Updates . . .

For those of you who are wondering, no, we do not have our travel dates confirmed yet. We don't really know a whole lot about all of the government workings with all of this, but here is the little we do know. When we go to Ethiopia we have an appointment with the US embassy. In the past our agency has always just had a set appointment time with them, so when they got our paperwork completed, they could confirm our travel dates for us. But, because of an increase in US families adopting from Ethiopia, the embassy has set up a new policy and must confirm our appointment. So, now we are waiting for them to confirm that we can have the set appointment time in order to confirm that we can travel on the planned dates. Perfectly clear?? ;o) Apparently we are the first travel group from our agency to be affected by this new policy - lucky us ;o) - so I don't think they really know when to expect confirmation. The travel coordinator at our agency said she doesn't anticipate us having to be delayed, but can't confirm our dates until they get confirmation from the embassy. My heart is so ready to go bring Isaiah home!!

As an update to our previous post, Gracie was doing well yesterday. She was tired, but that seemed normal as we didn't get back from the ER until around 11 p.m. and then woke her up twice during the night to check on her. She had a mild headache for most of the day and a little nausea in the a.m. She was feeling much better in the evening and went to bed around 8 p.m. last night. Then at 9:45-ish she came out crying and holding her head and said it hurt worse than when she fell. I immediately called her pediatrician and got her some Tylenol. While we waited for the return call from the doctor on call, I got us both ready for another very cold trip to the ER. As she was literally writhing in pain, we decided not to wait for the pediatrician to call back and just took off to the ER (which ended up is what he would've told us to do anyway). I was praying the entire way as I could tell she was in a lot of pain, but I was trying not to get into a wreck on the snow drifted roads.

When we got there, they took us back immediately. Since her catscan from the night before showed no issues and she wasn't having any dizziness or blurred vision, they gave her some stronger pain meds and did another x-ray on her neck (from a different angle) to check for muscle or ligament damage. The x-ray didn't show any damage, but the doctor concluded that she has a concussion and maybe some mild whiplash. So, she is feeling much better today, and we will see what tonight holds. I'm really hoping I don't have to spend another night in the ER :o) We praise the Lord for His care of our daughter, and protection of both of us on the roads last night! He never leaves us or forsakes us . . . ever!!