Adoption Update

Last week, we received and approved a second set of medical forms for Ana Luisa. According to the updated measurements we got for her, she is 23 inches long, and weighs 11 pounds. Still tiny, but she has gained weight in the last month, which is great news!

This should have been the last step before our paperwork was submitted to the federal courts in Addis Ababa, but unfortunately, as happens so often in international adoption, there's a problem. Although our case manager was told that Ana Luisa's was court-ready, meaning that all the paperwork necessary for her court hearing was done, it turns out that they actually still need to get a letter from the government offices in Oromia, the region where her orphanage is. And the regional office is not allowed to issue any new adoption-related paperwork at the moment. The situation is complicated, but basically, there was an investigation in a different part of the Oromia region a few months ago, and all adoption-related paperwork, etc. was put on hold. This did not affect any of Ana Luisa's other paperwork, because it was all done at the local office. The investigation was wrapped up, and government officials met about a month ago to review the results and make decisions on how to proceed. An official announcement was supposed to be made the week before Christmas regarding the results. This, apparently, did not happen. The lastest news that our adoption agency received was that this week, government officials were going to visit each of the 30 or so orphanages in the Oromia region to report the findings and recommendations of the investigation. No word on what this means, or what is supposed to happen afterwards, and in the meantime, the regional office cannot release any adoption-related paperwork. So now we're stuck waiting until the government officials give the go-ahead for things to start moving forward again.

This was difficult news to receive. We had thought Ana Luisa's paperwork was ready for court, so this was completely unexpected. Our case manager's estimate before all this happened was that we would have a late January court date, which means we would be able to travel as soon as early March. Now there's no guessing when our court date will be, because we don't know when the government officials in Oromia will finally make their announcement and allow adoption processes in the region to resume. We are hoping that the orphanage visits are a sign that an announcement will be made early next week But given that it was supposed to happen several weeks ago, who knows. Please pray that things are allowed to move forward soon. All we need is one letter from the regional government. And we would love to be with our baby for her first birthday on March 26.
We'll pass on any news as soon as we hear it...