Puke, Parties, Presents, People

She is a morning person people. A MORNING. PERSON. Yeesh. Ick.

The cuteness in the am is almost overwhelming.

Ari and I recently spent some time in Texas with Aya and Papa. They are also morning people. The morning love fest was exhausting to watch. But at least one day I got to go back to bed and leave them to it!

These are some early am pre-breakfast photos at Aya's table. Does she smile for photos at a sensible time of day, like, oh say 2pm? Nope. 7am and earlier? Bedhead and all - absolutely!

A few weeks ago Ari and I said goodbye to daddy at the departure gate (he got permission to see us all the way to the gate) and walked down the ramp to board our flight to Austin.

Halfway down the ramp the little one threw up all over herself and her stroller. I didn't realize it at the time (I think that's a good thing actually) in my frantic juggling of wheely bag, diaper bag, stroller, baby and boarding pass. Have I always wanted to be that mom-jaunting off on a trip with her sweet baby? Yes. Was it idealic in reality. Hell no.

Once on the plane we found our seat and I discovered just how hard it is to hold a squiggly toddler while hefting a gigantic carry on into the overhead compartment.

I think I squeezed her too hard. I know I football carried her down the aisle of the plane so that probably didn't help.

WHY can't they make those plane aisles wider? There is no humanly possible way to pull a carry on AND carry a baby one one hip with a diaper bag on the other. We got stuck on every single seat we passed. "sorry, oh, excuse, me. oh. damn. Um. I mean sorry. ACK. (uncomfortable laugh) heh heh. HOW do people do this? It's harder than it looks. Heh heh. Sorry again. Ouch! Oopps so sorry!" UGH.

Now I have a vomit phobia. You all know that. Whether I know you in my work life, my personal life, my family life or my online life - you all know I am scared of vomit. I run from it. I am not the sympathetic friend you should count on to hold your hair back over a toilet. (gag.)

I even once ran from J on our anniversary when he got really sick in a park. RAN. As in I was halfway down the block shouting over my shoulder that I would go get the car and a barf bag and be back soon.

So. Vomit. Plane. Baby. Me. Alone. (insert sad mewing defeated sound.) The second we sat down in our seat she threw up again - all over the two of us and our seat. It was our first vomit experience together if you don't count our first night together when she threw up her meal into her bib pocket. (Very clean and easy.)

The flight attendants kept yelling at me to remove my tiny little bottle carrier from the overhead bin and put it under my seat because I wasn't allowed to put more than one carry on above. Honestly? The thing holds a bottle and her meds. It is tiny. I am covered in vomit. Baby is screaming. It was bad. I kept asking for something to clean up with and they brought me dry paper towels. How are scratchy dry paper towels going to help? They did a lovely job of dryly smearing everything around.

Worse was the 30 minute delay after everyone boarded. Which took place 30 minutes after regular bedtime. Which lead to Ari pinching the elderly woman's arm next to us. And pulling the hair of the woman in front of us. And screaming. A LOT.

It was so hot. It was the 8th circle of hell (if Addis immigration is the 7th.) We were practically sweat glued to each other.

It was really terrible. It deserved a blog post all its own. I will not forget that flight for a very long time. There was a moment when I thought "I can't do this. No. I really cannot. My feminine parts are soaking with vomit juices (she puked down her front onto my lap.) My baby stinks and has grown from a manageable 20 pounder to the size of a poopy diapered linebacker on my lap. The woman next to me actually has her FINGERS IN HER EARS. And I will be trapped on this plane until we all die."

An hour and a half later we landed.

On the flight home I told our seatmate before he even sat down that he did not want to sit next to us. I think Ari really kicked it home for him when she looked up, screamed in his face, pressed the cookie monst.er (haahhh haaahhh hahhh) laugh button on her toy and laughed maniacally while jumping up and down on his seat. (Our flight home was also a half hour past normal bedtime.) He found another seat.

Flight home with extra seat next to us was marginally better.

In between these flights from the depths of hell we had a wonderful time!

My mom's friends threw us a welcome home baby shower which we attended in full party dress.

Ariam received many toys, chewed on wrapping paper, hand fed me frosting, met Ellie T. and had zero meltdowns.

I've noticed that in party situations she doesn't smile much. She is very serious and hyper alert. I think this is a normal side effect of having lived with large groups in an institution. But I do really look forward to the day when she can laugh, smile and relax at a party.

Despite my concerns about leaving daddy behind, Ari did great at Aya and Papa's house. She loved the soft carpeted floor, watching the "DAW" out the window, sitting at the big people's table, receiving adoring visitors, and sleeping in my room at night in a pack and play. She even napped twice/day, slept through the nights, and handled the heat with grace. I was sort of blown away. She did ask for "dah dah" a few times but seemed happy enough with looking at our family pictures with him on the walls.

A highlight was Saledo Creek. We began with top on, bottoms off. Then went to full swimsuit mode!
We had a great visit. Loved the party, presents and people. (Could have done without the puke.) THANK YOU mom, dad, and friends!

~A

Days 5-19 The Rest of the Story

Ok, I lied. Name post will be the next one!

Really needing to wrap up the travel posts and put them behind me.

After her long day at the doctor's office on day 4 we spent the afternoon in immigration. This appointment is part of the behind the scenes work done before most families arrive in country. We took D to immigration in the pouring rain. Buckets. Cats and dogs. Drenching cold rain. HUGE crowd surrounding the building. Overflowing waiting rooms. Completely incomprehensible set of intricate stops and starts and lines and forms. We were with 2 social workers from AAI and several children being processed for their passports so we just followed everyone around clutching the baby to us and trying not to slip and fall in the mud as we went from one building to another.

We shuffled around, changed a diaper on the ground, kept D plied with bottles and each went into our zones. (You know, the happy place you go in your mind when you'd rather be anywhere else. Mine was a Fiji, Tahiti, Bali, Hawaii combo. I was tan and thin, margaritas drunk from coconuts were plentiful, it was not too hot or too cold... you know the place.)

We were rewarded at the end of the day. D had her passport photo taken (and received her passport early the next week) AND we got to see her new Ethiopian birth certificate. With our names listed as her parents and her birthday surprisingly assigned as July 18, 2009.

Days 5-19. How can I even describe them?
We had a very brief honeymoon period. Just a few days where D slept for long naps and long nights, we were both well, and the weather was warm and sunny. We spent one afternoon playing with Kelley's kids: Ben, Bella and Simon, at the private international school which has a track, playgrounds, green grass, and a great cafe.

(Keeping it real with this photo. She's been our mini dictator from the start.)





On day 6 we joined Kelley's family and several of their friends for lunch at Antika - an Italian restaurant off of Bole Road that I highly recommend. During this lunch something really significant happened. It turned out that one of Kelley's friends is the man who processes adoption visas at the US embassy. We talked for several hours about adoption, corruption, ethics, agencies, visas, the future of Ethiopian adoptions, AND we talked about D's medical needs. This man, this wonderful man, described step by step to us what we needed to do to expedite our visa process. He said that because of her pre-existing medical condition PLUS the extremely poor care she received resulting in poor health, she would qualify to be expedited by the embassy. (And she was. In the end we passed court on May 24th and had our visa appointment on June 16th. It was practically a miracle.

(Had her first pizza and LOVED it. How do kids just know the junk food?)

On night 6 I got the chills. On day 7 I was feverish and could barely get out of bed. On day 8 we called our friends Jon and Jess (who work for Foresaken Children - a great organization that supports a drop in center and halfway home for street children in Addis) and they took me to the Swedish Clinic. Dr. Nagina is kind but very blunt. As I lay on her emergency bed claiming I was about to die (and I seriously felt that way) she said "we will take blood. If it is viral I will send you home with nothing. If it is bacterial you get medicine." (I have never in my life prayed so hard for a bacterial anything!)

(Jon, Jess and baby Dawit. Thank you - we love you!)

She attempted to swab my throat for strep and it didn't go well. Let's just say that she probably has better patients in her 5 year olds. (I have a phobia of that wooden tongue depressor.)

It was bacterial. I cried a little with relief. She said I had an "extremely high and obvious" count of bacteria in my blood. No clue what that means. Sent me home with medicine.

Day 7-9 I lay in bed. Yeshi the cook makes me homemade chicken noodle soup and keeps it coming. Jer brings me crackers and apple juice. I can barely swallow (the infection is respiratory and throat infection.) The fever breaks. I read the entire book The Help. I sleep 20 out of 24 hours. I have no idea where D is or who is taking care of her and I kind of care in between long sweaty naps but mostly I have a little lapse of memory that she is with us and I am a mom now.

Day 7-9 J apparently takes care of D with lots of help from Dinkanesh, Yeshi and Kelley/kids. Jeremy becomes very very tired. Jeremy almost cries. I almost cry. Maybe we both cried but I can't remember much from those days. D looks at me suspiciously when she's in my room. She doesn't understand why I've withdrawn. I feel guilty. The whole thing is nightmarish.

Yeshi and Dinkanesh cannot understand why J is taking care of the baby when they are there. They take D from him at every opportunity and begin to bond with her. D transfers her affection to them and to the guards. We know it will be hard to win her back. UGH.

Days 10-19 Nine days apparently go by and I just don't know what we did. We feel we are living the movie Groundhog's Day. Each day we are unsure if we'll make it in the embassy batch for the 16th. (Her TB test, passport, and other documents have to be done.)

J gets up 3 mornings in a row at 5am to have D ready for her 6am TB sputum testing. It involves intubating her. It is apparently not pretty. This happens while I am recuperating.

We rarely leave the house. I work to gain back trust with D. We visit with a few friends. We go to bed by 7:30 or 8pm every night. We pray that we will get her visa.

Day 14 We drive to Debre Zeit/Bishoftu with an AAI social worker and an Elolam Kids social worker. They take us to visit D's hometown. It is not far from Addis but is a long drive in rain and on bad roads. It is a long and hard day. We learn some things we did not know. We are left though with more questions than answers. We make a surprise visit to D's first nanny. (More on this in the name/attachment post.)

Day 16 We go to the embassy with the AAI group and receive D's visa. They even allow us to come later than the families with older children so that we won't have to wait so long. (Average embassy wait is about 3 hours.) We see "our guy" at the window and thank him profusely.

Day 17 Kelley and Yeshi help me dress D in her traditional outfit for a spontaneous photoshoot. In the afternoon D's orphanage throws a going away party for several of the children leaving for the U.S. with adoptive parents. We make a definite decision to change her name after hearing the nannies call to her all afternoon.




Day 18 We said goodbye to the Bunkers on Day 17 when they left for their summer vacation in the States. Jon and Jess pick us up at 8pm. Jeremy has had food poisoning for the previous 12 hours. I have a raging recurrance of my bacterial infection combined now with bronchitis. (But thankfully minus the debilitating fever.)

Our flight is at 1:40am. We arrive 4 hours early in order to request bulkhead/bassinett seating at the ticketing desk for Ethiopian Airlines - which was already reserved by our travel agent. We are told these seats are confirmed. We move on to the endless nighttime airport wait. The only glimmer is the light at the end - the bulkhead bassinett seat so we can LAY HER DOWN. (She hates the Er.go carrier and got a major second wind in the airport that involved crawling, laughing, eating, and screaming.)

We board somewhere around 3am. Late. Late departure. And our seats are NOWHERE NEAR THE BULKHEAD.
This is when J has hits his very limit. 19 days of confusion, late pick ups by drivers, wrong information, sickness, poor service from almost everyone involved in D's adoption, and he is over the edge. He takes the baby, walks up to the front of the plane (after trying to talk to flight attendants with no results) and demands to talk to a pilot. He does not budge for 30 minutes. There are obviously other seats available - many at the back of business class and at least one on a bulkhead but they will neither move us or shift anyone else to a better seat so that we can have some room to spread out. I am tired. I am defeated. D is crying. I am willing to give up and sit down. (SO not my normal style.)

But J stages his silent furious crying baby-holding protest until finally the head attendant comes and moves a man out of our row and into a nicer seat so at least we have a seat free between us for D. It was the best we could get, and it was not the "confirmed" bulkhead, but it satisfied. I think after all that we had been through J just could not handle the thought of either of us holding her for one more second. (Especially since were both sick!)

We lay her down, she fell asleep, we slept a bit. And somehow the 9 hour flight to London passed without any more drama. There were other adoptive families on the plane looking at us. I am sure they thought we were being ridiculous. But they did not know what we had been through the past 19 days. This was just the breaking point.

We have only one photo of the entire trip home. This one. And it just about sums it up I think.

When we arrived in London we couldn't stop grinning. We love the UK. We have lots of friends in London. London has great health care. London has pharmacies to treat my cough. London has croissants and hot mint tea and so much yum. We ate in Heathrow. D crawled around Heathrow. We decided to implement the "well it couldn't be germier than where she was living in Ethiopia" standard for allowing her to crawl all over public spaces. We slogged ourselves around to stay awake. We loved every minute of those 4 hours.


And then we hated every minute of the 10 hour flight home to Denver. It wasn't United's fault. They of course were wonderful. The transfer desk agent spent 20 minutes moving around the entire plane to get us a row of 3 in the front of economy plus. In theory we had space and comfort. But 5 of the 10 hours J spent in the back kitchen galley holding D who wanted nothing to do with sleep or sitting. 5 of the 10 hours I spent choking on my own phlegm and trying not to breath on any other passengers. 1 hour I spent walking D into sleep. And then she slept the last few hours on the plane, all the way through immigration and customs, all the way through baggage claim and almost all the way home. :)

We've reached the end. Home glorious home. Cool breezes, endless blue sky over mountains, green grass, our car and her carseat, our doggies, friends with food deliveries, a CRIB to put her in. Heavenly.

These posts are not meant to diminish the accounts of wonderful trips from other adoptive families. I am guessing that if you are guaranteed a visa and only spending 4-7 days in the country, particularly during the warm/dry/sunny season, that Addis and Ethiopia in general seems just fine.

But I have traveled all over the world and seen some DIRE living conditions and yet I have never experienced anything close to Addis Ababa. It is painfully dirty, painfully full of disease and neglect, heartwrenchingly full of the poor, elderly, disabled and children living in the streets. I have been there twice before this year so it was not a surprise. But living there with a sick baby for 19 days was not easy. Or pretty. Especially in the rainy season.

J never wants to go back. It was that traumatic. It's actually kind of funny looking back - a month later - at how visceral a reaction he had to it. But we have committed to attempt a return every 5 or so years. So we will be back. And we will go during sunny season. To visit Lalibela and Axum and Lake Tana and all of the other beautiful parts so that we can help D appreciate the land and people she comes from. We certainly don't want this one pick up trip to be all we can offer her.

~A

Day 4 - The Swedish Clinic

We "woke up" from our sleepless night at 6am and had to wake D up, get her ready, and be at the orphanage at 7am for our doctor's appointment.

The doctor did not show up. According to the nurse he had a late night and decided to come at 10am instead of 7am.

SO. Not. Cool.

We had to choose between waiting for 3 hours (which was not going to happen) or walk a couple of miles back to Kelley's house. (Couldn't get a taxi to stop in rush hour traffic.)

We walked in the dust along the side of the road. Through goat herds, over piles of crap, with exhaust in our faces, clutching our sick baby to J's chest. I kept stumbling on huge rocks. J was being stared at like he was an alien landed from the very outer edges of the universe. D was all wide frightened eyes and raspy wheezing. Awful.

Kelley took one look at us and packed us off to her doctor at the Swedish Clinic. What can I say about the Swedish Clinic? It is professional. The doctor is kind. The lab is on site. The medicine is imported from Sweden and is guaranteed not to be expired.

We spent 3+ hours at the clinic. They gave D a full body physical and noted that she was very sick with bronchitis and a bacterial infection that entered through her v*g*na and spread up throughout her body. It was emerging as an eye infection, a bacterial respiratory infection, and a v*g*nal infection. The cause? Sitting in dirty diapers. Not being cleaned properly. Which is just infuriating since the orphanage has four nannies assigned to just 3 infants in the baby room. There is no reason they couldn't use the pounds of wipes sitting in the nursery to clean those babies. (But they don't.)

D also had fungal infections behind her ear and in her v*g*na. What we saw was not pretty. There was a lot of swelling, discoloration, pus, and general ooze. Our poor baby. She was so lethargic. But she was a great trooper throughout the whole inspection and the blood draw.

We left the Swedish clinic armed with 4 prescriptions, a receipt for our $325 bill, and feeling huge relief knowing that we had received the best care possible in Addis Ababa.

I don't understand why AAI can't bring the children in their care to the Swedish clinic. This is beyond my understanding. Why are the children at A***E being given such poor local care when we are, in theory at least, paying for their care while we wait to pick them up?

After arriving home I learned that other volunteers had stories of finding D sitting alone in her own feces covered in mucus and vomit. Another volunteer found her with the skin peeling completely off of her little bottom from such terrible diaper rash. How is this an acceptable level of care? I simply don't understand it. It isn't like the nannies were overwhelmed with children in the nursery.

The night that we brought D into Kelley's home, her cook burst into tears. Later she told me that as an Ethiopian she felt ashamed that any Ethiopian woman could take such poor care of our baby. She knew just by looking at D that she had not been cared for. She was actually afraid she was going to die! (A bit melodramatic in my opinion - but she said she was scared for her.)

Several times throughout our weeks at Kelley's house her cook, nanny and rotating security guards thanked us for coming for D and apologized that it was Ethiopians who had allowed her to be so sick. At first I tried to tell them that I thought the nannies might have been doing their best but they ALL told me that no woman would allow her child to become so sick with things that were preventable (like a diaper infection) and that it is common knowledge that orphanage workers work for money, not for the love of the children. :(

This isn't the end of the story. We are ok now obviously. And even in our time in Addis D improved tremendously. She enjoyed HUGE daily doses of affection from Kelley's family, from Yeshi the cook, Dinkanesh the nanny, and Solomon and Dessie the guards. She was emotionally and physically lavished with attention and care and it didn't take long for her to become herself. But I will never forget the condition her body was in when the doctor examined her at the Swedish clinic. And I will never forget the horror on Kelley's staff's faces when they saw her (CLOTHED) that first night.

My poor baby. I wanted to believe they loved her. But love is expressed in actions and I can't find anything in their actions that could make her conditions acceptable.

~A

Day 3 - Family Day

We tried to visit earlier. We arrived at 9am thinking we would be a step ahead of nap time.
But again, she was a tiny, fragile, sleepy baby with deep and sad eyes. She did recognize us when we arrived and gave us a big grin and some hearty clapping. But shortly after that she fell into a deep two hour sleep. We traded her back and forth while we sat in the playground, talked with another family, and took goofy photos of us looking ecstatic. We realized that the love had grown.



When it was time to say goodbye I just felt that everything was wrong with the world. I felt scared to leave her there and aching to take her home, give her a bath and get a good look at what might be going on with that little body.

So after saying goodbye for lunch we walked down to the AAI office to talk with Gail. She explained that D's birth certificate and court decree were not ready yet so we could not take custody. She also told us that we would most likely be assigned a June 30th embassy date and that we would have to go to the embassy to sign papers giving me power of attorney for Jeremy since he would be leaving on June 19th. Worst news of all was that I would have to renew my visa (it would expire June 30th) and that it would not be easy to get another one. It was so discouraging and we were so deflated heading back to Kelley's. We were both silently praying for a miracle.

When we arrived home the cell rang. It was Gail. She said that right after we left her staff brought in D's birth certificate and court decree. Which meant we could take custody of her that afternoon!

I had a meeting at UN.I.CEF and we knew D was sleeping until 3:30 so we agreed that Jeremy would go to get her ready and I would meet him there when I could with Kelley.

It was such an exciting afternoon. I'm so glad I had a meeting to focus on.
In a side note - this was a very cool meeting! It was a group of NGOs (some that do adoption and some that just do development) meeting to discuss their plans for foster care programming in Addis. This is such a big step in the right direction towards gettting kids OUT of the orphanage system. It was a professional and personal honor to be a part of this growing network.

By the time Kelley and I made it back to the orphanage we were an HOUR late and we found poor J standing outside holding a very dejected D and looking overwhelmed and exhausted. He had a pretty funny story to tell. (Funny to me but not to him.)
Apparently when he arrived, they weren't expecting him. He walked back to the baby room and walked in on a nanny WITH HER TOP OFF changing into her clothes to leave for the evening! I so wish I could have seen his expression. He says he'd like to erase that memory from his eyeballs. LOL

It was very anticlimatic. No AAI representative. No orphanage director. No formalities or goodbyes or signing her out. Just like it began.
Jer and D were reaching their limit of patience so we just packed them into the SUV and hustled out of there as fast as we could. D was wearing the jumper we sent in her care package. I sent J back in to find her owl lovey and photo book because no one had thought to pack those up for her. Very annoying.

I will never ever forget the breath of relief I took as we backed out of those green gates and they closed in front of us. I just hugged D to me, told her we would all be ok, and took a second to appreciate that our daughter had been SPRUNG from prison. Oops. I mean that orphanage. Forever. Never to have to live there again with such a poor level of care.

We were welcomed by Ben, Isabella and Simon at Kelley's house. They were too cute trying to be calm and talk softly but they were obviously so excited. (They had asked when the baby was coming home every day since I arrived!) We posed for this quick photo in the kitchen and then took D down to our room for her first bath.

She was amazed by her bath. She laughed and clapped and even bent down and tried to drink from it. But the day ended poorly with a big pasta dinner, a struggle over meds, and a giant vomit. Oh man. That poor baby. I just felt sick with worry about her, and our ability to feed her and medicate her, by the time we put her down.

I wish we had a picture of her first night with us. We put her clean and lotioned little body into warm brown and pink flowered pajamas. Then we rocked with a bottle. Before she fell asleep we slid her into the Peapod, pulled up the soft pink blanket, read a book and said goodnight. She played peekaboo with her blanket and we tried very hard not to burst into laughter. HERE was the little girl that shines. And then. Very suddenly. She was fast asleep. (Hah. That's the LAST time it happened that way.) She slept for almost 13 hours with a couple of short wake ups. WE did not sleep for even one minute. We lay in that bed listening to her sick rattly wheezing and worried about her. We discussed what we had seen on her body and in her diaper. We strategized the plan for the next day. We laughed and we almost cried. It was a very long night's introduction to parenthood.

~A

Day 2 - Baby in Blue

We missed her that night and were so excited to bounce out of bed to get to her in the morning. But when we arrived at 10am she was sleepy again. After some holding and feeding in the baby room D was rubbing her eyes and it was obvious we should leave and come back later. We just could not figure out what time of day to visit when she wasn't exhausted.



I don't remember what we did in between visits. Sometimes we walked over to AAI/Layla house to get photos of kids that families had requested. Sometimes we went back to Kelley's house. Sometimes we went to a nearby restaurant. We yearned for her when we weren't with her and revisited every look, every head turn, every noise.

When we went back in the afternoon D was dressed in an enormous flowing blue dress. She was hesitant but we decided we needed to get her out of the nursery to work on bonding. This was my favorite visit. We took her into the little playground and I sat at the bottom of the slide holding her. We gave her a snack trap (the little cup with a plastic top with an opening big enough for little fingers to take out snacks) filled with cheerios. She couldn't figure it out at first but kept trying to poke her fingers in, shake it, even suck on the sides. It was pretty cute.

We got a few small smiles. J took her to the (less than safe) merry go round and slowly held her and pushed her around on it. More serious face. It was very hard to make her smile. Looking back I think she was feeling sick and very stressed.

(Look at that infected squinty left eye. It was bright pink and bumpy. Found out later it was part of her full body bacterial infection.)
A problem we kept experiencing was that when we were near the nannies they were constantly in her face, clapping, hugging, talking, feeding, over stimulating. They were just all over her. It was hard to push in and give her any attention. They did not encourage her to us enough. So we had to take her out of the baby room to do any bonding. But being out of her room was hard for her. It was a tough cycle.

I started to feel that my baby in blue was sick. She just was not the baby that Morgan had described to me. No sparkle or shine. No smiles. Just limp. With tightly clutching little hands. And I didn't think our visit was to blame. Something was going on....








~A

Day One - We Met Derartu

June 1, 2010
I left Uganda on May 30th. At the airport Ethio.pian Airlines did not have my name on the confirmation list. Apparently they are serious when they recommend reconfirming your flight ahead of time. I guess I just hadn't believed it. The flight was booked and paid for - what on earth was I reconfirming? It caused an hour of panic and I'm pretty sure I stated several times "I AM MEETING MY BABY IN ADDIS" to the counter staff. That couldn't have made much sense to them. I imagine they were thinking I was a very irresponsible mother for sending my child alone and unaccompanied ahead of my own flight.

Worked out the flight situation, I arrived in Addis on Sunday evening and had to wait through Monday for J to arrive from the States.

A very wonderful and generous friend and her family took care of us during our 19 days in Ethiopia. Kelley picked me up from the airport, tucked me into her warm and cozy guest room (with soft guest bed and feather duvet) and I relaxed for 24 hours. I knew that the orphanage was within walking distance of the house but thankfully had no idea which direction.

I slept in for the LAST time that Monday morning. I slept until 9:30am (I am writing that with SUCH longing right now!) and then lounged in bed for another hour. Kelley's kids (Ben, Isabella and Simon) didn't know adults could sleep so long and thought I had died in my room. Bella called her mom to say that she thought something might be wrong with me. ;)

On Tuesday morning, June 1st, the sun was shining and I met J at the airport at 7:30am. It was SO good to see him after several weeks apart and after all of the intense anticipation for this day.
We went back to Kelley's house and ate yogurt and fruit sitting quietly on her front porch. J slept for awhile while I paced around watching the clock.

At 11am Kelley came home and drove us down the street to the orphanage. We thought we'd be meeting Derartu right away so as we arrived my heart was racing. I remember walking up to the office to let the director know that we were there and my palms were dripping sweat. We have it all on video but didn't really take any photos. In the video we are giggling and breathing heavily and looking very pasty and pale with fear. (Or at least I am.) Jeremy says he felt fine.

But all of that anticipation was for nothing. She wasn't there! She, and almost all the other children and nannies, were at the WWO for a doctor's appointment.

We took the time to walk around and watch lunch preparations as the director, Jambo, gave us a tour. I had been to the orphanage twice before but not in this new location.

Jambo walked us straight back to the baby room first. I was holding our little FLIP video camera as I walked and feeling fine knowing that she wasn't going to be in the room. But what was in the room completely took my breath away. It was our picture. The one we blew up to 8x11 and sent with another family at the end of March. We wrote on it and sent it off but were never sure if it made it to Derartu.

As we walked into the room my eyes landed right on the picture hanging over her little yellow crib. And I burst into tears. All these weeks we've been hanging right over her crib watching her.

We spent another 30 minutes waiting and pacing on the front porch. I was fine as long as I knew she wasn't there yet. Periodically we'd have a false alarm and rush to turn on the video camera.

Suddenly it was time. And the rest is really a beautiful blur. As evidenced by our complete lack of photos. I didn't want to be living this behind a camera. We have video that Kelley took but neither J or I took any still photos. I am a little regretful just for the sake of the blog and posterity. But I know that in my mind I have the pictures captured forever.

The van pulled in. Kids streamed out. Nannies carrying two babies were walking towards us. Kelley said "there she is." And I looked up and thought "what? that's her? Why don't I recognize her?"
Oops. I was looking at the wrong nanny/baby combination.

She was in the second nanny's arms. Serious face on. Chin tucked down. Big watchful eyes. We did not run to her or grab her. I could see all over her face that it had been a big morning at the doctor's and that she was tired and wary of us strangers.

The nanny brought her up the front porch steps and stopped. Derartu looked at me and at Jeremy. I touched her and talked to her. She eyed us suspiciously. The nanny posed for the video camera for eternity. Finally she encouraged Derartu into my arms and our foreheads touched. We just stayed like that looking at each other. Then I brought her into a cuddle on my shoulder. She was so little and so watchful and wearing just the funniest little boy's baseball outfit.

There was no ceremony to it. No special instructions. No fanfare. This orphanage doesn't do things the same way as the agency transition homes for babies. It was both disappointing and reality.

We spent another hour visiting with Derartu in the baby room. I held her while she ate pasta in milk. She liked to clap for herself between bites which is something she still enjoys doing. She was so droopy and sleepy though. I gave her a bottle and we decided to say goodbye and return after naptime for another visit.
(Derartu liked looking at the photos I brought - all pictures of her and the nannies that we'd received from traveling friends.)
After her nap we came back and she was all dressed up in the infamous pink dress! This is a dress the nannies apparently love putting on her which was loathed by Morgan and her mom Jackie while they were there volunteering. We have a LOT of photos of Derartu in the pink dress. I thought it was very appropriate that our first afternoon with her be spent in the pink dress. :)
(Wearing her pink dress and "disgusted" face. She never cried with us but we could tell she was not easily impressed...)
We walked with Derartu around the yard. We touched her feet to grass. We talked to her and gave her some yogurt melts. (Despised them but enjoyed smearing them around the pink dress.) We spent time with Justin, Melissa, their family and baby Galeta whom they had just picked up. We took a photo of Derartu and Galeta under a tree together before they said goodbye.

She was very serious. She was concerned about spending so much time outside. Once we took her back into her nursery, into the familiar, she came alive again and showed us how she could crawl and play. It was a good lesson learned. She needed some time to adjust with us in the familiar. We spent the rest of the day playing on the floor with her and the toddlers who enjoyed climbing all over Jeremy's shoulders and back.

(By the time we said goodbye on day one she had warmed up to daddy quite a bit!)
Blur. Not nearly enough family photos. Blur. THE day went by in a flash.

~A

P.S. I am sacrificing extremely valuable sleep time tonight to write this. Waiting for her midnight wake up cry. Oh. I think I hear it! We are so sleep deprived.