I also wanted to add that today the twins turn 13 months old. I am so glad we don't have to miss another birthday. This time next month they will be in our arms and home forever.

The countdown begins!

We are going!!

I just got an email from our agency that we have the August 9th embassy appt. We will really be going this time. Yay!! I am one happy camper. We also found a sitter for Tues. and Thurs. today. It has been a good day all in all. Now if only we could win the lottery so I wouldn't have to work. Of course you have to have the money to play the lottery first. LOL! Oh well for now I will work, but at least is only part time. I'm just glad that in one weeks and 1 day we will be boarding a plane that will take us to our babies. Finally the wait is almost over.

No news is good news?

So so far we have not heard from our agency that we will not be going to Ethiopia for the August 9th embassy date, but it is still early. We should know by this week if we are not going. Fingers and toes are crossed and prayers are being said. I keep saying that I am going no matter what, but realistically that won't be able to happen due to not being able to afford to stay in Ethiopia for that long. If we don't get the August 9th date we have to wait til the August 23rd date. But I am optimistic in getting the August 9th date now that all of the paperwork is in place. I think our agency director is also optimistic in us getting the Aug. 9th date. So that helps in being positive.

Matt's best friend, Adam, has been staying with us while he's been home visiting, he lives in Florida. He leaves on Wednesday so after he leaves we will be getting all the cleaning, packing, making baby food and freezer food and last minute home repairs going since we will only have a week til we leave. Matt's parents will be staying at our house while we are gone. It will be so nice knowing that the dogs will be with someone all day and that the house will be safe while we are gone. It will make for a much smoother and a little less stressful trip knowing all is well at home.

I can't wait to hold my babies! Soon very soon they will be in our arms and all the waiting, stress, and anxiety we felt during our journey to them will just fade away and all that will matter is that they are with us for the rest of our lives and we won't have to miss another minute of their smiles, laughs, cries, not any of it. Soon very soon it will all be over and we will be a family of 4, 6 if we count the dogs.

Our paperwork in at the embassy

I got an email yesterday from the National Visa Center that our paperwork had been transmitted to the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia and then today I got an email from the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia that they have all the paperwork needed for us to have our embassy appt. WooHoo! Now we wait to see if we can get a confirmed appt. for Aug 9th. We should know if we have the appt. sometime next week. The embassy won't do anything until two weeks before the requested date. Our agency director is positive that we will get the Aug 9th date since we were originally in the bunch for the July 26th date but couldn't get it due to the missing paperwork, which they now have so I am staying optimistic that we will be in Ethiopia in two weeks so pick up our babies. Oh wow this is really going to happen. After wanting to be a mommy for my entire life it's finally going to happen. In two weeks I will be holding my children in my arms for the first time. Tears and goosebumps is all I can say.

We leave in two weeks...

Well after a very stressful phone conversation with Expedia.com we finally have a new travel itenerary. We leave on Wednesday August 4th out of Indianapolis and get to Addis Ababa at 6:50am on Thursday August 5th. We then leave Addis Ababa on Thursday August 12th and land in Indianapolis on Friday at 4:57pm, with babies in our arms I might add. And I will not be changing these flights so no matter what we will be in Ethiopia in two weeks and two days. Our agency seems pretty positive that we will get the August 9th embassy date as long as all of our paperwork is where it needs to be and it should be by then so it looks like this is for this time around. I am frantically trying to get my job all squared away before we leave. I can't stand having someone else do my job but it is for such a great reason that I am willing to set aside my control issues this one time. I went shopping yesterday for my clothes to take with us. I really needed some new shirts and some jeans so it wasn't just for the trip that I bought this stuff for. Now to do more job organizing so that it will be done correctly.LOL!

Change in plans

So due to the 171h update not getting done soon enough we will not be leaving on the 22nd of July for the July 26th embassy appt. We will now be leaving on Aug. 5th for the August 9th embassy appt. We are extremely disappointed about this but there is nothing we can do about it, so we will just keep going and leave in three weeks instead of one. It is all a part of International Adoption. The good thing is that now we have more time to get stuff done around the house that wouldn't have been done had we left on the 22nd. We now pray that all goes as planned for this date and we get to pick up our children on the 8th of August. We will land in Addis on Friday night and meet the kids the next day but we will not take them with us until Sunday. That way we can do some stuff that we wouldn't want to take the kids to do, like go the museum and going to an Authentic Ethiopian restaurant. That way we can do those things and not have to leave the kids with a nanny they don't know. But on Sunday we will be taking our babies with us and will have them with us for the rest of our trip. Til then we will be getting our house ready for babies. Thank you for all the prayers and positive thoughts thus far.

Do you believe in magic?!

I do! I believe that blogging has magical powers. I've written about this before, about how every time I blog about something I would like to happen it happens. Well it happened again today. I blogged about not having our 171h and we should get our 171H early next week!! YIPPEE!!

AT around 3 o'clock this afternoon I got a call from an employee at the NBC/USCIS office stating that they could not find our paperwork and asked if I could fax over the paperwork so they could have it to process. Matt brought all our paperwork to my office and I got it all together and he took it to FedEx and he faxed it to them at around 4pm and at around 630pm we had this emai:

"Good Afternoon.
We received your faxed documents. I have rewritten your I-171H and sent the documents to the NVC. I have also placed a copy of the new I-171H in the mail for you.
Congratulations and Best Wishes.

Warm regards,"

I'm not going to post her name for her privacy, but she is now my BFF. She has bent over backwards for us and we will never be able to thank her enough. We are thinking about sending her Boss a nice letter. I am definately going to send her a Thank you card and probably slip a picture of us and the twins together so she can see who she helped and how much her work means to the people she is helping. We still need to make sure that NVC does there part quickly, so we are not totally letting out our breaths but we are definately breathing a little better. Thank you for all the prayers. Our God does great and powerful things and knowing that is what is getting me through all of this.

Still waiting...

So we are still waiting on our new 171H and we leave in 1 week and 6 days!! Our S.W. keeps telling me not to stress but seriously how can I not?! I am trying however not to dwell on the shoulda, coulda, woulda's of our journey to this point. Nothing can change the past so I need to just focus on what is ahead of us and what needs to be done now. It is hard but I am trying. I'm just so scared that 1. We will be stuck in Ethiopia with no certainty of when we would be able to go home or 2. Our embassy date will have to be moved to a later date. Neither of these options sits well with Matt and I. All I want is to bring our babies home. I did get an email from a woman from the NBC/USCIS office today saying that she would be putting my email regarding our case in the expedite file, whatever that means. But atleast one more person knows the urgency of our case. The more the better I say. Our S.W. says that he knows of two people on our case, so that is 3 people working on this. So hopefully it will get done soon. Many more prayers needed. Thank you.

Attachment Do's and Dont's

Do
1. Offer household help (running errands, preparing meals that can go right from the freezer to the oven, etc.) so the mother and father can spend more time holding the children.
2. Trust the mother’s instincts. Even a first time parent may notice subtle symptoms that well-meaning family and friends attribute to "normal" behavior.
3. Accept that attachment issues are difficult for anyone outside of the parents to see and understand.
4. Be supportive even if you think everything looks fine to you.
5. Allow the parents to be the center of the baby’s world. One grandfather, when greeting his grandson, immediately turns him back to his parents and says positive statements about his good mommy and daddy.
6. Tell the baby every time you see her what a good/loving/safe mommy and daddy she has.
7. When the parents need someone to care for the baby for a night out, offer to babysit in the child's home. (After the child has been home for a substantial period of time.)
8. As hard as it may be for you, abide by the requests of the parents. Even if the baby looks like she really wants to be with Grandma, for example, she needs to have a strong attachment to her parents first. Something as simple as passing the baby from one person to another or allowing others, even grandparents, to hold a baby who is not "attached" can make the attachement process that much longer and harder. Some parents have had to refrain from seeing certain family members or friends because they did not respect the parents' requests.
9. Accept that parenting children who are at-risk for or who suffer from attachment issues goes against traditional parenting methods and beliefs. Parenting methods that work for many children can be detrimental to a child with attachment issues.
10. Remember that there is often a honeymoon period after the child arrives. Many babies do not show signs of grief, distress, or anxiety until months after they come home. If the parents are taking precautions, they are smart and should be commended and supported!

Don’t
1. Assume an infant is too young to suffer from emotional issues related to attachment. Babies are not immune.
2. Underestimate a new parent’s instincts that something isn’t right.
3. Judge the parents’s parenting abilities. What looks like spoiling or coddling may be exactly what the child needs to overcome a serious attachment disorder. Parenting methods that work for many children can be detrimental to a child with attachment issues.
4. Make excuses for the child’s behaviors or try to make the mother feel better by calling certain behaviors "normal". For example, many children who suffer from attachment issues may be labeled strong-willed by well-meaning family members. While being strong-willed can be seen as a positive personality trait, this type of behavior in an attachment-impaired child may signify problems.
5. Accuse the mother/father of being overly sensitive or neurotic. They are in a position to see subtle symptoms as no else can.
6. Take it personally if asked to step back so the parents can help their child heal and form a healthy and secure attachment. You may be asked not to hold the baby for more than a minute. This is not meant to hurt you. It is meant to help prove to the baby who his mommy and daddy are. Up until now the children's experience has been that mommies and daddies are replaceable. Allowing people to hold the babies before they have accepted their forever mommy and daddy are can be detrimental to the attachment process.
7. Put your own time frames on how long attachment should take. One mother was hurt when she was chastised by a relative who couldn't understand…after all, the baby had been home six months. It could take weeks, months, even years. Every child is different.
8. Offer traditional parenting advice. Some well-meaning family members will tell a new mother not to pick the baby up every time they cry because it will spoil them. Children who is at-risk or who suffers from attachment issues must be picked up every single time they cry. They need consistent reinforcement that their mommy/daddy will always take care of them and always keep them safe.
9. Fall into the appearance trap. Some babies/toddlers with attachment issues can put on a great show to those outside of the mother/father. What you see is not always a true picture of the child. Even babies as young as 6-months-old are capable of "putting on a good face" in public.
10. Lose hope. With the right kind of parenting and therapy, a child with attachment issues can learn to trust and have healthy relationships. But it does take a lot of work and a good understanding of what these children need.