August Numbers

So numbers... those are always exciting. Everyone always wants to know about my numbers. They don't actually mean too much since I'm still waiting on that pesky piece of paper from immigration that will complete my dossier officially. I'm still not "waiting on a referral" I'm "waiting on the government to approve me already". It has been really busy at AGCI getting families off to Ethiopia to pick up their kids and getting as many cases through the courts as possible. With court closing this week until October, we're all expecting to go into sort of a holding pattern until fall. Not much will be happening. So in a way this makes the August numbers exciting because that's the last real progress we'll be seeing for a while.



So for a quick refresher (try to keep up)...during June I moved 12 spaces on the girls list all the way to #18, while moving 6 spaces on the boys list to #19. That was fun. At that rate, I was starting to get a little worried even.

This month there was a little change to the process for contacting everyone with the monthly update. Instead of a phone call (pretty time consuming actually) they are e-mailing our waitlist numbers and updates (which is totally cool, we get update e-mails every other week any way which are just fine and we can call ANYTIME we have a question). So this week I've been chomping at the bit to get my e-mail. I had a pretty good idea where I was going to land in the numbers. Just wanted to know for sure.

Well, I haven't gotten the e-mail yet, but a lot of others have. And I can tell, with 99% assurance what my new numbers are. Are you ready? Remember, last month I was Boys 19, Girls 18.

So here we go. As of sometime around the beginning of August, I am...


Wait for it....


Wait for it...

BOYS

GIRLS

What's that you say? That wasn't very exciting? Yeah I know, it's not. I moved a whole 3 spots on 1 list. But I'm lucky, I think there will be a couple families that will actually move backward! Why's that? Well we received an e-mail today about little baby L, she was within weeks of coming home with her new family, when she passed away at the orphanage. She had some special needs, and needed to get to doctors in the US, they were doing everything they could for her but she needed some specialized care. So her family (who was already legal, it appears they were past court and about to travel) is now grieving the loss of their 4 month old baby that they were just about to take home. They are now back on the wait lists and essentially moved everyone backward 1 spot. The waitlists are solely based on when your dossier was approved, so they have the most seniority at this point and are at the top of the lists now. I cannot imagine how hard this is for them.

But with around 14 families bringing kids home last week through next week (3 different travel groups), the paperwork will get going on all the kids that come to fill those beds during the court closure and referrals will start rolling in late October. If you're curious about the trip to Ethiopia, head on over to Elizabeth, Sharon and Karen's blogs. They've been sharing some really cool stuff about their trips last week.