On the brite side

We have been home for about three months now and things are doing better than when we first arrived home. We are all beginning to adjust and perhaps even find our own little groove. Putting the kids to bed is not perfect but is infinitely better than when we first started out. Last night I was even able to put the kids to sleep by myself! Shocking isn't it, amazing how much our goals change once we have kids.

So far Saturdays are Raylene's day off, usually, so I attempt to perform an approximation of my parental duties by feeding, bathing, playing with, and generally keeping Raylene from completely going insane from the total lack of adult conversation or those awful toxic playdough fumes, I am not quite sure which it is. Actually, Raylene tells me that I do a good job the kids seems to like having me around so I think it is safe to say I am not a terrible father or husband.

We all still have our good and bad moments, and most always still glad be together! :) Here are some more photos of the kids I posted on our photo gallery.

1 day down, only about 4745 days till they are 18 years old

I am just kidding, right now we are really enjoying this time with Mamush and Kefelech. It was the most exciting day in my life next to our wedding day! Just FYI, Internet connection will be intermittent so we may or may not be able to post regularly.

So Children's Hope International (CHI) picked us up at Melkham House around 9:30 am local time and it was about 15min driving to reach House of Hope (HOH) and then we were shown into a room on the second floor with couches, chairs and what not, basically the equivalent of the torturous hospital waiting room, 10 min later one of the nannies walked in with the kids. Neither one of them knew who to look for ( we found out later the photo book, stuffed animal, and toy caddies made for them never arrived so they have never seen us until today. ), once they were pointed in the right direction it was hugs and picture taking city. I wish I could write more however time is limited. Overall it was the awesomest day ever, life is good when you are thirty years old and it is OK to play with the big wheels!

P.S. Ethiopia is 3+hrs ahead of greenwitch time, 10+hrs ahead of Utah.

Pictures and Updates

Thanks to some other traveling parents with CHI we received these new photos last night! They are so precious and we can't wait to hold them and love on them. We love that Livy Kefelech is smiling in these. They are so beyond konjo (Amharic: beautiful / handsome)!

We also got an email from our adoption consultant with their updated heights and weights. They are actually shorter in this round of measurements, which really isn't all that uncommon. We have been told that sometimes they are measured with shoes on, the kids can be wiggly, standing on uneven ground, you name it. They are definitely gaining weight, which is great!

Zachariah Mamush

At Referral (11/10/2009)
16 kg - 113 cm
(35.3 lb - 44.5 in)

Now (1/12/2010)
19 kg - 108 cm
(41.9 lb - 42.5 in)


Olivia Kefelech

At Referral (11/10/2009)
15 kg - 105 cm
(33 lb - 41.4 in)

Now (1/12/2010)
16 kg - 103 cm
(35.3 lb - 40.5 in)

We had a travel call with our agency this morning and we should find out our official VISA date tomorrow! Which means we should be able to buy our tickets and finalize and the last minute travel arrangements very soon!

In His own time ... is finally here!

The long awaited time has come, we are officially parents! No more psyche gotchas, no more just kidding pranks from life, our adoption was approved in the courts of Ethiopia on December 23th, 2009. We are the happy (ecstatic, lucky, etc. fill in your own exciting verbs, whatever) parents of two siblings, an almost 5 year old boy and a 3 year old girl, by the name of Mamush and Kefelech. We will be keeping their Ethiopian names as their middle name, along with one of our choosing, so their new names will be Zachariah Mamush Miller (the almost 5 year old boy) and Olivia Kefelech Miller (the 3 year old girl). We are tentatively picking them up during the first week in February, so we only have four weeks to prepare since until now we could not be sure what ages and gender we would be getting so things will be crazy insane for the this next month getting everything ready we are supposed accomplish.

I've been told to inform everyone that Shiloa, Raylene's sister, will be planning to hold a kids shower on Saturday, January 16th, 2010. So if you think you'll be in the La Verkin, UT area around that time put a note on your calendar. All friends and family are invited and we will do our best to get everyone an invitation but odds are we will miss a few so just give a heads up by emailing kids.shower@millermoments.net. Patrick's cell at 435.767.1235 or Shiloa's cell at 435.669.8555

Lastly, we will be back posting the events that lead to this point of the yo-yo ride over the next week or two.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and wish you all a very Happy New Year!

P.S. Here are some additional photos of them. media.millermoments.net

Homestudy Update

With the carpet installed and the baseboards touched up, I was more than ready to move everything back into the house. I figured it out today, it has been over 5 months since we have been fully unpacked - It was really starting to get old! Last night, with the help of my family, we moved most of it back. Some days when I start a project, I don't want to stop until it is completely finished, last night was one of those nights. It was a good thing too, because we got a call after 10:00pm from our social worker stating he was able to set up our walk-through appointment for tomorrow morning (today). I was so glad that the house was already back together. We knew that when we moved we would have to get an update and with a referral once again in hand, it was something that we couldn't put off. We were glad that we could schedule the meeting for 6:30am, since we had planned to leave on vacation to Tuscan about that time. The whole process took about 20 minutes and cost us an additional $150, even though we had already paid the $200 fee. Our agency has it in writing that we would not be charge more than $50 for travel, but then the visit was subcontracted out and that social worker had the additional charge. We will definitely be talking to WIAA and try to get this staightened out. It seems that everywhere we turn lately there is another fee, but I keep trying to remind myself that it will all be worth it to get our kids home. We were able to leave on vacation just an hour later than planned and are one more step closer to having all our paperwork in order.

We Officially Say, Yes! ... Round Two

Here we go again, hopeful and ready to bring home two children and welcome them into our lives forever. We gladly signed the papers again and eagerly printed off pictures to carry with us to show anyone who was interested. We received the referral on Monday and spent all week trying to gather additional information. Normally, one would contact a pediatrician and have them review the medical documents that come with the referral. Since we moved I tried using our old family doctor because they would already have us on file and we had not moved our records yet, but he took all week to say yeah or nay on helping us and then turned us down indicating we should find someone else; thanks, but no thanks. Anyway, there actually was nothing on the children's records to give much concern so we went ahead and signed the papers today, since we have to give a response within a week according to policy and mailed them off to our agency Children's Hope International (CHI).

We are not out of the fire yet, but we are one step closer, the next step is a scheduled court date in the Ethiopian courts which could be several weeks before we have a time frame. So don't hold your breath, besides nobody looks very good when they are blue; except maybe Smurfette!

Our Adoption Referral

According to Garfield, Monday's are the worst day of the week, today was an exception to that rule. Early this morning I received a call while at work from our adoption case worker and Raylene was already conferenced in on the call. The call as you can tell from the post's title was for an adoption referral! We are very happy to be moving forward after our most recent mishap, however I think this time I'll wait a little longer before shouting it to the world just in case something goes awry which is a reality in life.

Last time I think I jinxed the whole thing by sharing too much information before it was permissible, so this time I am trying not to goof up the process by giving a little information as possible.

I believe I can divulge the basics, it is a referral for two children, a girl and a boy with ages of about 5 and 3 years respectively. Honestly, that is what I was hoping for because although I would have taken any combination, I felt that I wanted a boy and a girl with out any specific age. The reason being that I didn't know how long it would be before we could adopt again so I wanted to enjoy having both sides of the child gender spectrum. Seriously there are experiences that are unique to each and I want to have them all. So call me a bit selfish for wanting to have my cake and eat it too. ;)

No Court Date, No Girls

We have been waiting the last three weeks for our court date to be scheduled. When we received a call from the adoption director yesterday, we were afraid something was wrong, but we never imagined this. It had just come to light, through the girls talking with the nannies, that they are not sisters, and they are not orphans. The families were hoping to give the girls a better life and falsified the documentation at the orphanage (as far as can be determined). We are so very heartbroken. Words cannot express our devastation.

Please know that we have complete confidence in CHI and admire their high dedication to ethics. We know that they were deceived as well and they are trying to determine an even higher standard to ensure this does not happen again. In the meantime, we are back on the waiting list. Last week, in the weekly update, families were notified that the wait for siblings could be up to 16 months. We hope and pray that we don't have to wait another 10 months and will try to continue to have faith in God's timing - but honestly, right now, it is hard.

Hello Ethiopia! We are the Millers

We received an e-mail telling us that CHI has received our referral acceptance packet today. They are now informing our Ethiopian representative and coordinator! Our dossier will next go through more entities for approval before our case goes to court in country. We are told that the process usually takes about 8 weeks. During that time the dossier will be translated, authenticated, reviewed by the MOWA (Ministry of Women's Affairs) and a summary report written. We probably won't find out our court day for several weeks. It is amazing how things are just moving along. Every day is one day closer to meeting our girls. We can't wait to be able to post their pictures so that you can all see how precious they are.

We Offically say "YES!!!"

The two beautiful girls that we have been falling more and more in love with everyday are going to be ours! As if any of you doubted, we offically signed the acceptance paperwork today! I still can't believe how fast this is all happening, but I'm sure we will be ready in time. Can you believe it, we have two daughters who are waiting for us in Ethiopia!

On another note, our house that was supposed to be closing today, didn't happen. We are now rescheduled for "sometime" on Monday. Patrick will have to take another day off work and we won't be able to start on any of the projects we had hoped to do this weekend. I have to say that working with the adoption world has made me a little more flexible (not to say that I like it that way or that I enjoy it any better). Here's to praying for good things to happen on Monday.

THE CALL !!!!!! - The Other Side

We decided to share our own experience on this event because it is so significant.

Early Monday afternoon I received a call on my cell phone from an unknown caller id, I usually let them go to voice mail but we were close to finishing up the sale on our new home and I was expecting some calls from potential employers. I recognized Erin's voice from our Adoption Agency and thought, "Now that is odd, we have all of our paper work done. Why would they be calling me?" We exchanged typical greetings and then Erin said, "Can you hold on while I conference Raylene in?" My stomach hit the floor at the same time my heart jumped. This was it! The Call! Now I can not speak from experience what it is like to have my wife go through the stages of pregnancy and then after all the waiting receive a call at work where the caller says, "She's going into labor!" Raylene has joked a couple of times in saying that we are paper pregnant. Anyway, I think that is about how I felt at that moment. Raylene came on the phone about 2 minutes later and when Erin announced the news, Raylene fell apart with giddiness as Erin informed us that we had a referral for two girls ages 5 and 3-1/2 years old. A couple minutes later we received the email with their photos and profiles.

I was useless and un-productive at work for the rest of the day. I went around telling everyone in my office and called my family to share the good news. I finally just took the rest of the afternoon off. On the way home I picked up a bottle of Martinelli's Apple Cider and a half gallon of Dryer's Ice Cream to celebrate with the Darrington's (Raylene's cousins whom I was staying with), I was still in Logan, UT while Raylene was in LaVerkin, UT staying with her sister Shiloa.

I was excited and terrified at the same time because we have been working toward this for about two years and it was finally going to happen, however we still had not closed the sale on our new home, which needed a little more than TLC, and I did not have a job yet in Southern Utah where we were going to live. I do have a temporary job but that won't take care of us in the long run. So to say I was a bit stressed is an understatement. Despite the craziness of it all, it was the happiest day of my life next to our wedding day and I know the day we first meet them will be right up there with the other two, probably even better!

THE CALL !!!!!!

I can't believe it - We are going to be the parents of two beautiful Ethiopian daughters! We got the call today! They are 5 & 3-1/2 years old and absolutely perfect. I am so very excited, words cannot express what I feel, I'm still in shock! We got our call from our adoption consultant, Erin Seigel, at 1:45pm. I was busy at work when the call came. Needless to say, I didn't get any more done the rest of the day! When I saw the (314) area code on my cell phone, I was worried that something was wrong with our paperwork, or that Erin was just calling to get an update on our house situation. As soon as she asked me to hold on for just a second while she got Patrick on the line, I knew it was our referral. My heart started pounding out of my chest and I could hardly breathe. WOW! So very unexpected and so very wonderful. I keep staring at their photos and still can't believe it.

This has taken us completely by surprise! Next Monday would have been our six month mark, about half way there or so we thought. There are many couples with our agency who have been waiting over nine months for a 'singleton' and most of the sibling referral families have waited for at least 10-12 months. I figured that I would start getting anxious around the 10 month mark and that I had plenty of time to finish up on some projects and learn some Amharic. Nope - it's crunch time!

We won't be able to post pictures of the girls until we pass court in Ethiopia, however, we would be happy to share them with anyone that wants to stop by and visit. hint, hint