Ethiopia - Day 2 - Monday, Dec. 28th

I’m feeling pretty good this morning, despite not sleeping. It’s a bright morning and the light feels nice coming through the big windows in our room. The prayer and chanting are still filling the air. It’s a strange sound, but becoming a little more familiar now. Before breakfast this morning, I turned on my cell phone to see what time it was at home…..I’m always wondering what Emma & Jake may be doing at any particular moment. To my shock and surprise, I found that we have cell coverage after AT&T told us we wouldn’t!!!! So, of course, without thinking I dial home and to my complete surprise Larry answered the phone!!!! I was so excited to hear his voice that I got all choked up and started to cry. He was surprised to hear from us and when he told Mom and the kids it was us calling, I could hear big screams and excitement in the background. What a blessing this morning to be able to hear Emma & Jake on the phone!!! We miss them so much……just the thought of them will make me tear up. Michael and I got to talk with them for just a few minutes. Both of them sounded great and even though it probably cost us half our life savings to make the call, it was worth it!!!!!

After that great phone call, we had a yummy breakfast at the hotel and then all of us AGCI families loaded onto a big bus and began the drive to the US Embassy. It appears it was all the way across town, so we had a rather long bus ride, but it was SO fascinating. To watch the city of Addis Ababa alive is a wild thing. The traffic we thought was crazy on Sunday was downright INSANE today! People, cars, livestock, buses all moving around each other in complete organized chaos. I could have driven around all day as it was so interesting to watch all that was going on around us.

We arrived at the Embassy (which by the way, is an old, drab prison and still looks like one) and filed through the security door and were instructed to sit down on a row of benches along with a large group of other people. They pointed to us to go in the building and we did so, going through another screening and then being directed through another door to a cramped little waiting area. We sat in this area until all the other families had made it through and then were directed to another building where there was a larger waiting room FULL of people. It was a dingy room with ugly florescent lighting, pungent sky blue painted walls and sterile flooring. Most of us stood with our babies while we waited. Names were called over a practically indecipherable loudspeaker and people one by one, went upstairs to another unknown room. Soon, our AGCI families names started to be called and then the time came when they called for “Andersen.” Michael and I went up the stairs to window 4 (it looked like there were about 8 windows on the perimeter of this upper room, along with a 2nd waiting area). At window 4, through a thick, dingy and yellowed plexiglass window, was a middle aged white woman, who had all our paperwork and was flipping through it. She immediately told us that she was looking further into our income for 2008 (which appeared pretty low because of all our write-offs and deductions and the slump in our real estate earnings that year). The primary purpose of this appointment is to again verify that we are able to financially care for the children we are adopting and in doing so, then provide us with the girls’ visas and passports to bring them home. Don’t ask me why this takes place NOW……since we’ve gone through all this in the months prior……but that’s the way it is. So, we both just respond “ok” not wanting to overstate anything or misspeak, and then she says she’ll be right back and leaves the window. Almaz is there with us and looks at us with a reassuring face and says it will be ok. I want to believe her, but now my heart is racing so fast I feel like I might hyperventilate. After what felt like 5 minutes but actually was about 1 minute, the woman returns and asks if we have current 2009 pay stubs. We did, anticipating this might be an issue, and I clumsily take those out of my bag and slip them through the crack under the window. She looks at them, makes no expression with her face and then flatly tells us she will be back in a moment. Are you kidding me????? I turn around with a panicked look to Almaz who is holding Zinea. Almaz again says it will be ok with a warm expression, as long as everything we wrote down was correct. Oh my gosh – did I write it all correctly??? Did the numbers add up??? I think so, but now I'm starting to worry I could have messed up.  Just then, Zinea burps up on the floor and all over Almaz’s arms. So, I scurry to find the wipes and burp rag to clean it all up. AHHHHHHH!!! Get this over with please!!!

This time, the woman was actually gone about 5 minutes and then returns to the window not looking up at us, but down at our documents. She starts speaking by saying, “So…” in a flat and low tone and then stops. This is not happening. She is about to lay down some bad news, I just know it. “So…..when you return to the States and go through customs, please be sure to show the agent your attached pay stubs for verification” and then she stamps like 5 pages of stuff. Does that mean it’s done?? Are we approved?? She never said, but I turned around to Almaz to see her expression and apparently, yes, it did. It was fine. All was good. We said ok enthusiastically back to the woman and watched as she signed and scribbled on another 5 pages. She then asked us a few questions about the girls (Were these the children we were referred? Had we met the parents on our trip? and others), handed over to us the girls’ Ethiopian birth certificates with our names on them and excused us back downstairs. YEAH!! We’re done!!!!! Oh my word, I was so happy and relieved and yet all I was thinking was where is the nearest bathroom because I need to throw up. That was just too unbelievably stressful at this stage of the game. Get us the heck out of here.

By the time all the families were done, it was close to noon. We all filed out the same way we had come in, loaded back up into the bus and drove off back to the hotel. That was the final bureaucratic hoop to jump through – it’s finished!!!! During our trip back, I was holding Zuri in the sling on my tummy. She looked up into my eyes and gave me a very relaxed smile. She just stared softly into my eyes and I stared back into hers. You could tell she was on the verge of falling asleep and so her whole face and body was soft as she looked at me. I nudged Michael with my elbow in the seat next to me to look at Zuri’s face because it was so peaceful - something she had not really been up to this point. And I just stared at her. Just stared. And she just stared at me. I remember thinking, “I don’t know you at all…..and yet I love you. All of this is so so strange.” Soon her eyelids faded and covered her big brown eyes and off she went to dreamland.

We arrived at the hotel, had lunch and retreated up to our room. We fed the girls and could feel the energy just leaving our bodies. There were no plans for the remainder of the day and so I think my body and mind just fizzled out…..for the first time I felt like we’re DONE! Done with everything…..now we can go home. I felt myself fading out quickly and so did Michael, so after the babies finished their bottles we tried to gently lay them in the moses baskets for a nap. Well, they didn’t really want to sleep in the baskets and we didn’t really have the energy to make them try, so with a girl on each of our tummies, Michael and I laid down on the bed and the four of us faded to sleep. I think about an hour and ½ later, Zinea (whom I’m holding) woke up and I couldn’t shush her back to sleep, so I sit up to rock her and instantly feel an extremely painful headache. I creep out of bed holding Zinea and as soon as I stand up, I start to feel nauseous. Worried I’m going to barf all over the place, I lay Zinea back on the bed and go to the bathroom. Oh – I felt like death warmed over. Zinea started crying, so I went back to pick her up and the headache was so intense, I felt dizzy and knew that I can no longer hold her up, or myself for that matter. I sort of frantically call for Michael to wake up and with blurry eyes, he rolls himself up with Zuri (thereby waking her up, unfortunately) and comes to console Zinea. I quickly take some medicine and then lay back down in bed. I’ve never had a migraine headache, but I think this must have been one. It was kind of scary actually because the pain was so intense that by the time I laid down, I felt as if I physically was unable to move.

I must have completely fallen back asleep because two hours later I wake up to the sound of Michael coming back into the hotel room with BOTH babies strapped onto him – one in the baby Bjorn and the other in my pink/brown sling. The headache was mostly gone, thank God, and I had no memory of even falling asleep or of Michael leaving with the girls. Michael was amazing with them – his first solo act with both girls, passing the time by walking them around the hotel and talking gently with them along the way. I had finally hit the proverbial “wall” due to a serious lack of sleep, but after a long nap I was feeling much better. Oh, but how long can this rest take me……we still have three long days to go.

Dinner that night was a quiet one downstairs with a few other AGCI families. We efficiently ordered and ate our food, headed upstairs and put the girls to bed and we followed RIGHT after them. They had another great night – I was the only one who had to get up with them which allowed Michael to sleep all night, which was great. They woke up twice, both times had a bottle and went right back to sleep. I’m amazed at their ability to put themselves back to sleep in their baskets after each feeding. Finally tonight, I slept for most of the time. I did, however, wake up around 3am, bright eyed and ready to go……listening to the chorus of other families’ babies waking and crying in the rooms around us…….and then by around 4am the Muslim call to prayer began, so the eerie echo soon filled the room and the next day had begun for me.

**I could only find a few pictures we took on this day.  First, we weren't allowed to take a camera to the Embassy, so we chose to leave it at the hotel for the trip.  This was a hard day physically for us and clearly we didn't even think about taking pictures......with the exception of these four.  Oh well.**

These three pictures were taken in the early morning hours looking out our hotel room windows:

Hanging out on the floor of our hotel room before dinner.