We're off to get our son!!!!

Can't believe this day has finally come, it seems very surreal.  We received confirmation from Canadian Immigration that Isaac's visa has been issued and is on the way to Ethiopia. It will arrive by Monday morning.  We are leaving tonight and arrive in Addis at 9pm tomorrow.  The flight is 20hrs including a 5hr layover in Frankfurt Germany.

We will need to transition Isaac a bit before we take him into our care.  The plan is to visit with him at the transition house on Sunday (Mother's day), so he gets use to us. That's going to be a day I'll never forget! I just can't wait to hold him again! We will go back again on Monday and depending how comfortable he is with us we will take him with us that day or next.  We miss him so much and it will be hard not to take him the very first day but the poor little guy has had so much change already in his very short life that we want to make this as easy for him as possible.

We will update the blog regularly while we are away so make sure you check in!

Update #3 and Last Day at Work!

We received an update on Isaac from the transition house yesterday. He is almost 10 months old and is changing so much! He weighs 9.2kg and is 73cm tall.   He definitely is growing and we can't wait to see him!  Mommy and Daddy are coming soon Isaac!

Today was my last day of work, yay! So I will be taking a year off.  We booked flights to Ethiopia and we are leaving this Friday!  It looks like I will be with my son for Mother's Day, so happy!

Isaac is Officially a Canadian!

For the past few weeks I have been trying to log on to the Canadian Immigration website to check the status of Isaac's citizenship but with no success.  I spent some time on the phone with the call centre but no one could tell me why I was not able to view the status.  Finally this evening I tried to log on and to my surprise I got in and this is what I saw:

We received your application for Canadian citizenship for a person adopted by a Canadian citizen (after February 14, 1977) - Part 2 Adoptee’s Application, on April 8, 2011

 

The adopted person became a Canadian citizen on April 26, 2011.

 

Needless to say I did the biggest happy dance you have ever seen.  I was expecting to see still "in progress" so I was totally shocked to see that our son had already been granted Canadian citizenship.  Awesome!  Now we just have to wait for the facilitation visa to be issued which should be soon. I hope to be able to be in Ethiopia and with my son for Mother's Day, that would be great!

 

Tonight our small group from church had a shower for us.  It was great and we had a lot of fun! It was perfect timing since we just received the news of Isaac's citizenship just before we left the house so we had lots to celebrate! They are a great bunch of people and we appreciate all the support they have given us.  One of the lady's seventeen year old son, Colin, made a beautiful cake for the occasion. He is very talented young man and this cake is amazing, it tasted great too!

 

 

Second Update: Chicken Pox but Still Smiling!

We got our second update from the Transition House in Ethiopia.  Isaac is 81/2 months old and as you can see he has the chicken pox.  It has been going around the transition house for the last couple months so it was just a matter of time before he got it.  He certainly has a lot of spots even on the bottom of his feet but this doesn't stop this cutie from smiling.   He gained 0.3kg in the past month and weighs 8kg now and he has grown 3cm which makes his height 73cm.  It's nice to see him thriving and looking so healthy with exception of the chicken pox.  We were also told that he goes to bed at 7pm but needs to be rocked to sleep and he wakes 2-3 times a night for a bottle (yikes, no wonder he's looking so healthy!) We can't wait to get him home, come on visa!

All our paper work arrived at the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi on March 9th.  We are exactly 7 weeks and counting into the wait for the visa from our court date. We are hoping it comes within the next few weeks but there is no way of knowing.  We are staying busy by getting all the projects done around the house because I'm sure our time will be limited once we finally get him home. We love you Isaac and can't wait to see you soon!

First Update...

We’ve been back for 2 weeks now, time is flying by. We received Isaac’s birth certificate last week.  His name appears as Munir James Boyle and we are named as his parents. Seeing our names on his birth certificate made everything seem even more real to us. We can’t legally change his name to Isaac until he has lived in Ontario for 1 year.  We also received the translated court decision documents that states that our adoption was approved and the file is officially closed! The last document we are waiting for is Isaac’s Ethiopian passport. Once we receive it, all the documents will be sent to the Canadian Immigration in Nairobi.  We will then be waiting for his facilitation visa to be issued so he can enter Canada. We are hoping the timeline is still around 8 weeks from our court date but unfortunately the process is very unpredictable. Since Isaac will be entering Canada as a Canadian citizen, we will be able to apply for his Canadian passport right away.

We also received our first monthly update for Isaac from the transition home in Ethiopia. He will be 8 months on March 7, he weighs 7.7kg and his height is 70cm.  He is in good health. Below are a couple updated pictures.  We can’t believe how much he has changed in such a short time and it looks like he is being fed well!  We miss him so much and can’t wait to see him again.

We're Home!

The flight home was very long. We left Addis at 1am and arrived in London 8hrs later. We flew Ethiopian Air and will never use them again.  We were packed in like sardines and it was very uncomfortable.  We had an 8hr layover in London so we went into the city for breakfast and to walk around a bit. James bought Isaac a little Liverpool soccer outfit from Adidas, it’s so cute!  The flight from London to Toronto was another 8hrs but on Air Canada.  This was a great flight, it wasn’t full so James and I split up so we had lots of room.  We arrived in Toronto around 6:00 Saturday evening. It is really good to be home.

We had a great time in Ethiopia! The poverty was overwhelming but the people were so friendly and genuine.  We met some wonderful people and we saw some beautiful places.   Overall, we like Ethiopia very much but Addis was very polluted mainly due to the emissions from all the old cars. The driving was absolutely chaotic at best, there seemed to be no rules whatsoever.  People would walk right in front of cars, I constantly thought we would hit someone.  I was told that if a driver hits a pedestrian and they die, it is automatically 15 years in jail.  So even though it looks like they will hit someone, they really won’t.

We really enjoyed our time with Isaac and we are so thankful that we passed court. We are hoping for a speedy immigration process so we can get him home as soon as possible.  Thank you everyone for all your support and prayers, it truly means a lot. We will continue to update our blog as things happen with our adoption.

Amazing Visit with Our Son!

The pictures tell it all! We had many to choose from but could only post a few. Isaac is perfect and we feel so blessed to have him as part of our lives.  He was well worth the wait! The transition house (foster home) is great and we feel confident that he is in good hands.  It was great to share this wonderful day with our new friends Aila and Barry from Vancouver, as they also met their 2yr old son. We are heading home tonight feeling really happy and now we wait for the immigration process which currently is taking about 8 weeks but could be longer. Once we hear that Isaac’s visa is ready, we can travel back to Ethiopia to bring him home.