Hope and knots in the waiting....

Today is the day.  Today is the day they decide if they will approve our court case.  I’m not going to lie.  My stomach has a few knots in it.

I was going to wait to write a post until after we heard news of MOWA’s decision on our case, but I decided I wanted to have a record of my feelings before that happened.

Honestly…. I’m nervous.  I’m a bit scared.  Let me rewind to yesterday’s events.

Yesterday we were at the orphanage when we got a call from our agency rep here in Ethiopia.  She said she was going to come by the orphanage to talk to Wes and I.  She wouldn’t tell us what she wanted to talk to us about, but we knew that she had just been to MOWA to speak to them about our case.  I was terrified.  I was holding Eliana at the time, and I was seriously restless.  I just kept kissing her head, pretty much comforting myself in the process.  During the wait, one of the nannies told me she was leaving.  Apparently she had gotten a new job
(at least I hope that is what I understood).  She was crying, and saying goodbye to everyone.  All the nannies had tears streaming down their faces.  Oh how my heart ached!  After she left, I walked into the twins’ old room (they just moved all the babies from our room into the same room as the toddlers a couple of days ago).  I set her down next to me, and played with her as she just cooed and smiled.  In the midst of the play, I felt sick to my stomach.  I was running a hundred scenarios through my mind about what she could possibly want to talk to us about.  Why couldn’t she have told us over the phone?  Did something go wrong with the twins’ paperwork? Did the birthfather show up and want them back?  Were they going to tell us that the adoption could not be completed?  These were just a sampling of the questions that were going through my head.  And while I am not typically a pessimist, I was already trying to prepare myself for the worst outcome.  I was trying to tell myself that no matter what, God was in control.  No matter what, God knew what was best for Wes and I and the twins.  No matter what, I would still love Him.

Our agency rep arrived.  She is such a refined and beautiful woman, who walks with great poise.  Her hair always looks just right, and she dresses in the latest fashion trends every day of the week.  She’s gorgeous.  As I saw her walking across the courtyard, I made my way outside, with Eliana still in my arms.

She smiled big and greeted me with the typical three times cheek kiss. Okay, perhaps that smile marked a hint of good news….a hint of hope.

We sat down in the manager’s office and she said, “Well, I don’t have the best news, but it is not terrible news.”  I immediately felt relief.  Wes and I both did.  When she asked us how we were doing, we both said we were nervous because we thought she was going to give us terrible news.  She told us it was nothing like that.

She proceeded to tell us that MOWA was now requiring a new document. It wasn’t one they had asked for before.  It was simply one they recommended people have.  Apparently all the agencies were in upheaval because of this new requirement.  They wanted a separate document that stated we were aware that we needed to give 3, 6, and 12 month post placement reports, and yearly reports thereafter to be done by us.  It didn’t matter that our homestudy stated that we were aware of this. It didn’t matter that we had already paid for the post placement reports. They wanted a sheet of paper that was notarized and authenticated.  Ummm….yeah…a little difficult to do while we are here in Ethiopia.

So from there we headed over to DHL immediately, to send a document over to Kentucky, to have one of our friends work on this for us.  The hope was to have that document filled out, and sent back to us within the next week.  Of course, once we got there, it was closed for lunch (ah Ethiopia….).  So we decided to just go to lunch and try afterwards.

After a $3 filet mignon at Cloud 9, we headed back over to DHL.  As I started filling out the address label, our agency rep called.  Wes popped out for a second as I stayed there in the DHL office.  A minute later he popped back in and said to cancel the mailing. Apparently, MOWA wanted something else now, and our rep said she would get back with us once she figured out exactly what that was.  She was obviously irritated (not with us, but with those asking for these new documents).

So, with yet another bump in the road, we headed back to our guesthouse.  Who knew what would come next.

We decided to sit down in the lobby and have a cup of coffee (they have a coffee ceremony every day in our guesthouse down in the lobby). We just sat there for a while.  Wes sat at a table writing in his journal, and I sat in one of the comfy chairs in front of the television.  The Accidental Husband was on.  I had never seen it, but Colin Firth is one of the stars, and he does not get the girl in the end.  Colin Firth should always get the girl.  I digress….

Our agency rep called once again as we were down there, and said she was going to come over and talk to us again.  More uneasy anticipation.

After waiting for about a half hour, we decided to head back up to our room until she got there.  We both lied down and tried to rest for a while.

She finally showed up, and we headed downstairs.

She looked frazzled. Very unusual for her. She had been working hard for us all day, and she was not happy with the outcome thus far.  All she could tell us was that she felt like she made some positive headway, but there would be no way to know until the next day (today). We could only wait and hope, and in the meantime, we would need to email our homestudy agency to see if they could get anything together for us showing proof of our prepayment for our post placement reports, and whatever else might offer additional support for our case.

We did what we could, and then decided to spend the rest of the evening trying to have positive attitudes, and calling our facebook friends to pray for our case.

We ended the evening ordering some pizza from Ice Blue, and then played some Phase 10 down in the lobby with my parents.  We laughed and enjoyed the evening.

And here we are now.  It is 9:30 on Friday morning.  We are getting ready to head over to the orphanage as we always do, and we will spend some time with our children.  In the next couple of hours we should hear a final verdict on our case.

My stomach’s a bit queasy, but I am okay.  We are all okay.  And no matter what, God is still good, and He is in complete control.

Stay tuned….