Kratzer Adoption Journey: The Wait Continues!

Yes, it has been quite some time since I have updated our blog! Guess that makes me an "Unreliable Blogger". Let me say though, the end of 2013 was crazy busy and I am not going to complain because I had a busy Fall season with my photography, and that's a good thing. 2014 started out pretty rough for our family. My Uncle Danny became unexpectedly ill and passed away on March 2nd. It has been a challenging year. My priorities were with my Uncle and my Family. With that being said, I hope you can understand why updating our blog has been a bit on the back burner.

That brings us to today...End of April! We really thought we would be traveling around this time to meet our baby girl. You can probably guess that is not the case right now. Yes, we have moved up on the list and sit at... #6

I know that sounds wonderful to you all and it is wonderful! But we have been at #6 since January!! So the number six is not a favorite number of mine at all! Not that it really ever was ;-) I hope I can clarify what the hold up has been.

I will try and make it as simple as possible without getting into too much detail of who, what and where (it can be very confusing). There is SO much along the trail of adoption. MUCH MUCH paper work on all accounts!! A small portion of what is needed for a child to be "referral ready" in Ethiopia is a series of clearances and signatures from many people in the country. This delay was due to many things and resulted in some regional clearances not being signed. So nothing much happened for the past 4-5 months. It boils down to some leaders wanted to make some changes in the adoption process. They have been talking of wanting to put in place some sort of Domestic Adoption program in Ethiopia. As much as Ethiopia has stolen our hearts and we know our baby girl is there, this is not a terrible thing. That would be great if more children could stay in their country they were born in through a domestic adoption program. I can understand why leaders would want to try and make that happen. So through some meetings that took place over the past few months, they have implemented a new policy that orphanages are now required to seek out domestic adoptive families for two months, before the child will be be considered available for international adoption. Once that two months is up they will then sign the regional clearances for international adoption. When we first heard this at the beginning of April we assumed we would not hear anything until at least June. There were still many questions that needed to be answered. Last week we received an update that children assigned to our agency that have been in an orphanage for over this 2 month time period will not need to "start over" with that two month time period before proceeding. This is great news for us since we are at the TOP of the list. Our agency has been working hard now catching up with a ton of paper work that has been on hold during the past few months. There were many families that already had referrals that got "stuck" in the middle of this delay. Been sending many prayers their way and it is so wonderful to finally see their cases now moving forward. We know a few families that are traveling now and some that will be soon. Last week when I talked to our case worker it was great to hear that things are finally moving forward. Now...we just wait some more prayers that we have a referral SOON!! We are in a good spot being at the top of the list and will likely be one of the next families to get "that call"!!

It has sure been a journey! It is hard to even explain the emotions that we experience as a waiting adoptive family. When you know it is SO close but yet SO far away and you want it SO badly. As I mentioned earlier, we had always expected to be traveling around this time. Now, we really pray we will have our baby girl home before this Christmas. We knew going into this journey that adoption is unpredictable and NO International program is carved in stone. We are just so happy that there is no talk of a shut down of the program. This is just a little hiccup in the journey that we need to get through.

Please send prayers that NO MORE hiccups occur, that our referral comes to us soon and everything runs as smoothly as possible from here on out!! I really hope to have more updates in the next couple months and will try my best to not wait SOO long to add another entry!!

I have to end this entry with this great video that an adoptive father created. People say some pretty interesting things to adoptive parents and I just LOVE this humorous way to explain some common comments and questions that come our way...ENJOY!