Her Name & Where We Go From Here

Well, after much deliberation, we have decided to name our daughter Ellie T**** Wade. The "T" name is the name given to her by her birth mother. It is beautiful and sweet and we just love how it sounded with Ellie; we'll be able to reveal that name on the web after we pass court.

We've had a few other names on the short list but Ellie has been the one name we always go back to....and maybe it's because her big brother is insistent that is what her name should be! We had a difficult time convincing Garrett that we would be keeping her given T name because he had something different in mind. But, after reminding him that his middle name is his special name from his birth mother, he quickly thought it was special and fun to "let" her keep her T name, too!

Ellie. Ms. Ellie. Our Baby E. Bitty Baby Ellie. LOVE IT!!

Now, on to what's next....I wish I could say we knew a time frame but in all honesty, we don't. We are only the 5th family in our adoption agency's Africa program to be matched with a child, so there are not too many examples on how long it takes once you are matched. We anticipate it will be 3-6 months (per the social worker's best guess) to get through the following steps:

*Adoption agency turns in our legal documents and Ellie's legal documents to the country's department for women's and children's affairs. All of these papers are completed, in the hands of our representatives in Africa and ready to go!

*Department reviews all documents, makes sure the match is a good one, makes sure nothing is missing, etc. It could take 1-3 months (or who knows, we pray not longer) to get through this stage.

*Department requests a court date (in Africa) on our behalf.

*Court date(s) will be held. Right now, most infant adoptions are taking 2+ dates.

*Once we "pass" court and our adoption is finalized, we begin to make travel arrangements for about 3 weeks later (when our Embassy appointments will take place - we must be there in person for those).

SO....please join us in praying for God's perfect timing in this whole process. Right now we are strangely peaceful about the wait that is ahead of us. Obviously, we would prefer to get to our sweet Ellie sooner than later but understand that we are on an "international adoption journey" and things go slower or take longer than what we are used to in the states.