We are Home

I didn’t get to post about our last couple of days in Addis because Thursday was a Holiday in Ethiopia and everything was closed including the internet cafes at the hotel.  Ethiopia has a different calendar than we do so their New year’s day was Thursday.  It is now 2001 in Ethiopia.  In fact Annalee in a millennium baby in Ethiopia.  She was born 4/8/2000 by the Ethiopian calendar.

We made it home last night at about 10:00.  The trip home took almost 30 hours and Annalee was a perfect angel the whole time.  She slept most of the time on the plane.  The plane ride from Addis to Washington DC was 16 hours with a short stop in Rome for gas.  (We weren’t allowed off the plane but we got to hear an Italian speaking cleaning crew and eat food that was prepared in Rome)  Christy, katie and I were in the center row.  We put the tray tables down so Annalee could sleep on them.  From DC to Denver Katie held her and from Denver to Spokane I held her.  Christy and Katie even let me hold her on take off and landing for that leg.  I think I was so tired I didn’t care if I had to get on a plane, I just wanted to be home.  Our flight from Denver to Spokane was delayed an hour and I think we all almost cried when we found out.

Mike’s family was at the airport to greet us.  It was great to see them.  We went out to dinner which was really nice.  On the way home Christy drove and I was supposed to watch for deer and keep Christy awake.  Mike sat in the back with Annalee.  I have never been so tired in my life.  My eyes kept closing and I would drift off to sleep and then wake with a start.  I would say to Christy “Are you still awake?” She would say “yes” then I would say “good because I’m not.”  We made it home safe and for that I am grateful.

We got to bed about 10:30 and Annalee slept until about 1am.  She wasn’t really fussy but she didn’t want to sleep.  I took care of her until about 5am but then I had to wake Mike up and ask him to watch her for awhile.

Dad came over to see his new grandchild and to bring Baxter home.  I don’t really know what Baxter thinks of her yet but Annalee was ok with Baxter.  Christine also came to visit and brought us lunch and food to last a few days which was great.

I took a shower today and it was great because 1. I didn’t need to worry about getting water on the floor because my shower has a curtain and 2. I didn’t need to worry about the water getting into my eyes or mouth.

We are working on getting Annalee switched over.  She only took short naps today but fell asleep about 5:30pm.  I woke her up at 8 to change her diaper and feed her.  She went right back to sleep.  Hopefully she will sleep a good portion of the night.

Embassy Appointment

Yesterday we had our embassy appointment which went smoothly and we were approved.  It was funny because the lady doing the interview asked if I was a first time mom.  I said yes, how could you tell.  She says your anxious like a new mom.  I wanted to tell her 1st or 4th I would be this anxious at such an important appointment.

We also got to bring the babies back to the hotel today.  We are officially in charge.  It is a good thing Christy is here.  (Katie took an overnight trip with the aunt of one of the other adoptive parents to see some animals.)  We can’t take the babies away from the hotel except for meals but it is worth it.  I finally got to change her diaper and watch her sleep.  Tonight I will give her a bath.

We had a going away party at the transition house.  It was very emotional for me.  The nannies care so much for the children.  The babies all smile when they talk to them.  They held them and kissed on them.  It brings tears to my eyes as I type this thinking of how much they loved and cared for the children.

I also learned how to say her name today.  It is more like I was saying in the beginning than Bethelihem.  I am going to take the “h” back out of her name and spell it like it is on her birth certificate.  We recorded the director and the nanny saying the name so I will be able to practice.  It is pronounced Bet-ee-lee-hem.

Tomorrow we are going to see the orphange where she was before WACAP house and also to AHOPE (A care center for HIV positive children).  We hope to do some more shopping before we are done but we may have to do it in small groups while others stay at the hotel with the children.

Day 3

Yesterday we were unable to go see the babies because the staff has Sunday’s off.  It was disappointing but we made the best of it.

We went on an all day excursion to the Blue Nile Gorge.  It was unbelievably beautiful.  They call it the Grand Canyon of Ethiopia.  It was also interesting to see country life as compared to the city life we are seeing in Addis.  We used Greater Ethiopia Travel and I would highly recommend them to any future travelers.

Today we go to the Embassy.  We get to take the babies so it will be nice to care for them on our own.  The Embassy appointment approves us to bring Annalee back into the US.  If everything goes ok they will issue her passport and visa that we will be able to pick up on Wednesday.

I am a little stressed about not having a vaccination document notarized that I was suppose to before I left.  We are still unclear if this will cause us any problems.  We are pretty sure we don’t need this for the embassy but instead in D.C. when we come back.  We are still working on a solution and think we have figured it out, hopefully.

We are traveling with other wonderful adoptive parents.  Some have traveled a lot and have been VERY helpful.  Yesterday we went to a local pizza place, something I don’t think we would have done on our own but with the help of the others it was a great experience.

We don’t know the schedule for the rest of the week but hopefully we will get to see more of the city.

2nd Day

First of all I have my luggage.

We got to go see Annalee again today.  She is just the perfect baby.  She is totally content to be held and she hasn’t cried even one time. Today she fell asleep in my arms.

Yesterday they took us to a place where we could go shopping.  That totally changed my outlook on things.  Shopping makes everything better for me.

Today we went out to a fancy Italian resturant for lunch.  Because our American dollar is so strong here Mike and I had dinner and desert and the tip for $14.00.

We also were taken up to the top of a mountain where we could overlook the city.  10,000 feet!!  There was an artist at the top that told us some of the history of the city.  He had some oil paintings for sale and we bought one.  We then had our picture taken with him.

Tomorrow we are going on a day trip that Katie arranged through the hotel.  Most of the families that are here with us are going.  We probably won’t be back before the internet cafe closes so I won’t be able to post tomorrow.  Monday we have our Embassy appointment so it could be a full day also.

I will try to post pictures later this week but the internet is dial up and very very slow so I don’t know if it will be possible.  Also I can’t access my school email account from here so if you want to get me a message leave a comment or send an email to my hotmail account.

We Are Here

We are finally here in Ethiopia with mind, body and most of our luggage.  Mine with ALL of my clothes stayed in London yesterday because the plane had to much weight.  It was suppose to come on this morning’s flight and the staff at WACAP is taking me back to the airport in an hour to see if it is there.

We got to meet Annalee this morning.  It was a spectacular experience and I cried like a baby.  She is even more beautiful in person.  Her eyelashes are the longest I have ever seen.  It isn’t going to take much to have Mike and I wrapped around her little finger.  She is also very small, she was dressed in the 0-3 month outfit I had sent over.  They also brought her in wrapped in the blanket I had sent that Christine embroidered her name on.  She is very curious about everything.  She never cried and spent the whole time looking around.  She would only eat if she was sitting up where she could still see things.  I got to feed her and she fell asleep in Mike’s arms.  It was very precious.  It was very hard to leave her and we don’t get to go back to the transition house until tomorrow. 

It has been a little bit of a culture shock here.  I am glad Katie and Christy are here.  The hotel grounds are beautiful and the staff is very nice and helpful.  The hotel room has a few quirks (no shower curtain, a very loud blowdryer that looks like a vacuum) but it more than meeting our basic needs.  The WACAP staff is going to take us out shopping after he takes me to the airport which should be quite an experience.

London was great we had a lot of fun and saw most everything we planned.  We didn’t get to ride a double decker bus which we had wanted to try.  I’m glad we went to Paris but it was a lot harder for us to figure out so it was more uncomfortable than London.  I’m glad we went but I don’t know if I would go back.

As for the flying for those of you who know how bad I hate to fly I hate it so much worse now.  Flying for so many hours is tough.  The plane from London to Ethiopia was small but the staff was nice.  The worst let was Spokane to Seattle where we flew on a “crop duster.”  That is what I called it when I saw how small it was.

To my class:  I hope you are enjoying your first week of school.  I have been thinking of you.  We are 10 hours ahead of you so I am writing this while you are sleeping.

The internet cafe is pretty easy to use when it is open so I should be able to post again.

We leave tomorrow

I can’t believe it is finally here.  I’m a little numb.  I worry that I have forgotten stuff.  I worry that our luggage won’t come with us.  I worry about the flying part.  Basically I’m just a worrywart.

On the flip side I am also very excited.  In exactly one week we will finally meet our daughter and everything will have been worth it.

I am also very excited that traveling with Mike and I are my sister Christy and Mike’s sister Katie.  For those of you that do not know already here is our schedule:

We leave tomorrow at about 5pm to fly to Seattle where hopefully we will be able to meet up with my sister and her husband during our 4 hour layover.  Then at 10pm we fly to Washington DC.  This will be my first overnight flight.  We arrive in DC Sunday morning and fly out a few hours later.  This will be my first flight over water.  We get there late Sunday night, in fact by the time we get checked in it will probably be early Monday morning.  We plan to sight see on Monday.  Then on Tuesday we have train tickets to Paris for the day.  We are very excited about this part.  Wednesday we will do more sight seeing in London and fly out that night. Another overnight flight.  We get to Ethiopia early Thursday morning.  It will take awhile to get through customs and get our visas but then I am hoping we can go to our hotel to get some rest although it may be hard to convince Katie of that.

Then Friday morning we will get to go to the transition house to meet our daughter.  Unfortunately we won’t be able to take her back to the hotel.  I’m sure leaving her for the first time will be one of the hardest things I have to do.  We will get to visit everyday and sometimes twice a day but it just won’t be the same as being with her 24/7.  But I respect the new rules and know that they are just doing what is best for the country and best for international adoption.

On Monday we have an appointment with the US embassy to review Annalee’s and our paperwork and get approval to bring her back to the states.  On Wednesday they will issue her passport and visa and Thursday night.  An overnight flight over water.  Have you figured out I’m really anxious about the flying part?  This will basically be a 16 hour flight.  We stop for gas in Rome but we don’t get to get off the plane.  16 hours with a new baby on a plane thank goodness for all the extra hands going with us.

Our flight gets into Spokane at about 5pm on Friday.

I probably won’t have anytime to post while in London, but I hope to be able to once we get to Ethiopia on Thursday.

If anyone from my class is reading this have a great first day of school.  I’m sorry I won’t be there but know that I will be thinking about you.

A Fresh Start

Well I decided it was time to get back into the blogging world. I chose to start a new site for two reasons. First, it didn’t seem appropriate to have our web address be ourvietnamadoption now that we are adopting from Ethiopia. Second, wordpress allows you to keep some posts private while allowing others to be public. I think this will be a good feature during our travels and beyond when we want to post pictures.

For those of you who may be new to our blog and do not know our story here is a little background. In January 2007 we made the decision to adopt and quickly settled on Vietnam. We gathered our paperwork and were DTV by April 2007. Unfortunately adoptions from Vietnam were slow and our agency hadn’t received a single referral. In October our agency allowed us the opportunity to do a dualing adoption. This meant we could do another dossier for another country and wait to see which happened first. We decided that Ethiopia would be a good fit for us. We did the paperwork and our dossier was sent to Ethiopia in February. We originally requested young siblings. In April this request seemed unrealistic so we changed our request to an infant girl. On June 16th just before 11:00 I got the call. We were referred a beautiful baby girl from Ethiopia. She was 2 1/2 months old. We couldn’t be happier. We hope to travel to bring her home the end of August.

A Special Thank You

Although we had decided to adopt from Ethiopia a few weeks ago we were not officially in the program until our agency received our updated home study. Therefore we did not have the information we needed to begin working on our home study. Also we thought we had to wait to change our i-171h which we have now found out we may be able to wait until we actually receive a referral from Ethiopia. What this mean is that we are now in a mad dash to get our dossier done ASAP and with Christmas just a couple of days away we don’t want that to delay anything.

So today Mike and I began contacting people for paperwork we needed. To our amazement all 3 of our references and both our employers completed the letters we need for our dossier in just one day.

I would like to say a very public THANK YOU to these people. We are lucky to have such special friends and family.

Christmas Swap

Yes I know it has been a long time since I posted. First off we did make a decision, we are going to do a dualing adoption with Vietnam and Ethiopia. We have been working on getting our home study updated and paperwork for our dossier. In fact today we just had our home study officially approved and we are now part of both programs. Our next step is to submit our paperwork to UCIS so we can get a i-171h for Ethiopia.

The most exciting reason for posting today however came in the mail today. As part of one of the Vietnam Yahoo group I belong to Mike and I participated in a Christmas swap. I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to Shawn and Carolyn who are currently living in China. The gifts they sent were incredibly special. First they sent a silk baby blanket. It is so soft and beautiful. The symbols on the blanket mean good fortune. Second they recently took a trip to Ho Chi Minh City. While there they went to a quilt shop managed by the French NGO providing jobs for woman. The website is www.vietnam-quilts.org. they are a great cause and worth supporting. From there they bought us a handmade ornament and a 2008 calendar. I am such a sentimental person, that these were just the perfect gifts. We will cherish them always.

Here are the pictures:

Options

We still haven’t made a decision but I have decided to post what options our agency has given us. I emailed our agency to find out about starting a concurrent adoption. Though not impossible she said it is a lot harder.

Instead she suggested that we do a dualing adoption. This is where you submit a dossier for a different country then which ever country has a referral first you take that one and your other dossier is withdrawn. The only extra fees are what it takes to prepare the dossier.

The other countries our agency works with that we qualify for are Russia, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, and an African American Domestic Adoption. We have already eliminated Ethiopia because it is a pioneer program for our agency just like their Vietnam program, and we are just not ready for another pioneer program. I don’t think we will do Russia because the program is just starting back up and the children are older than we were hoping for.

The good news is Kazakhstan also allows for adoptions of unrelated children so we would still have a chance of bringing home two children. The difficult part is it requires 6-7 weeks in country or 2 trips and I am nervous about a “blind referral.” I also still haven’t figured out what the average age at referral is for our agency.

We are also seriously considering an African American Domestic adoption. This was actually our first choice when we started this adoption journey but I felt more comfortable being in a line than waiting to be chosen. I love the fact that we could bring our child home from the hospital, that he/she would be ours from almost the beginning of his/her life. I still don’t know if I am strong enough to deal with the possibility that the birth mother could change her mind.

So there you have it. As you can imagine I am a basket case trying to decide what is best for us and our future children.