Hopeful

So, still no news. Well, I guess technically we've had "news", but no court date. Our news is that yes, we are not imagining it, court dates are currently delayed in Ethiopia. Here is the specific email that all WACAP families received from the director of the Ethiopian Adoption Program on Friday:

Currently, our staff in Addis have been reporting additional difficulties in scheduling court cases due to new requirements involving obtaining the child’s original birth certificate. Although this is an important step that we fully support, many children are born without formal records of their birth. This creates additional challenges and delays to obtain the proper documentation from the local governments. We expect the process to be faster overtime but for now, it has created delays.

So there you have it. While it was frustrating at first to read this, I think on the whole having this information has provided us with some peace of mind. At least we know that the staff in Ethiopia is working very hard to get us closer to our little boy. Also, we have heard from some families on our WACAP yahoo group that the staff in Ethiopia is very hopeful that they will be receiving court dates this week - and that news makes us hopeful! Sure, they were also expecting to hear last Monday or Tuesday and didn't, but we are trying to stay positive. We received the referral for Truman the day before Shea's birthday and think it would be really neat if we received our court date the day before my birthday. Considering that my birthday is Tuesday, that doesn't give the universe much time to make it happen - but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see :-)