Selamnesh's Story: One year ago today.........

Thursday, May 28, 2009

One year ago today.........

One year ago today I received my referral call for a beautiful, tiny little girl, who was named Selamnesh. For all the play by play details(which are quite funny now) go to the right column under blog archives, then go to 2008 posts, then find May 27, 2008.

This has been quite an emotional month. May started off with a very dear friend bringing home her Ethiopian boys, my 1st Mother's Day of 3 children, the one year anniversary of Bizunesh bringing Selamnesh into care, the 1st anniversary of our referral call, and tomorrow will be Selamnesh's 2nd Birthday.

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Why Selamnesh?? Why not Sahara??

So often we go into a situation with our minds made up. We did!! We chose the name Sahara in a Walmart store. Lauren came up with it months before we ever sent in our first application. She was going to be Sahara!!

And she was Sahara...... until we met her, her nannies and her beloved birthmother Bizunesh. I could barely pronounce her name Selamnesh. But after hearing everyone call her by her birth name. How could we change it?? How selfesh would that be?? Her name is the only thing her birthmother can give her, how could I be so cruel as to take that away from her??

Bizunesh and I sat for 30 minutes with 2 translators exchanging our dreams for her beloved baby girl. I could only understand 1 word she would speak.......Selamnesh. The way she said it will ring in my ears for the rest of my life. God changed my heart that day on the bus ride home.

A legal name is just that. How many Henry's, Richard's, Barbra's or Catherine's do you know that use their legal names?? My daughter's name is Selamnesh. Most of the time I call her sweatheart.

About the process

They tell us that the process to adopt a child from Ethiopia is about a year. A referral is when they match you to a child. They get a grouping of children, and then try to match a family to the child's needs and the families requests. They take a lot of care in this process. What a wonderful blessing they are giving both us as families and to the children. The dossier is the file that you collect information and recommendations about your family and submit them to the agency. The time frame from submitting the dossier to referral is about 6-9 months. Our process took 5 months. Then you wait for a court date. Then you wait for a birth certificate. Then after the birth certificate comes in correctly, you get a travel date. With our agency, you stay a week. They show you around the area, possibly meet the birth parent or relative. And spend time getting to know your child. You stay at a guest house with a full time cook, and driver. I couldn't ask for a more wonderful agency. Alexa, I owe you so much thanks!

Selamnesh's Story

Thursday, May 28, 2009

One year ago today.........

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