Picking up Amunoo

WE were hesitant on this day, nervous really. Not because we were scared to be parents - no we're definitely ready. It is just that we didn't know if he was. This was our fourth visit and we had established with the Orphanage and our Agency that this day, Saturday, December 7th would be the day we would take custody of our beautiful boy. It just seemed so fast to us. I wanted him yesterday but our Amanuel only knew this orphanage as home - it seemed rushed - it seemed mean. But, we moved forward, a little out of genuine selfishness and a little out of our sense of commitment and a little because we weren't sure if we would ever know when the RIGHT time was. WE arrived at the orphanage with our bag full of mixed emotions and were given a more thorough tour this time which lasted about a half hour. We saw a project that the orphanage is aligned to - a women's empowerment training facility that is within the orphanage compound. This amazing venture teaches unskilled women the crafts of sewing or hair dressing or weaving and bead making. I will be bringing some scarfs home to sell - they are beautiful pashminas and they go for real cheap - so save some of your Christmas budget for this amazing school. Ok, back to Amanuel. Once we were finished with our tour, we were brought to Amanuel who immediately began to cry when he saw us - as if he knew his whole life would be uprooted in just an hour or so. The nanny who handed him to me fervently kissed him all over and then almost threw him at me and ran away crying. I went to her and said thank you and we hugged and cried together. She loved him - genuine, maternal love and I couldn't imagine how she felt in that moment. Again with the pull of different emotions. Admittedly, there was a sense of jealously, after all I wish I got to spend the first year of his life with him. And then there was SHEER, overpowering gratitude for teaching him HOW to love and that he is worth being loved. When I think of that moment it will go down in MY personal history as one that so overwhelms me that I can hardly take it. WE then took Amanuel and hid from the nannies in a little room with a bright blue couch, while we waited for another family to finish their 1st visit with their son. The hour or so spent in that room was hard - he screamed for his "Umma" (his favorite nanny) the whole time as Darryl and I rocked and tried to console him - passing him back and forth as each of our arms went numb. The nurse came in and soothed him with some food and gave us a sheet of paper containing his eating schedule and nap times and another with his immunizations. Sidenote: all the adoption experts say that you should continue the child's current diet and schedule so as not to traumatize, overstimulate, etc. However, I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME, continue feeding my baby Mr. Noodles and so we've completely changed his diet and he is adjusting wonderfully. Girmachew came and got us and we headed to the van. I know I am a romantic, but again we found ourselves in the middle of a very anticlimactic end to what seems to me should be a very momentous occasion. I did not expect a marching band but some sort of fanfare would have been great - after all we were officially parenting this baby from then on and he was leaving the only home he'd known and we had signed a waiver and everything. Nonetheless, we climbed into the van and the moment we did, he settled down. He LOVED it. Girmachew said he was probably in a car 1 or 2 times in his life. He stared out the window as if he had known the car his whole life and in that moment, I saw a glimmer of "we're going to be fine".

So Sorry!

I want to start out by apologizing for not getting to you sooner. I can't say we've been BUSY per se. Because we haven't. WE have 4 doting adults and one baby boy so we're anything but busy. It's just that I.CAN'T. TAKE.MY.EYES.OFF.OF.HIM - not even for the five minutes it takes me to blog. So, I am sorry, but I've been caught up in something far more wonderful - getting to know our beautiful son! I owe you a lot of time so I think it is best to go chronologically. Court Date: Thursday, December 5th WE were lucky enough to share this date with another couple from our agency who are adopting a two year old son. So, when Girmachew picked us up for court, we were escorted to their hotel before we went to the court house. Our new friends climbed aboard and we set off to the court house. After climbing what I think is 5 flights of crowded, narrow stairs, we made it to our destination - a small waiting room with approximately 50 seats and 75 people in it all waiting for their turn. WE sighed, big sighs, as we knew we were in for a long wait. Just as Darryl and I congratulated ourselves for being prepared with lots of snacks and water, they called us and our new friends into the room. I think we were 3rd to be called. Amazing! We sat down in the chairs at one end of the room and faced the judge - the four of us. The judge asked us a series of yes or no questions - probably 10-12 in all. Questions about keeping his culture, about if we had met him, how many times, etc and we answered "yes" or "no" in unison. Then, suddenly, just as we were anticipating another question, she said something like - "well, it seems all your paperwork is in order(UHHHHHHHHHHH YAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) so, he becomes legally a permanent part of your family". At which point I let out an audible gasp and we all got up and thanked the judge and left the room. The whole process took about 5 minutes. Such a simple enough ending to years of waiting - to years of hoping, to putting all of ourselves into and just like that - he's ours. We're done. And I couldn't help but cry and hug our new friends and kiss my Darryl and be so happy, in the narrow hallway of a very simple courthouse. WE then went to the Agency's office to immediately begin the immigration paperwork and were greeted by MArtha who we knew only by name and knew so much about but had never met. She offered us coffee and we got right down to business filling our Citizenship Part 2!!! As our new friends were leaving the next day, they were able to go and see their son, and we were sent back to our hotel to wait until we could see Amanuel again. Great day, one that needs to be remembered.

Our 3rd Visit

We woke up, again lazed around trying to kill the vast amount of time we had to kill before Girmachew would be here to take us to our third visit. He was to be here for 10 am and the sun is up at 4 am so that meant lots of time. So, we read and ate and cleaned a little as the power was out most of the morning. Then our cell phone rings, and it is the front desk advising the Girmachew is here already - one hour and 15 minutes early. I was still half-naked and gross. So, I ran around cleaning everything important, but as you will see in the pictures, I walked around all day with bed head as a result. Anyway, we were so happy he was early because that meant we would be to Amunoo early. We had some shopping to do before we headed over to the orphanage so, Girmachew helped us pick all the things the orphanage needed. With our money we were able to buy pasta, flour, bleach, rice, tomatoes, coffee, toilet paper, eggs, quick oats. Thank you everyone who donated money. My heart breaks for the diet here, so full of white starch. For instance, the nurse at the orphanage told me that Amani isn't on any sort of formula as it is too expensive and they reserve it, but she told me to put him on it right away so that he can catch up. He also has never had a vegetable, or anything other than ramen noodles, spaghetti noodles and corn flour. So, here are a few of us on our shopping spree.... Once we got to the orphanage, we unloaded the van and played a little soccor with the kids as we waited for Amunoo. We have no idea where he was before however, eventually, the nanny called to us from inside... The minute he saw us, he bagan to wail and the nannies told us to come in and get him. So, we made our way around and when we entered they essentially "threw" him at us and left swiftly. He cried, loudly this time, for about 15 minutes and then just wimpered for the remainder of the visit which was about 2 hours long. I just held him and rocked him and kissed him and sang and eventually he calmed. The best moment of the day was when he sunk his whole body onto me and put his head in my neck and sucked a little. I sobbed then. I was the happiest mumma ever! Eventually Darryl was able to inch closer without setting him off and so we sat, like a family, quiet. LInda snapped pictures and sat close too. But there was no playing, just snuggles and I am so, so happy with that. Darryl fed him the ramen noodle porridge and as he did, Amanuel looked him in the eyes and DArryl loved it.

A little about our days

We wake up early - real early - like 5am early. It must be the time difference or the fact that Addis is LOUDDDDDDDDDDDDD really LOUD - at all times. Either way, we have a lot of time to kill before the smog lifts enough to go outside. So, we clean and shower and eat and relax for like 5 HOURS every day. Today we went to the National Museum of Ethiopia. We were so excited to go - being the evolutionalists that we are, it was so exciting to see Lucy et.al. We spent hours in the museum. It was so nice. Then we walked around the yard of the museum. We had a great lunch out. Walked the streets. We are feeling much more confident and feel better about pushing our way through the crowds. WE even got brave enough to hail a cab. The people here go out of their way to help you. We ALWAYS have a trail of beggers following us and sometimes the military catches them and tells them to leave us at which point we have about 5 minutes of reprieve. Today we gave a woman with a very malnutritioned baby on her back a lot of money and she still wouldn't leave us and followed us and the baby cried the whole way down the road. I cried too - couldn't stop. She was breaking my heart but we couldn't give her anymore. WE have found some great bakeries and restaurants and a STARBUCKS. Machiatos are amazing. The fruit is delish. Everything is so non-processed, it's great. Our apartment is fantastic. The staff here is amazingly helpful. Things are not as cheap as we anticipated. This trip is expensive!! Today, as we walked down the road, my father had a cup of ice cream in his hands and a 3 year old street kid jumped and grabbed it from his hands. So sad. WE have a guy that walks up and down outside our window with like 20 brooms on his shoulder screaming every 10 seconds what we can only assume means "broom" in Amharic. He starts at 5am and never stops. I have some thoughts on Ethiopia, some more detailed observations. I just wanted to get this down while I had a chance.

UMMMM WOW

Friends - I need to start by saying I struggle with how honest to be here... on such a public forum, with so many of you strangers.... but I think I really need to write - as a form of therapy because this is really hard and I am in Ethiopia without my friends and so I am just putting this out there, with thoughtful concern... We went yesterday to visit Amanuel again. We were over the moon excited and knew not to bring the camera this time as there was no chance those tough nannies were going to let us sneak a picture. The nannies lead us to a tiny, brightly painted, room that had about 12 empty cribs and 7 babies sitting on a mat all quite content to be fighting over one toy. We took off our shoes and went and tried to find a space to sit in the circle of babies as my dad and Linda found a wall to watch from. Once we were comfortable, his nanny left and so, besides all the babies, we were the only ones there. Amanuel immediately started to cry, he turned from us, he wanted NOTHING to do with us and had a look of panic on his face. He was scared. I scare my baby. I backed off a little and started playing with the one toy as if I wasn't paying attention to him and this sparked the other babies to concurrently begin to cry. It was actually funny. All 7 crying and all 4 adults panicking, as protocol in such situations hasn't really been established. Are we able to pick up the other babies? Will this benefit or confuse Amanuel? So, we set to calming them all down, which didn't work and the nannies eventually came in to rescue us by removing all of the other babies and laughing at us too. We were now totally alone with Amanuel who was still petrified (and this is NOT an exaggeration. We eventually we asked to move to the larger room which was a welcome change. Amanuel is so sweet. But I am really scared for him. HE IS SO QUIET - never making ONE sound except when he cries and even then he is quiet. He looks nervous with every move. It is like he feels so insecure with us there (or is that him?).... He cried for the next hour as I bounced him around the room, Darryl tried to distract him with the water bottle and toys and I showed him the kids playing in the yard. As I carried him, he put his two open palms on me and pushed as hard as he could and my heart broke in that moment. There was nothing I could do to make him feel better, nothing I could do to take his fear away. NOW ,I am not naive. I have read all of the adoption books and they all try to prepare you for this as this is the expected response from institutionalized children. But there is no way, they could prepare me for this. For wanting so bad to take his pain away and not being able to and wondering if you ever will be ....I am so sad for him. I am sad for us too. The nurses eventually brought in a sippy cup full of watered-down milk and layed him in my arms and he drank. But not really. He just used the cup as a soother. He didn't really drink the milk. He layed in my arms for about 45 minutes and hated every minute. He wouldn't let me hold his cup and not ONCE would he look at me. He turned his whole body from me and the whole time I sang to him or called his name or kissed his arms and he didn't waiver. Not once. Eventually, the nanny came and said, "bye bye mommy" and took him from me (Without a kiss) and put him in the crib - screaming with his sippy cup in hand. That was it. That was the visit. So, we are left with these feelings of... Are we doing what is right for him, will he ever love us, will he feel secure, are we good enough, are we conditioning him to associate us to bad things because these visits are so horrific for him? We love him, that is NOT a question. I used to fear not connecting to him. That was the craziest fear - he is ours, it is so obvious to us. I have never felt love like this and that is the honest to goodness truth. So that's it. Our next step is that we will attend court tomorrow. Once we pass that, he will be legally ours and we will begin the transition to our family. I believe that Amanuel will need an extra long transition. SO, MAYA AND LEASA, you're right - no side trips. We can't stand not having him. I think of him every minute and replay each moment we've spend together in my head, holding on to the one time he kind of cracked a mini smile. Every minute we aren't together, feels like an hour. Wish us luck for a successful court date tomorrow. Andrea

Getting here