people travel in groups). Your travel date is usually about 2 weeks after your court date. You book tickets and go and pick up your baby.

Today there was a crazy amount of referrals given out. For the past 2 weeks there have been 3-5 referrals coming in a week. Today there were 12. And that’s only counting the people who are on the forum and announcing them. I have a feeling there are at least that many more going out to people who are not in the forum.

As of this morning we were #59 on the unofficial list. We are now at #48. And the really good news? The people who got referrals are waiting for infants (like us) and they are not people in the top 20. They are all over. The waiters at #49 & #51 both got referrals today. It gives me just a tiny bit of hope that maybe we won’t have to wait until fall for our referral either.

Update: We’re up to #47. If tomorrow brings as many as today - we could end up in the 30’s by the weekend. That’s amazing news.

There are 2.1 billion Christians in the world. And there are 143 million orphans in the world (according to UNICEF - although if you look at other sources the number varies between 50 - 200 million depending on how you describe an orphan. Living with family but parents are gone, one parent gone, both parents gone, parents alive but placed them in an orphanage, etc). So, if my math is correct the numbers work out like this: if 14% of the Christians in the world adopt 1 orphan then every orphan would have a home.
I’m realistic. I get that you can’t just sign up to adopt an orphan and I get that while one child is being placed with a family another is taking his place in the orphanage. And I know that the underling causes for orphans will not go away just because they each got a home. But there is a reason that God calls us to care for the orphans over 40 time in the Bible.

Apparently NBC considers mothers who have adopted “non-moms“.

Please feel free to let NBC and their sponsers know how you feel about this. I did.

Update: See the comment from Rebecca B. Apparently they have re-worded the title of “non-moms” to “adopting moms” which isn’t much better in my opinion. I won’t introduce my child as my “adopted child” and I don’t expect him/her to introduce me as their “adopting mom”. Do the moms have to have a category? Can’t they just be moms?

Update #2: Apparently the adoptive community made a pretty big stink about this. I know that nearly everyone on the forum I participate in registered a complaint and it by Friday it was posted on about 20 different blogs but I guess we were a big enough voice to prompt a blog entry on E!’s website. Feels good to know that speaking up can still make a difference.

With our adoption getting closer and closer we get a lot of the same comments a pregnant women does in her 9th month:

“I bet you can’t wait for the wait to be over.”

“Not much longer now.”

“Wow, still no baby yet?”

“Do you have everything ready?”

“You must be really excited.”

And we are. We are ready and we are very excited and at the same time I am sad. I’m sad because some where in Ethiopia there is a women or family in a similar situation to this:

“Meanwhile, most of the poorest of the poor suffer silently, too weak for activism or too busy raising the next generation of hungry. In the sprawling slum of Haiti’s Cité Soleil, Placide Simone, 29, offered one of her five offspring to a stranger. “Take one,” she said, cradling a listless baby and motioning toward four rail-thin toddlers, none of whom had eaten that day. “You pick. Just feed them.”

(A New York Times report from last week on the worldwide foot riots.)

Someone is making the decision that they are too poor, too sick, too weak to care for their children and that the best thing they can do is hand their child over to a stranger in the hopes that they will receive the care that they need.

I was on the porch sorting and organizing the goods for our rummage sale and Lexi was helping. She kept asking to keep things and I told her that we needed all this stuff to stay on the porch, it was going to help us bring our baby from Ethiopia home. Here’s how the rest of the conversation went:

Lexi: We bring the adopted baby home?

Me: Yep. We are going to bring the baby home. Do you want a new brother or sister to come to our house?

Lexi: Yeah.

Me: Do you want them to come to our house and stay forever?

Lexi: Yeah. The baby from Ethiopia come to our house.

Me: Okay. (at this point I was done and getting ready to go in the house. Lexi was staring intently at the front door). Are you coming with me?

Lexi: (still staring at the door) No. I waiting for the baby from Ethiopia.

(hmmm….how do explain a several month wait to a 2 year old?)

I know it sounds cheesy but a group of people adopting from Ethiopia got together and created a Secret Pals group. Basically, everyone gets a name and for the next 6 months or so, you send a small gift to your secret pal. I got my gift in the mail yesterday. And my secret pal rocks! They sent me a tote bag with my name stitched on it. Kinda fun getting a present when it’s not Christmas or your birthday.

I’ve been connecting with other people who are adopting from Ethiopia on an adoption forum (and most are from a Wisconsin and Minnesota and going through Children’s Home Society like us). It’s been nice to talk to people that are at the same phase in the process as us and understand what we are going through.

A couple years ago, someone on the forum created a list of waiting parents. It includes information on when the dossier was approved, what age/gender, if you’re waiting for a sibling group, how long you’ve been waiting, etc. They keep track of who was added to the waiting list when and then have created a best guess list of what number waiting parents are in line to get a referral for their child(ren). There are about 100 people on the list. When Kevin and I were added to the list we were at #80 now we are up to #72. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a good feeling to see our names move up a few notches every week or so.

There’s been a little bit of a dry spell in referrals lately. But the people who have traveled in the last 1-2 weeks have commented on some major blackout spells in Ethiopia (they’re telling current travelers to pack flashlights) which means no information is leaving Ethiopia, meaning even if they have a stack of referrals, they can’t get word to the US. However, today, there were 3 people on the forum who got referrals. Things are looking up.

We want our referral before June 15. After that Children’s Home Society stops referring children so that people with a referral can get a court date (which allows you to bring your baby out of Ethiopia) before the courts close in early August. The courts don’t re-open until October which means referrals don’t start up again until September.

We got our CIS approval in the mail today. It’s the letter for the Citizenship and Immigration Services stating that we are allowed to bring a kid back into the country. According to the government “it has been determined that [we] are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans” (let’s hope for orphans).

Aside from getting an actual child referral this is the last official piece of paper work we needed to get.

Now it’s back to more waiting.

These don’t support our adoption but they are cute bears that support another adoption. A woman in the process of adopting from El Salvador is making and selling these. Personally, I think they would make great gifts for a family in the process of adopting.

Stephanie recently blogged about a parenting book that she read and disagreed (is that the right word, Steph?) with and commented on which books she has liked and found helpful.

It got me thinking about the parenting books I’ve read and which ones I’ve liked/agreed with and have used information from. I’ve read Babywise, The Baby Book, The Baby Sleep Book, 1-2-3 Magic, Bringing Up Boys (even though I have a girl), The Happiest Baby on the Block, Adoption Parenting, The Weaver’s Craft, Baby Wearing, and probably a couple others that I can’t remember off hand. All in all most of these books have been not helpful (except for the Adoption Parenting & Weaver’s Craft). When reading them, I always get the feeling that the author is basically trying to bash all other styles instead of just giving parenting advice. There are bits and pieces that I have pulled from books and the authors would probably keel over dead if they knew I was following “the other guy’s” advice, but seriously, can only having one plan/stragegy work for any family? Especially if you have more than one kid.

Some of the things that have worked for us (and I don’t even remember which books they are from): Using a sling. Letting Lexi cry herself to sleep/sooth herself to sleep. Not using nursing or a bottle to help her sleep. Short bedtime routines. Discipline that follows logical consequences (you threw it, you go pick it up and then you are done playing with it. you spill it, you clean it up, etc). Giving her a pacifier right away. Giving her a bottle right away.(And I mean right away as in before she was a week old, not as in the instant she cries.) Having her sleep in her own bed - there is no way family bed would work for us. Sleeping with Lexi is like sleeping with a mad octopus.

I’ve been thinking about parenting styles a lot because with our adoption getting closer and closer, I know that we are going to need to have as many back-up plans as possible. Bonding with the new baby may take a lot of work and it may require things like rocking the baby to sleep, or family bed, or, not letting them cry it out, or, or, or…? Out of all the books I have read, the two that I have liked have been the Adoption Parenting and The Weaver’s Craft. I think I liked these because they deal specifically with issues in adoption and Adoption Parenting is really just articles pulled from all the parenting books on which techiques have worked well with children coming from institutions.

So, what have you read? What have you liked? and what have you used? and which ones did you think were a little crazy?

Just curious.