We are actually in the process of buying airplane tickets for Valentine's Day! I think that means .... we will actually go to Uganda, and that it is in the forseeable future, and that we will get there and meet our daughter!!! After so many "if's" and "when this happens" and "maybe" and most of all, wait wait wait!'s, of the last few months, I can't believe we are actually making concrete plans.
But first of all, I've got to say, that every time I tell someone about the good news of our progress, or am working on a packing list, or start imagining what it's going to be like when I meet my little girl.... it makes me a little scared and worried too. There is still plenty of room for something to go wrong and the adoption to fall though; in Uganda, unlike in Hague countries, nothing is certain until the judge makes the ruling. That we will adopt Rehema is not a promise, it's just a plan. BUT -- meanwhile, I have to take action to keep moving things forward so our plan can happen.
As far as Rehema's legal situation, nothing specific has changed. We have decided to go over without having a court date or having all the paperwork together. I talked with the director of the agency, and he is supportive of that idea, and he thinks mid-February is a reasonable time frame. So for the last week, we've been making concrete plans!
Mark, Emerson and I will all fly over together. The present flight involves 14 hours from Seattle to Dubai, an 11 hour layover (which includes a room at their in-airport hotel - I'm excited about that!), and then 6 more hours to Kampala. Wow, I am so blessed to be able to spend a 36-hour trip with my active and wiggly four-year-old! (I'm not even being facetious here; anything that gets me to my daughter is a blessing!) Mark will stay for two weeks. We will be able to visit Rehema every day in the orphanage for several hours, and probably do some looking around Kampala and the environs while we have two adults available. Because then, Mark is going home, and Emerson and I will stay until everything is taken care of. Hopefully, we will get our court date within a month of so of our arrival -- but nothing is ever guaranteed around here! Mark will have to be there for the court date, but then he will need to return to work. If all goes well, at that point Rehema will be able to stay with us, but it will take a few more weeks to get all her paperwork from the US Embassy. And then we get to make the trip in reverse, except this time there will be two small children and one adult! But I am really and truly looking forward to that flight, because after that.... we will all be home together!
So probably the whole trip will be about 2-3 months for Emerson and I, and two short trips for Mark. We will probably start out staying at a hotel which is only a few blocks from the orphanage, but then I hope to find a little apartment to rent.
There are several reasons that we decided to start planning to go to Kampala even though the paperwork is not complete and something could still go wrong.
1. First of all, it will give us a much better chance to bond with Rehema, and get to know each other in a space where she feels confident. Adoption psychologists recommend a month's time to transfer care (which most children do not get!!), so hopefully we will be able to gradually spend more and more time with her and take over more of her care at the orphanage. Hopefully this will reduce her trauma at suddenly leaving everything she knows (for the second time) and being left "alone" with strange people who do not look, talk, smell or act like anyone she has ever seen before.
2. Every time I kiss Emerson as he fell asleep, or comfort him when he gets a bang, it just breaks my heart that there is nothing I can do for my daughter. I sent her some colored barrettes, and it just hurt inside, what an insignificant gesture that is. Even if I can only be with her for a few hours a day, isn't a few hours of mothering better than nothing? How can I wait around here while there is so much that she needs, and she is there....
3. The Ugandan judges are wanting to see that the prospective adoptive parents have already established a relationship with the child. Even if we were able to establish a wonderful relationship afterwords, if the child is crying and scared of us in court, we might not ever get the chance.
4. Planning several weeks in advance gives us a lot more options in terms of traveling, airfare, housesitting, etc.
5. The agency director here says that unfortunately, the pattern seems to be that the orphanage directors work very hard on one or two cases at a time, and those cases are the ones with the parent over there in front of them. So if they don't have the paperwork done by mid-February, it might mean that they are not going to get around to it until we arrive anyways. However, there are only 5 children whose cases are currently open, so it seems reasonable that they will actually make some progress for Rehema.
So here we come!!!
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