Gotcha Day - May 26, 2010!

The judge said yes - yesterday to be exact! We are over the moon and so happy to introduce our little one! We are hoping to travel to Ethiopia at the end of June for early July embassy date but it may be later in July. We'll just have to see. In the meantime, thanks for all of your support and kind words. We'll continue to need them!
Love, Amy & Patrick

Phoebe Ayele FitzGerald
Birthday - June 20, 2009
Gotcha Day - May 26, 2010

Pins and Needles

So very nervous about tomorrow but at the same time surrendered to what is supposed to happen. Seems like everyone passed on May 12th and one family did not pass today with a court date rescheduled for 3 weeks. Its not so much the wait, but our Immigration fingerprints expire August 10th and you cannot predict how long that will all take. We must have those in shape to travel. But just keeping hopeful and positive! Its going to be a long 24 hours or so while we wait for the news!

Last Vacation?

Okay so maybe this past weekend was the last big vacation hoorah for Patrick and myself. A nice relaxing time in the Outer Banks shared towards the end with Katy and Ted (Pat's brother and his wife). We find out on Wed if we passed court and hopefully, we'll soon find out about Embassy date and travel. We hope to travel early so we can head south to Tembaro region where our little one is from. We want to have as many photos and knowledge of her birthplace as possible to share with her one day. I have to remind myself that not everyone makes court on first go around so trying to be open to all possibilities.

Unofficial Mother's Day Celebration

While we haven't passed court date yet, I am still going to celebrate Mother's Day this weekend. My agency had some new photos of our little baby "A" and I did not think she could get any cuter. These were about a month newer than our last. She had a cute little dress on and in one photo, she was sitting in a complete split. Maybe she'll be a gymnast or a little yogi! Pat and I are still contemplating names. We will keep either her first or last name as her new middle to preserve her family history. I also ordered copies of all of the photos I have of her from other folks's photo albums. Need to see if I can find some more from last fall as she was residing in the IAG care center. Want as many as I have to document her 1st year for her. She looks so happy and healthy and like she loves to laugh - that will be very important in our household!

Court Date!

Wow, everything seems to be going really fast now. We received our referral last week, Tuesday to be exact. And today we received our court date. I thought it would be towards the end of June but its May 26th - an entire month before. There is a chance that we may have 1,2, 3 or even four court dates but roughly 50% make it on the first try.

Funny how our adoption journey had so many roadblocks and I felt as it we were pushing and pulling, but things seem so right and so smooth right now. We'll see what happens next, but we could be in Ethiopia but June/July?