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!