CLEARED!!

Friday morning at 4:39 am, an email arrived from the American Embassy in Addis Ababa with the subject line "Cleared Case". I read it in the pre-dawn darkness to see if it was what I thought it was...and it was! We must now submit three preferred dates after September 6th and await confirmation of one of those dates from the Embassy. We can't believe it! There has been so much emailing and paperwork over the past couple of years, and our last visit with Lidiya was almost 6 months ago - in a way, it still doesn't seem real. Once we submit our dates and receive our assigned interview, once the tickets are booked, we believe it will begin to feel like it's really going to happen.

We've been telling Maya that Lidiya is coming "soon", but she's been hearing that since February. In February, "soon" was the truth. Who knew that we'd see so many changes to the Ethiopian adoption program (for the better) to prolong (not so great) this "soon" for all of us? Now when Maya asks us, we tell her soon and mean it, but she's probably to the point where she just thinks to herself, "tell me something I don't know", poor kid.

Maya has been talking daily about her baby sister coming from "Eefiopia", "Addis Abababa" and Africa, "which is way far away - we can't see Africa". She knows that Mommy will get on a big plane and fly a long time to pick Lidiya up, just like Mommy and Daddy did when Maya came home. She talks about Lidiya's nannies and her nannies being one in the same. She has stopped wondering where Lidiya's mommy and daddy are going to sleep when they all get here and now talks about Maya's Mommy and Daddy being Lidiya's Mommy and Daddy, too. So, even if she probably doesn't think this is ever going to happen, at least we know she's starting to get it.

"I can't wait to see the new baby!" she said. "Soon, soon," said the mommy and daddy together. "You will see the baby very soon." -Over the Moom, Karen Katz