Ho-hum...

We had a super crazy busy weekend beginning with a really neat opportunity to meet some folks from Bethany's Ethiopia team. BCS flew out Milkiyas, their representative in Ethiopia. He has power of attorney to sign our names on court documents, so it was good to meet the person who'd be us when we weren't there. With him was Nesibu, who is the director of the orphanage that Bethany has teamed with on one of their projects.


One of the things I really like about Bethany is that they don't see kids as an opportunity. They have a wonderful program that helps keep children with their parents (or other family) whenever possible. All of the kids in this program and in school and they also provide skills training for the parents. The woman who was traveling with Milkiyas and Nesibu as a guide and translator was an American woman who (I hope I'm remembering this correctly) works along with Nesibu and has spent years and years off an on in Ethiopia doing aid work (not just adoption-related). In her time there, she said, she's seen many agencies that see an opportunity and snatch a baby up as quickly as they can. With Bethany, they first try to help the family and, if it's just not possible, then they'll place the baby. She said there's a lot of stuff that goes on "under the table" which suprised me because I thought that Ethiopia was supposed to be one of the best countries in regards to the adoption process...but I guess no process is perfect. (But please don't think I'm accusing any agency - I'm just regurgitating something she said that surprised me.)


One thing that has really made me feel sick in this whole process is the fact that I'm taking these kids away from Ethiopia - their culture, their country, their language, their family (I guess that's more than one thing) and I wondered how the people of Ethiopia felt about this. Milkiyas and Nesibu said that hands-down, no questions asked, the people there are happy about it. They said that the rich people in Ethiopia find a way to send their children here for the opportunity that awaits them in the US. They're happy that we will be giving them this prestigious opportunity. (hmmm...maybe they hadn't been here long enough to see the greedy, consumeristic side of us) So, although I still do feel saddened that we're taking them away from their culture, I at least feel like the people there won't hate us for it. Not sure how much better that makes me feel though...

Despite the cool opportunity to meet these guys and get our questions answered, I can't help but feel discouraged. You see, the topic of time lines came up. Our social worker has always said 12 - 18 months. But everyone and their brother here in the blogosphere has gotten their referral way sooner than that (maybe I'm exaggerating a little). And our SW always seems to give us the longest wait time, then things happen sooner - like on our background checks. So I guess somewhere in our heads we had convinced ourselves that it wouldn't be 18 months. Or maybe we thought that the 18 months included the 6 months we've already put into this. But when Milkiyas said that it would be "12 - 18 months. Yes, 18 months. Maybe less. Probably 18 months." my tiny little heart - and Marc's too - just crumbled. I suppose you can convince yourself of anything if you want it badly enough. And we somehow convinced ourselves that our kids would be home in the next year. Not looking like the case anymore.


Ho-hum...