She's Ours!!!

We heard today from our agency, that we 'passed court'. That means that what has been felt in our hearts, is now true in the eyes of the court as well! Our message stated, "we are so excited to let you know that you have passed court. your little girl is legally yours now. you can book your flights". WOW! We are beyond excited, and ready to hold her in our arms!

Court Ruling

We received an email that our court case will have its ruling on Wednesday, the 28th! From what we hear, that should be no problem as far as passing goes.... all of the potential issues would have been taken care of by now if there were any. So, I'm not sure if we will actually hear the results on Wednesday or not, but that is where we stand.

We have some airline tickets on hold for now... they will automatically be cancelled if we don't purchase them... but they are for a departure date of May 12th, to arrive in Rwanda the 13th. (an overnight stay in Dubai). We are really unsure about whether or not that date is plausible or not! If not, then more likely the next week. I guess it is good to arrive on a weekend, so that we can have some downtime with the baby before we start the paperwork process on Monday. Wow! this is crazy! Crazy in a good way, but crazy!

Court Date

So, yesterday.... as I was standing in the hallway outside of Evelyn's dance class, I received a new email from our POA in Rwanda. I love to see anything from her! Anyway, she tells us that our court date had been set for today! Today! Woah, I was not expecting that.... it then went on to say that she thought we might like to see a recent picture of our baby girl!! Um, yeah we would! How wonderful it was to see another picture of our baby! She has grown since her last photograph... those chubby cheeks and wonderful lips! I just can't wait to have her in my arms!

Well, on to the court date thing.... the judge did not have enough time to get through all of the cases that were scheduled, so we were not able to have our official results... It may be next week, from what we are hearing. Needless to say, I still need to get some serious packing done! I am not that good about preparing in advance... and without an actual departure date, it is kind of hard to get myself to start organizing.

So time continues to sail, we have had a picture of our baby for five weeks now! We are so ready to complete this last phase and get on with it to bring her home! We are making arrangements with an adoption centered travel agency and we are looking at possible travel dates... all dependent on the timing and outcome of our court date. Can't believe it is almost here!

'Act of Adoption' Complete

Well, things are moving right along!! We received a call on Tuesday, the 6th of April that our 'Act of Adoption' is complete. It sounded exciting and I said 'oh, that's great to hear. What does that mean exactly?" Well, the act of adoption is essentially all of the paper work for our daugther.... we had to send a dossier to Rwanda for them to approve us (roughly 50 documents that all had to be notarized, county sealed, and state certified!) and this act of adoption is basically our daughters dossier. The great thing is that now that this is done, our court date can be set.... which is when she will be declared legally ours in the eyes of the Rwandan courts... we can then arrange our travel plans and go bring our sweet baby home! Our agency is predicting that we will be traveling in early May. Woo Hoo!!! Now, I had better get packing!