Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Why not just catch the next plane to Ethiopia?

Several people have asked me, "Why do you have to wait for your adoption agency to tell you when you can travel? If you're Enatalem's parents, why can't you just catch the next plane to Ethiopia and go get her?"

I wish.

Actually, I suppose we could. The problem is, we'd have to set up house in Ethiopia, because we couldn't come home.

What we're waiting for now is a visa issued by the U.S. Embassy that will allow Enatalem into the U.S. This is how I understand it works:

-after we pass court, the Ethiopian government has to issue a birth certificate for Enatalem. Children in Ethiopia don't automatically get birth certificates when they're born (birth dates aren't kept track of there like in the U.S. Enatalem's birth date is estimated). By the way, Enatalem's name on her Ethiopian birth certificate will be "Enatalem Patrick Brown." Kinda cute.

-okay, next step. Once Enatalem gets her birth certificate then she can get her Ethiopian passport.

-next, the court decree, birth certificate and passport are submitted to the U.S. embassy (keep in mind that all this stuff has to be translated from Amharic to English first).

-Enatalem must have a physical exam performed by a U.S. approved embassy doctor. She'll be screened for HIV, tuberculosis, etc. (she was tested for all these things at the care center before we got her referral, too).

I imagine they would deny her a visa if she had certain diseases (I'm not sure what). Children I know have come home with Hepatitis A, scabies, lice, giardia, tapeworm, etc. so clearly the U.S. doesn't keep you out of the country for everything.

-finally, a U.S. embassy appointment is scheduled (this is where we come in--hooray!). We accompany Enatalem to the U.S. embassy, answer some questions, and a visa is issued allowing her to enter the U.S. !

The hold-up in this last step is that agencies are only given a certain set number of embassy appointments per month. As I understand it, our agency has appointments two days a month, with slots for ten families each of these days. Lots of families have been passing court in our agency lately, which is great, but means that all these slots are getting filled quickly.

And so we wait. Our agency guidebook says our wait to travel should be between six to eight weeks from court. It will be eight weeks if we get in the second February travel group. So, we're counting on being in that second group. If we're not, we may just catch the next plane to Ethiopia anyway. We've waited for Enatalem long enough!

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for all the great info. I knew some of it, but not all. I am hopeful you'll be in that 2nd travel group - I can't imagine they'd hold you up any longer. And, from my understanding, it's 10 embassay appts twice/month for 10 children...so if a family is adopting siblings of two or three kids...that's two or three embassy appts taken. Good luck - fingers crossed that you get word of travel dates soon!

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  2. So can I just copy and paste this when the day comes, so that people will understand? You already explained it so well, so why repeat? ;)

    We keep getting asked if we will change our minds and adopt from Haiti instead.

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