Ethiopia Day 1

It's been two weeks since we got back and I'm finally getting around to writing about our trip. Hey at least I posted pictures on facebook and walmart the next day! I had a feeling this would happen and I came prepared. I brought a journal with me and attempted to put my thoughts to paper. This post I'm calling "day 1" but it is actually the first three days. So here goes nothing...

It took us 28 hours to get to Ethiopia. From the time we arrived at the airport in Kansas City to the time we left the airport in Addis Ababa was a whopping 28 hours! Ouch. We were very excited about going but not about the travel time. Our first flight was from Kansas City to Chicago, a 1 1/2 hour flight.. 

YAY!!

Yay!

 

 Then after a two hour layover, we were off to Frankfurt, Germany, an 8 1/2 hour flight...






We arrived in Frankfurt at 5:45 local time. We found a restaurant to hang out in and eat a little (they fed us a lot on the plane). Then we were boarding on our final flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a slight layover in Khartoum, Sudan. We didn't get off the plane in Khartoum, some people got off, some got on and we refueled. With the over one hour stop in Khartoum, this flight was 7 1/2 hours...

ummm

yay?



 

We got off the plane and went straight into a line for visas. The line took forever but when we got in there I finished first because the clerk was trying to flirt with me haha! Then straight from that line to the one where they check your passports, then straight to baggage claim (it really is a small airport!), and right next to baggage claim was the bank window where we could exchange our money. The exchange rate was 18:1 so we came out of there with several thousand birr! To give you an idea of the cost of things, a liter of soda is 25 birr.

Then we walked out and saw our driver holding a sign that said Holt. We waited with another couple while yet another couple was going through the same process we had just done. By the time we left the airport it was after 9:30pm local time. We were pretty wiped!

 

We got to the guest house, Lucy Land and Chris tried to get online while I attempted a shower. The mount for the shower head holds it pointing straight out. The water blew straight through the curtain and started flooding the bathroom! Oy. So I hurriedly turned it off and got the shower head off it's holder and attempted to wipe up the floor with towels. Then the tub wasn't draining! So I redressed and went down and asked for help. Why couldn't Chris have been the one to shower first?!! Everything got fixed and we settled in for the night.

 

So, official Ethiopia day 1, which by the way felt like 3 days!  We got up early, our wake up call had been set for 6am. Chris woke up, looked at his watch and rolled over and woke me up. I looked at his watch and said "babe, it's 5" he replies "oh crap, it is". Ugh. So we listened to the echo of the morning calls to prayer going throughout the city. Then Chris turned on the tv and it was a Christian gospel music video that drowned out the calls to prayer. I'm not usually like this but I said "ha! take that Allah!".  We'll call it jet lag.

 

We went down to the complimentary breakfast in the guest house restaurant and ate waaay too much! So yummy! And the coffee! OH don't even get me started on the coffee!! Fun fact: The origin of coffee is in Ethiopia. Yum. After breakfast our Holt driver was waiting to take us (five families in all) to the Holt Ethiopia office.  There we got our briefing and were able to review our respective child's file. In Ephraim's file was his birth certificate and also a very small photo of his mother. I took photos of course. :)

 

From there we split up and were driven to our child's care center (we were spread out to three different ones). There was another couple at our care center who are adopting a 4 (probably closer to 6) year old boy from the same region as Ephraim. That was comforting to know that there was a possibility of someone else there that spoke the same language. They had come earlier and visited their son Zone on Saturday so he already knew who they were. When we pulled into the small courtyard, I was the last to get out of the van. The boys were sitting there waiting for us. Since they already knew who Zone's parents were, Ephraim walked straight up to Chris and gave him a hug!! Can you believe it!?! By the time I got to him, he let me hug him. haha!

 

We went inside their bedroom and discovered that Zone and Ephraim share a bed! How fantastic! Chris pulled out the clothes we brought him but didn't expect his response or he might have done it in a different order! First the socks, Ephraim took off his shoes and put on the socks, then the new shoes...he put on the shoes and put his old ones under the bookshelf of clothes, so well trained! Sometime during the shoes I decided to video tape. Then the shirt came out of the bag and instantly Ephraim took his shirt off and changed. Then the pants...that's when I turned off the camera...he didn't have underwear on HA! So with his shorts around his ankles, he, Chris and the Holt doctor took off his shoes. I have a picture of him showing off his new clothes, he was so happy. AND he "folded" up his old clothes and put them back on that bookshelf of clothes! I need these nannies to train Chris!

 

We brought him a small soccer ball and played with that for nearly an hour. We got nice and sweaty before going to court! We had lots of fun with him. He's so focused. We were able to break him away from the soccer ball long enough to show him the photo album we brought him, he didn't show much interest in it, he was ready for soccer again. ha! When we left hugged Chris again (of course, he gave him all the presents!) and let me hug him. He was smiling so big and waving as we got into the van. He had his soccer ball tucked under his arm and was sitting down at a desk to look at the photo album.

 

From there we went to court. It didn't look anything like a courthouse, just a building. We were in a waiting room next to a small office. When it was our turn we went into the office (several couples at a time) while the judge asked us questions. All of the answers were some form of "yes" and wham bam thank you ma'am just like that she says "ok he is your son".  It took less than five minutes.

 

We went back to the guest house, ordered some lunch then went out for some shopping. We went to a leprosy hospital/hospice compound. They have a little shop where they sell goods that they make and some that they don't. We stocked up on traditional clothing and a few souvenirs. Then back to the guest house for dinner and just hanging out for the rest of the night. We were exhausted, physically and emotionally and like I said, that one day felt like three.



Getting Ready

Travelling to another country requires a lot of planning and preparation for anyone. Having two week's notice AND being in the Army (and not on orders) requires just a bit more!

Typical planning and prep: purchase plane tickets, purchase new suitcase (if needed), purchase travel size toiletries and what nots, purchase culturally appropriate clothing, purchase, purchase, purchase...noticing a theme here?

We've also been purchasing some clothing for Ephraim. We have a couple pairs of pants and a few short sleeved shirts (he's wearing sweats and crocs in his photo). I hate crocs. Hate. Have you ever been in a crocs store? It gave me a headache. They're great for kids but even then only when going to the beach or pool. They always go flying off when the kids run, how is that safe?! Anyways, I had a hard time figuring out what size to buy him. I did a facebook pole and GEESH! Ok, friends that know your children are giants, don't even bother to tell me their size, seriously. And I got a lot of "just buy him flip flops or crocs" Or "buy them there". Yes, flip flops and crocs are forgiving in size and yes, Africa does have shoes to buy.  BUT, I want him to have shoes he can run in without them falling off. AND we see him on our first day for a few hours and don't know if we will see him after that. SO, we need to bring the shoes with us. I decided on one pair each of size 11 and 12. So we are bringing him pants, shirts, shoes, socks and underwear. All of these will be left behind when we bring him home so we'll have to do this again in a few months! We are also bringing him a small photo album of the family, our house, his room not sure if we'll put the dogs in there yet (cultural thing, new blog post). As well as a recordable story book with us reading it.

Other preparations include getting necessary immunizations. In our case yellow fever is required. Other recommended shots...typhoid, hepatitis A and B, tetanus, polio, meningitis and for high risk areas, rabies. Well thankfully, we're not going to a high risk area so rabies is out. Hep A & B we got when we moved to Germany, as well at tetanus. Polio, you get that as a kid...that leaves yellow fever, typhoid and meningitis.  Chris was deployed all last year so he only needed yellow fever. Punk. Typhoid is only good for two years and I last had it in early 2002. Ugh. Typhoid hurts, I remembered that even ten years later. I yelled when she stuck me with yellow fever...Chris went next and made fun of me.  -They put the yellow fever shot in the fat of your underarm (not armpit, granny arm area). Of course I have more fat there than Chris so it hurt me more...even left a purple bruise the size of a quarter.-  Typhoid went in the same arm and meningitis on the right. It hurt to move my arms around that day and most of the next (yesterday). Well during the night I noticed that my right arm was really hurting where the shot went in. And I feel like poo. I looked it up, yeah, I'm feeling all the common side effects of the meningitis shot. Headaches, body aches, low fever, sore throat...even as I type I keep getting cold, then sweating. All that complaining I did about how the yellow fever and typhoid hurt, it's the meningitis that is kicking my butt.  It should only last a few days. It had better be gone by Sunday, we have tickets to the Bengals game (Who Dey!).

For those of us with dogs, getting them up to date on their shots is necessary as well. We don't usually kennel them so they all needed the kennel cough vaccine. We are placing them with a dog sitter that keeps them in her home without cages. :) We already had her booked for the week of Thanksgiving so I just moved it to the next week.

So, purchases check, shots check, dogs check...online SERE training, leave packet signed and approved, foreign country brief and who knows what else...check?  I know Chris did about 3 hours of the wrong online training...then about 2 of the correct one. Leave packet is done but now he's doing a different one?? He got his brief yesterday but if Ethiopia goes up another threat level he can't travel there....

Oh the Army makes things so much funner!!

We also purchased (there's that word again) some fun party favors for the kids at the orphanage. When Chris asked me yesterday if I needed anything from the PX, I said some party horns/noise makers. You know, the cardboard horn things. Well he came home without those but sooo much more! All of the things in the green packaging, he got. :P Also, you can see some of the travel sized stuff I purchased. Don't forget the sunblock!

There are still several things to get done. We will need the most recent update of our home study (because it's being finished now...). We need to print off a gajillion different things. We need to get crisp $100 bills, dated 2001 and sooner to exchange. Oh and I need to do laundry!

But for now, I'm going to eat some breakfast and sit on my butt because, as I said earlier, I feel like poo.

We have a court date!!

Wow oh wow!

So we thought we would be traveling sometime in January for our court date...wrong!!
We travel two days after Thanksgiving!!!
This would be a pretty lame blog post if I didn't fill you in on the story right? OK here it is...

We knew when we got matched that the courts were closed for the rainy season. Over the past two years we would get an email telling us when they closed and again when they opened back up...

The scene: K-9 Kennels on Ft Leavenworth
Occasion: Unit Activation Ceremony (Army talk, I know, a whole other blog!)
When: October 24th around 11:00

We're all standing around mingling, waiting for the ceremony to begin. I grab my phone to put it on silent. I notice I have an email. It's from Holt. Our case has been submitted to the courts for a date....

The scene: The PX (Army store, like a Walmart without the groceries and with name brand stuff)
Occasion: Killing time before I meet my friend to take a financial class on Post
When: November 7th, around 1:30

I'm walking through the clothing section at the PX.  I look at my phone and see that I have an email.  It's from Holt. It says "Congratulations, you've been assigned a court date in Ethiopia of November 27, 2012!".  I stop and say (loudly) "OH MY..".  An employee is standing nearby and asks if I'm OK. I answered "yeah?" then "yeah.".  Then I walk away shaking.

We get to meet him. We get to finally meet him. All these years of wondering what our child will look like and now we get to hold him. Hug him. Kiss him. Make hand gestures to try and communicate with him. Give him some new clothes. A photo book of his new family. A story book with our voices reading it to him.

I walked around the store for about 10 minutes then go out to my car and pull to the back of the parking lot where I'm to meet my friend so we can go to our class. I'm parked facing the entrance to the main stores on Post so there are a lot of people driving by that can see me...I'm bawling by now. Happy, but bawling. I call my sister and apologize for not being able to go to Orlando to visit her for Thanksgiving. Being the awesome person that she is, she's happy for us and says it's no big deal and it's totally worth it. As soon as my friend gets there, I simply hand her my phone with the email pulled up. She looks at me, sees I've been crying and is a little speechless at first (or I was still in shock and simply didn't hear anything she said :P).  Chris is back down in Ft Leonard Wood for SRT training (military SWAT). He hardly ever had cell reception so I texted him. He got the text just as they were about to do a drill. I didn't want him to be distraced and not do well so I sent another text assuring him that I would have everything under control.

The next day I woke up quite early for me, 7am. It was too early to get much done but I had a list. 1. Call the travel agent Holt provided. 2. Find out what we need to do for visas. 3. Call preventive medicine on Post and schedule for immunizations. 
Well the travel agency is in the Pacific Time Zone and opened at 8am (10am) for me.  The Ethiopian Embassy in DC wasn't answering their phone and I was having a hard time finding the phone number fore preventive medicine on Post!! 
Thanks to some other ET adoptive friends, I found out we can get our visas in the airport when we land. I finally found the phone number for preventive medicine and now know that we can just walk in for our shots. I took a nap. Shortly after 10am, I called the travel agency and booked our flights!
Then I called the dogsitter and changed our booking from the week of Thanksgiving to the week after, called the Vet on Post and scheduled to get the kennel cough vaccine for the dogs, went onto the United Airlines website and signed up for the frequent flyers program, found our passports, forwarded our intinerary to Holt, talked to the director of Africa programs at Holt and booked our hotel (through her) and got other answers to questions I had AND added the travel dates to our white board calendar! I'm sure there is more I got done but it's a bit of a blurr now.

The trip will be very short and we will only get to spend a few short, precious hours with him.

We leave on Saturday, November 24th (Yeah, in two weeks!), mid morning...arrive in Addis Ababa (where we will be staying) late in the evening on Sunday.  We get to meet Ephraim on Monday, have our court date on Tuesday and play tourist on Wednesday the leave late Wednesday night and return home Thursday evening. Ouch. (Some families leave the same day of their court date!)

I don't know if we will get to spend more time with Ephraim on Tuesday or Wednesday but I hope so.  I think I may need to bring a half full suitcase so I can fill it up with stuff to bring home! We want to have things in our home to remind us of Ethiopia and the culture.

I think the next two weeks are going to fly by so fast I'm not even going to remember baking pumpkin pies or eating way too much turkey. Even with Chris' deployments, I don't think I've ever wanted time to fly so fast as I do now. I'm pushing back tears as I proof read this even, I'm not sure when they'll stop...April maybe??

WE HAVE A MATCH!!

Could it possibly be that I have something to write about?!?!?!  Ok so I could have written at least two blogs since the last one but I was so disappointed I didn't. 

First thing I could have written about is that Chris came home from his deployment safe and sound! He came home December 24, 2011.

that's not red eye from the camera, I was crying...

Not long after he came home we got right to work on updating our home study.  It had expired in November and we had a new social worker so of course Chris needed to be there for the update.  That update included an interview and the re-taking of our fingerprints for the Missouri State Highway Patrol...ugh.  After the home study was updated, we had to renew our USCIS I-600A form (yeah just trust me on that one).  THAT included getting our fingerprints re-taken as well but at least that was free. ;)

The second thing I could have written about is that we've moved!! Chris needed a command position so we had to get out of Dodge for that to happen.  So we've moved to the beautiful Leavenworth, Kansas.  The post looks like a park! So pretty, I cannot wait for fall colors!  I don't have a picture of our house but it's quite cute, a two story brick colonial with a HUGE fenced in back yard.

So what am I writing about now? Well if you haven't been able to tell by the title of this blog, we have been referred (assigned) a child!!!  I know what you're thinking, "wait, they wanted two?!"  Well the agency hasn't seen siblings in over a year. We knew that a single child was a possibility and we are not disappointed in the least. 

So now that it's not so painful, I can vent a little about how hard it's been lately. We were very close to our breaking point. Right after we moved, we got a letter from Holt (that was sent to all in Ethiopia program) updating us on how things were moving. They were still working on matching families who had their dossier in January 2011, ours was in April 2011. They had been working on January for over four months. They said how many children they were able to place the previous month (single digit) and a little on why things were so slow. Then there was another page in there explaining how you can switch to either the China or the Korea program. Chris and I were not in the least tempted, as frustrated and worn down as we were, we knew God had us choose Ethiopia for a reason. There were other things that made us angry or sad but we won't get into that. ;)
I was finally starting to get out of the mind set that "it" would be happening soon. I feel like my life has been on hold for seven years. I've always had the mind set that "I'll be pregnant soon" then that became "we'll get a call soon" so I hesitated to make long term plans or get a serious job.

Well Friday, September 14, 2012 at 3pm, I get a phone call from Eugene, OR. I saw where the call was from and I thought that maybe it had to do with updating our home study (because of the move). NOPE! It was the program director calling with the news of Ephraim. Even though they are still working on January dossiers, we are the first ones on the list wanting a child as old as 5, (we actually had 6 down!). I instantly called Chris and said "get home now, get home now, get home now!!" He was a little confused but I explained and he came home as fast as he could! We looked at his pictures together and read what little information they gave us and instantly knew he was ours.


So is it a boy or a girl? How old? When will you see him/her?

So many questions, just hang on geesh!

We have been matched with a five year old boy named Ephraim.  He is beautiful! Due to the rules of the Ethiopian program, I cannot post any pictures until he is home with us.  Some of you I've been able to email or text a photo so if you would like to see him, just let me know. ;)  

We are unsure when we will get to see him but given the history of time lines, it should be January, December at the earliest.  Our first visit will be for an Ethiopian court date where we will be granted permission to adopt Ephraim. 

Our second visit should be about 2-3 months later.  In the mean time, his visa and passport will be processing.  On our second visit, we will have an appointment with the US Embassy to get their permission to bring Ephraim back to the US with us as a citizen.  (or something like that)


We know that this next six months or so will be difficult to wait but he will be worth it. :)

Today we mailed off our acceptance packet along with the country fee payment (that's the super big one). We took a little photo before, since my dossier one was so messed up!

I promise to keep y'all more updated on things as we go along.  At least now when someone asks "how's the adoption going?" I don't have to hold back tears of sadness, I can say "GREAT!"