One Year!!!! (cont.)

I knew that going in, our meeting story was not going to be the same as many families. We were not going to rush in and scoop him up and smother him with kisses right away. I LOVE to read those stories, but that's not something we were quite comfortable with. If Josiah had come up to us with a smile and arms open, we would have been more than happy to oblige. But we had a feeling that with him being two, and after seeing some pictures from friends who met him a few days before, we needed to let him lead somewhat. We absolutely loved him already, but felt it would be best for him if we approached it like meeting a completely unknown child for the first time.

We drove over to the (former) Bethany transition house even though it was a very short distance from the office. We walked through the outer door into a small porch area, and then into the sitting room. We saw the house mother. The t.v. was on. Then we saw our son.

He was wearing blue plaid overalls, a red polo shirt, grey socks, too small brown plastic sandals, and a heartbreaking expression on his face. He was in a strange stance where his chest kind of stuck out, his head was cocked over to the side with his chin almost on his shoulder, and his knees kind of locked back. Honestly, some of my first thoughts were, "Oh my goodness, there is something wrong with his spine! I knew something like this was a possibility, but I wish I had known ahead of time so we could be prepared. God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. Is he going to need surgery or braces? Is it because he's so weak?" I hate that those were the first thoughts upon meeting my son.

Initially, we all sat in the waiting room for a while...the four of us, the house mother, Milkiyas, and our driver Abera. Milkiyas kind of introduced him to us. We tried to interact a little bit without overwhelming Josiah and just watch him, taking it all in. Elizabeth didn't have much trouble trying to play with him. He carried around a little plastic backpack filled with lego-type blocks. He was very particular about where things needed to be placed. When he did go back to the bedroom, I followed he and Elizabeth to watch and play with him a little more. He would hand toys to me and then take them back. We had an extra copy of a photo album we had sent. So the house mom brought out his, and we talked about who was in the pictures, pointing to the picture, the people in the room, and saying the names. He did seem to recognize that we were the same people. I did pick him up a couple of times, but just for a few moments.

We only stayed about an hour for that initial meeting. He did warm up to us a little bit as we were there, but he was seldom out of his head-tilted stance. He didn't really crack a smile at all through the visit. He was the only child left in the transition house. I believe the staff would have allowed us to bring him back to the hotel with us if we had pushed for it. We didn't even know it was an option, and I really don't think any of us were ready at that point.

We took the Kladders over to Nesibu and Birtukan's home. Then we went back to the hotel. We were exhausted! Mom and Elizabeth had their own room. David and I went to our room, and I bawled. I blubbered asking him what we had done and if we could really handle this. We felt we were supposed to be open to adopting an older child, but I was thinking it would have been so much easier with an infant. David just held me. I know now that a lot of the emotions were amplified by sleep-deprived state. We both fell asleep hard...didn't even hear another family knock on our door. I woke several hours later feeling a little more rested and a lot more hopeful.

Over the next few days, we started building more of a relationship with Josiah. I'll try to post more about that. But I didn't want to leave this as such a down post. We have all changed so incredibly much in the past year! The other day, Josiah and I did a silly photo shoot to send pictures to Ethiopia for our one year update. He picked this picture over the others because it is a picture of him hugging Mommy. :-)

God knew exactly what he was doing when he allowed us to bring this child into our lives!

One Year!!!!

One year ago today, we landed in Ethiopia and met our son! I can't believe how quickly the year has flown by or how much has changed in a year. I have thought many times about posting the details of our meeting, but have never done it. Part of the reason is that it is very emotional for me. But I'm going to try to post it today. It is probably going to be pretty long.

We arrived at the airport in Addis Ababa Saturday, August 30, 2008. Our plane was already about an hour late, and then we were a little bit confused on how to get the Visa and where to go after that. We were expecting to have our luggage scanned and looked through before we left the airport, but they just waved us through. The (then) agency director and our driver had been waiting for us for probably over two hours past what they had expected. I felt bad about keeping them, but we had no way of contacting them to let them know the plane had delayed a bit. The driver loaded our many things onto a cart and we walked out to the van. We were, of course, greeted by many "helpful" men out in the parking lot who wanted to help us with our things. The director waved them away until we got to the van. A few helped unload our things, and then expected to be rewarded. I probably only gave them enough tip for one person, but I was in a daze and a bit disoriented. (I kind of felt like I was just observing things from the outside rather than just being a participant. It was somewhat because of excitement, somewhat fear, and somewhat extreme lack of sleep--I had only slept about two hours the night before we left and not at all on the plane.)

We hopped in the van to head to our hotel. It was an interesting drive, just trying to take everything in. They mentioned that they would just drop us off to let us rest for the day, and we would meet Josiah the next day. While I was a bit disappointed with this, I though maybe it was for the best. I did mention that we had talked previously talked with the Kladders about meeting up with them before they flew out that evening, but wasn't sure if it would work. Their next stop after dropping us off was to pick up the other family, so it was decided we would take our things to the hotel, and then go along with them to pick up the Kladders. We tried to sign in as quickly as we could, drop our things off, use the restrooms, and reapply deodorant. Then we headed out again.

We met the Kladders at their guest house and were able to meet their beautiful daughter Bereket. (She has just grown more and more beautiful as she has been home with her family!) She and Elizabeth hit it off pretty well and played for a bit. Elizabeth was happy to give her a doll we had brought for her. We all drove together to the Bethany office and were given a bit of a tour. Then the director said we would go over to meet Josiah. Everything kind of halted for me. We didn't have any of the toys or fun things we were hoping to bring to make the meeting easier. More than that, my emotions had shifted to preparing to meet him the next day. I was nervous and kind of scared, but also excited to meet our son! What was he going to think? How was he going to react to us? I felt totally unprepared!

Okay, I'm going to post this even though it is not finished; I'm too tired/scatter-brained to finish tonight....

why do I have the "Cliff Hangar" song running through my head? :-)

Trip Beginning

I can't think of anything spectacular to post today...because, of course, all my other posts are so spectacular. ;-) And I'm remembering that we never really shared details of our time in Ethiopia, so I'm going to try to add a few snippets along the way here.

One nice thing about our flight into Ethiopia (besides no layovers!) was the timing. Just as we crossed into Africa, the sun began to rise. "Beautiful" doesn't even begin to describe it! It was breathtaking! It was a masterpiece that could have only been painted by the One True Master!

The pictures don't do it any justice, but the beginning of the sunrise looked like a perfect rainbow spread across the horizon. Here are a few pictures to document our first views of Africa!

Once the sun was risen, it was amazing to see the huge sand dunes beneath us! I tried to take pictures, but between the dirty airplane windows and the bright sun, they didn't work. (This was one of the many times I wish I had an amazing camera and knew how to use it well. Some day it will be in the budget. :-))