A Final Answer. . . Perhaps?

I say perhaps because I have no idea what the final answer is. Today may have been the hardest day of waiting so far. That's hard to say, as I spent months waiting for a referral, and even more months waiting for a court date. But I would still say today has been the hardest day so far.

At about 11:30am, CST, I couldn't wait anymore, and decided to call my contact at my adoption agency. I hated to call and pester her, but I'm sitting here needing to know if I need to be changing my airline ticket. . . again. And, the business day was most likely over in Ethiopia, afterall, they are 8 hours ahead of us, meaning it was 7:30pm there when I broke down and called our agency.

According to my agency, the embassy isn't budging much. They have decided to hear two cases out of the entire group. (I'm not sure how many are in our group, but I would say about 8-10 families) My guess is that the two cases being held on the original date are the families who called the embassy directly and complained. I tried to get more information out of my agency, but all my contact would tell me is that the situation has gotten "ugly." She told me they have been working on this since 1am PST, and have pretty much gotten no where. I reminded her that there are some families that will need to be changing their airline tickets immediately if we find out we can fly out on Friday. She realizes this, but now says that there won't be a for sure answer until tomorrow now.

Does anyone else think this situation has gotten beyond ridiculous? Does anyone else feel like I'm not getting the entire story? It was insane to think about purchasing tickets 4 days before take off day, but now if I won't know for sure until tomorrow, I would be purchasing a ticket 3 days before take off date. Have I mentioned I work? I have a boss I need to be telling. As it stands now, I have a temp starting this Friday. I'm about to have the very uncomfortable conversation with my boss that I'm actually not leaving until October 8th.

I don't know what else to do. My agency continues to keep all of us in limbo, meaning I continue to keep my Mom in limbo. . . meaning she is keeping her work in limbo. And in the middle of all of this? A beautiful little boy named Nur. Although I take comfort in the fact that he is oblivious to all of this, my heart still aches to have him home.

So as it stands now, I'll be leaving in Ethiopia in 18 days. And although that doesn't sound like a long time to many. . . it feels like forever to me.