Ethiopia - part 4

Before i continue the Ethiopian part of the journey I'll give a little update about our life right now........Aliyah is chunky! It's true! She must be about 10 or 11 (12?) pounds. It's amazing. She looks like a three month old! Ariel is gaining slowly. She is gaining but she is definitely more petite. she's probably about 8.5 pounds. Both girls are so bright and happy. They love their mobile (see pictures in older posts), and love to bat at their toys in the bouncy seats. They smile, coo and love to be talked to and sung to. They are starting to notice each other visually. We feel, because they are twins, they know each others' presence instinctively, but today they saw one another in their side-by-side bouncy seats and had huge smiles! We wished we'd gotten a picture of that! We need to keep a camera attached to us at all times, i think. They really love to be cuddled. Night time will inevitably find isaac and i in matching moby wraps (one i bought and one is a borrow from Monica - thanks!) http://www.mobywrap.com/ each with a baby in the "kangaroo hold". We were laughing one night that we HAVE to get a picture of that. Isaac is so cute with a baby papoosed on his chest! A lot of nights we'll do skin-to-skin with them in the Mobys as we feel it's an important part of attachment and bonding, especially for preemies.

Now, more about our Ethiopian journey...the picture is of Aliyah and Ariel at the Ghion Hotel on the day of their embassy medical appointment. Can you believe how tiny they are?! Aliyah is on the right. She doesn't even look like the same baby now. Ariel is on the left and she still looks the same only more filled out. SO - Saturday, the day after we settled into the Ghion, Isaac and Claire went to the Haile Selassie market to find gifts for the girls. We wanted to get a gift for every birthday for 18 years and also special occasions, like their 16th birthdays and their weddings. I was still recovering from the day before and exhausted so i didn't want to leave the hotel. The girls needed to stay home too after the day before and i knew claire and isaac would do a great job. They did! They got beautiful dresses, jewelry, paintings....i was very pleased with their purchases. They found hair combs for the girls' wedding presents that are sterling silver and gorgeous.

The next day was Sunday. Isaac went to church with Alazar and Claire, the girls and i stayed home. Claire and i went to the lobby of the Ghion and ATTEMPTED to send an email to our families. Is everyone thankful for high-speed internet? Because let me tell you - after that experience I AM!! i spent over an hour trying to send ONE short email to our families. After much frustration i lost it and it never went through. Hotmail told Claire hers went through but no one ever got it. I just wanted to communicate with my boys! I came back later that night and tried again. I was able to get through that time. I really wanted my mom to call me at the hotel so i could talk to the boys. Isaac was really missing the boys but Claire and I were kinda beside ourselves missing our kids. We realized days later that it was probably homesickness in general that we were so overwhelmed with missing them. We were in culture shock. I can't say it simpler than that. Nothing really prepared us. All the reading, all the pictures, nothing quite prepared us.

On Tuesday we got the call from CWA Ethiopia that the girls had their embassy medical appointments. We got them all dressed up and ready. Of all the clothes we packed, only 1/3 of them actually fit the girls. They were just SO TINY. I had gone out before we left and got several sleepers and onesies that were 5-8 pounds and that is what saved the girls from being swallowed in the other clothes. This was the first "dress alike" we'd ever done and they were adorable. Claire and i braced ourselves for traveling the streets of Addis again. Let me try to give you a picture of it - there are NO traffic lights; cars, people and LARGE animals go and stop as they please. If you're walking across the road, no matter who you are, watch out because you do NOT have the right of way. You will get honked at and then driven around. Most of the roads are rubble (though there is a lot of road construction going on) so there's lots of jolting and bouncing. Claire and i would sit in the back with a baby in a sling and hold on for dear life as we bounced through the dusty, crowded streets. And we worry about car seats! HA! We were always within inches of hitting a person, another car, a donkey....the horn is the Ethiopian driver's best friend. For them it is absolutely normal but for a mama with tiny babies, it was quite overwhelming.
I must put in here though that God's grace met us at every turn. His presence was TANGIBLE. There have been a couple of times in my life where i've know it so completely and while i was there in Ethiopia i was blown away by His favor and love. Was everything easy for me? Heck no. I was a new mama in a new (third) world with medically tiny, fragile babies doing my best to provide what they needed. But what i knew for a fact: all the resources of heaven were mine. My girls were going to be fine and my Father was providing for ALL OF OUR NEEDS. We lacked no-thing, spiritually, emotionally or physically. We felt the prayers from others on our behalf like a knocking on the door of heaven. As we walked in the Father's plan, He was meeting us

We had to go to the American Embassy first for the girls to get their blood drawn. They took all our electronic equipment at the desk then told us the girls had to drink from their bottles. It was to make sure it wasn't a dangerous liquid, i guess. The girls were asleep to Claire did the honors and dripped some from each bottle into her mouth. she said it was disgusting. I took her word for it! The needles are one-sized. I think the needle they used to draw the blood was the same size as the girls' arm. The ladies were Ethiopian and very sweet, smiley and as gentle as possible. After that we headed to another place to get their physical exams. All checked out great! The doc had to get the blood test results back from the Embassy for review before she could return all the findings to the embassy. It was Tuesday afternoon and she hoped to get the results by 5pm. This was the problem we discovered. Thursday was a Muslim holiday and ALL offices were closed. What did that mean? We had WEDNESDAY to complete the process that usually takes a month. We asked the doctor if she could try to get everything over to the embassy by the morning as we were scheduled to fly out late thursday night and we had to have our embassy appointment and paperwork completed by Wednesday. She put an URGENT sticker on our file and said she would make sure she got it there by the morning. WOW - we were being met with favor at every turn. Little did we know what was in store for us the next day...