Picking up [T]--Day 3

Driving up to the Thomas Center. This is the best picture we could get.

Monday we got to pick up [T] from the Thomas Center, her orphanage. She was pretty excited to see us, but I think it has more to do with base personality. She has a way of just tackling anything that is thrown at her head on. Plus, we found out later that [T] always loved going in the car to anywhere--just as long as she was going. So maybe she was so excited because she knew she was going somewhere, but I also hope that she remembered us a little from when we came out and visited her in Oct. In any case, she was more than happy to leave her home for the last year and start this new adventure.

Here is [T] in the room she has spent the last year in. She was still in the baby room, so she didn't have many kids her age to play with. She doesn't look too happy here, but she was pretty excited to come with us. Those are molluscum on her face. It's a virus she picked up just a few weeks before we were able to get her. Most of the kids at the center had them, so it must have gone around the orphanage pretty well. Molluscum is very much like having a wart--it spreads by scratching, not much medicine helps it, and it takes a few months to go away.

This day was spend mostly sitting around different places. First at the orphanage after meeting the nannies and letting [T] say goodbye, we had to wait for the other families to do the same. Then we moved to the CHI office there in Addis Ababa while each family took their turn checking through and preparing paperwork for the embassy appointment the next day. It is a little difficult to try to get to know your new daughter while sitting in a room with a group of people you have just met, above your agency's offices, with no toys for a couple of hours. It wasn't bad or annoying, but a weird way to spend the first several hours with a 3 year old that is suddenly mine.

Here we are at the CHI offices trying to entertain [T]. The sippy cup was a new thing and she loved having something of her own. That and soda--she couldn't get enough soda.

So this whole time we thought we were adopting a 2 year old and that [K] and [T] would be almost exactly a year apart. We still believed this last October when we went to visit [T] at the orphanage. She was just learning to walk then and the right size for a 15 month old. So when we showed up this time with a bunch of 18 month and 2T size clothing, we weren’t expecting to find a 3 year old. Since she was abandoned, they guessed her age when she was found. Our guess is that the conditions she lived under before going to the orphanage must have caused her to be delayed in her development, but under the great care of the Thomas Center she was able to catch up more to her actual age. So it looks like we have twins now (or at least close to it). And we are here in Ethiopia with a bunch of clothes that are way too small for her (she’s wearing a lot of capris and mini skirts—with capris under the skirts).

Picking up [T]--Days 1 & 2

We left Venice Italy on Saturday after spending 3 frantic days of trying to find babysitters for our other 3 amazing children. Our flights were uneventful and we arrived to Addis Ababa only ½ hour late (compared to our last trip which was 2 hrs late arriving at 2am). Upon arriving in Addis Ababa we spent 1.5 hours getting through the immigration lines and Visa Office. Once we collected our luggage we headed into the main terminal to meet our ride to the guesthouse. However, we walked out of security and there was no one there to meet us. We waited about 15 minutes and then decided to call and see where our ride was. (Note that in Ethiopia they use a different clock than we do in the states. Their day starts at 6am our time, in other words 6am our time =12am Ethiopian time. Also their dates to not change until that time also.) We arrived at 12:45 am our time on the 4th of July = 6:45p 3rd of July Ethiopian time. So this was very confusing to our guesthouse and so they were expecting us the next day. Our phone call woke them up in the middle of the night to come and pick us up. Luckily it was the same guest house we stayed at before and so it was like coming home in a way--Tsebay the manager is amazing and we were all hugs when she showed up to get us.

Sunday was very uneventful. We slept in and found out that ALL the families that are picking up children from CHI were staying in the same guest house as us. This is very unusual but worked out great for us because we were all able to get to know each other very well and not have to spend any extra time picking up and dropping off people all over the city. (There was another family there with a different agency who said they would spend almost 2 hours picking up everyone in the group from their different hotels/guest houses.) We all just lazed around most of the day and checked and re-checked all of our paperwork, clothes, and diapers for the next day. Happy birthday to me! A very weird sort of birthday it was, right on the brink of picking up a daughter. I don't think I have words to express it.

EMBASSY APPOINTMENT

Finally, we have our embassy appointment to finish up the immigration paperwork to bring [T] home!!! We can not express how excited we are. It seems so surreal... We started this process over two years ago when we prayed about if we should have another child in our family. At that time we felt that we were going to have another child but the more we thought and prayed about it the stronger we felt we needed to adopt. Again, we prayed and pondered which country and which agency we should use and we ended up adopting from Ethiopia. It has been a long road but now we are going to pick up a daughter whom God has reserved for our family.

We are sooooooooooooooooooooooooo EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Baseball season 2010

Last summer I told the boys they could pick 2 sports to participate in for the year. They chose soccer and baseball (I did not include Tae Kwon Do and dance). [A] was the only one who ended up doing baseball since [I] was busy in dance. Let's just say that if you think baseball is boring--T-ball is 10x worse! I'm not the only one who thinks so, [A] seemed to agree. I give you exhibit A:

Now it looks like [A] is busy chasing the ball, but no, he is just playing in the dirt. When I asked him why he kept laying down in the dirt, he replied, " 'cause I'm bored." So instead, he would pretend he was sliding to catch a ball. To be honest, it wasn't all boring. [A] had some fun. As proof I give you exhibit B, C, and D!

This time he actually is going after the ball (it's at his feet).

Up to bat!

Coming in to home base!

Baptism

[I]'s 8!

Can you believe it!? He turned 8 in April, but we waited until May when his Grandma and Grandpa T were coming. Due to when [D] could get off work, we were in Rome the weekend before his baptism. I would not recommend traveling right before a baptism because it was a little crazy getting everything planned when we got back. (It didn't help that our internet died right before we left for Rome.) But everything turned out beautifully! [D]'s foot was also healed enough that he was able to do the baptism without problem (something that would not have been possible in April). It was an added bonus that [T] became officially our daughter the same day. In fact, our adoption agency tried calling us with the good news during the middle of the meeting, but of course we weren't able to answer. It was definitely a very special day for our whole family!

A little pre-baptism advice.

All of us!

The Best Adoption News

We are pleased to announce to the world that we are now the proud parents of [T] Hatcher. Our adoption court date was today and we passed court, so now in the eyes of the Ethiopia and the world, we are officially her parents.

We are so excited!!! We will be traveling in July to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to pick up [T] and accomplish the immigration paperwork at the US embassy . We will be traveling from Italy to Ethiopia and then directly to the United States.

Thank you all for all of your prayers and support while we have been waiting for this day over the last 2 years. Please continue to pray for us as we wait for our appointment time with the US embassy.

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Adoption News

On April 5th we FINALLY received the police clearance that we've been waiting on since December of last year! That is the good news. It basically allows us to move forward in the adoption process again. Now we need a court date. Before, parents weren't required to be present at the court, but as of May 9th that will be changing. We were hoping for a court date before then, but it is now May 2nd, and we still haven't heard anything. It just doesn't look like that will happen. There is a possibility that we will be able to get a waiver since we have already been out to visit [T]. once. Otherwise, we will be visiting Ethiopia an extra time--one more time for the court date and then 2 months later to pick her up. We are really hoping to hear soon when our court date is so we can make plans for the summer. And really we just want to bring [T] home. In August it will be a year since we received our referral, so we have definitely been waiting a long time for this. Here is a more recent picture of her. She is getting bigger and we want her to be getting bigger before our eyes, and not simply through photos!