Ethiopia is popular now!

Tufts Medical Center in Boston has an International Adoption Clinic and Steve and I have signed up for the pre-adoption seminar on July 27th. Their website with more information about the Clinic and the seminar is http://www.nemc.org/adoption/

When I called to sign up for the seminar, the receptionist asked me which agency we are using and which country we are adopting from. I said, "Wide Horizons for Children and Ethiopia." She said, "Those are VERY popular these days." My response was that we had the idea before Angelina Jolie-a little defensive, I know. Julie called today and told me that Ethiopia adoption was in People magazine this week! And I was worried that we would be out of the mainstream.

So this got me to worrying that Ethiopia would become so popular that the program would be inundated with applications and wait times would be increase to those of other programs. I emailed this concern to our adoption caseworker Sarah and this was her response:

Our Ethiopia program is definitely a popular one these days! Currently, our wait time for a referral, after a family is document ready, is 0-3 months. Will it change? Increase? That is unpredictable, and we always leave room for change. However, Ethiopia has many, many, children (of all ages) who need homes and we are working very hard with our rep over in the country to continue to find as many children homes as we can (i.e. expanding our facilities to care for more children). Ethiopia continues to be our fastest moving program at the agency and we see the publicity as a positive light to find children homes. The Ethiopia program is not like Korea program where there are limited number of children available and lots of families sitting on a waiting list. Families are bringing children home around 6 months after they are document ready.

So then I started thinking 6 months after we are document ready! We aren't even document ready yet! But we are close and I know that WHFC is just trying to manage our expectations. I thought that we would only have a small window in which to travel because of my work schedule but I guess we will just make it happen whenever it needs to happen. I am sure not leaving my kid one day longer than necessary in an orphanage.