We found out today that Chaltu's case PASSED COURT! Praise GOD!
What does this mean? According to Ethiopian law, we are legally her parents! We still have a LOOOOOONNNNGGG way to go in the process. We found out on Tuesday that there have been some errors on the part of the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service) in updating the immigration approval. We were originally approved to adopt a child up to 30 months-but once we accepted the referral of Chaltu, we had to update the approval to reflect an older child. We found out Tuesday that USCIS did not receive all of the documentation needed to update the approval. We are praying that this is resolved soon. This must be done before any of the "usual" steps can be taken to bring her home-and that process is lengthy. So lengthy that we are not even telling our employers, most families, or posting on Facebook-we just don't have any concrete answers about *when* this will happen. Plus, those who are not familiar with adoption tend to not understand the process, and it makes for a difficult wait.
So you say you want details? Her tentative b-day is May 7, 2007. Her name is Chaltu, we will name her ChaltuJayne Keaton Baird, and will call her ChallieJayne/Challie for short. Like "Charlie" without the "R." Like my Dad (Charles) and my Mom (Jayne).
Now that the court case has passed, we can post pictures :O) Thanks to all of the families who have traveled to Ethiopia, we have 53 pictures of ChallieJayne. However, I need to scan them, so only a handful are digitized. That is going to take me some time to do!
So, until then, enjoy the photos I have posted. I have included a caption under each, and you can click on any pic to enlarge it.
Check back again!
The first picture we saw of ChallieJayne-referral
The second referral picture
Ethiopian Christmas
ChallieJayne with the gifts we sent her in her welcome bag-photo album, ladybug and t-shirt that says "Special Delivery From Ethiopia."
