At three o’clock this morning, one of my girls came through my bedroom to use the master bathroom (the one downstairs is being remodeled and we try to keep kids out of the hallway one when Marcus is sleeping because it is attached to his room).

So after I tucked her back into bed and stumbled back up the stairs, I shot a look at the computer and (remembering it was day time in Ethiopia) I decided to wishfully check my email quickly before falling back into bed.

I had resent my email message to the Embassy before I went, asking for a “guesstimate” on how long it will take to get the waiver approved. (I had originally sent it over a week ago and had not gotten a response).

I was not really expecting anything to be there, so it was a total happy shock to see a reply from the Embassy in my inbox.

It was addressed to “Joshua and Erin” and thanked us for our email regarding Belane’s HIV waiver. It then said,

We try to expedite waivers in adoption cases by faxing the information to CDC. Turn around time is approximately 3 to 4 weeks if everything is in order.

We hope this information is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact our office if we can be of further assistance.

Immediately my heart started pumping and I couldn’t help but get excited…we’d been planning on 8-9 weeks, and 3-4 was sounding TONS better. I was so excited I could not get back to sleep for the longest time! I have been so focused on November, that moving it up an entire month to October would be just amazing.

Of course I also know not to get my hopes up TOO high. They have talked about faxing things before instead of mailing them to speed things up, but it sounds like they are actually trying to do that now. It sure would be nice, and their estimate of a timeframe was really encouraging to us.

So, we are cautiously excited. I am not holding my breath that it will get done in half the time we’re thinking, but it is really nice to know that it is at least possible. :)

Thanks to all of you who are thinking about us, praying for us and keeping us in your thoughts. It means a lot!