Ethiopia - Part 5

Mom multi-tasking = i had dinner in the oven, one baby sleeping on me in a sling, i was feeding the other baby in my lap and comforting Samuel on my (free?) shoulder because he had gotten hurt.


Sometimes when i think about our journey to Ethiopia and back i have a hard time believing that it actually happened. Ever had times in your life like that? Times that are so surreal and extra-ordinary that looking back they don't even seem like they could've actually happened? That's Ethiopia to me. I said to Claire the other day when she was over, "Can you believe we've been to Ethiopia and back?"


back to our journey....
It was Tuesday night, two days before we were to fly out of Addis, and we hadn't heard from Deressa (the lawyer for CWA Ethiopia) about whether we were actually going to even have an embassy appointment the next day. We had only Wednesday to complete what normally takes a month to complete in an adoption process; we were flying out Thursday, the day every government office was closed bc/ of the Muslim holiday. We didn't hear from Deressa until about 10:30am WEDNESDAY - he told us to get a driver and get over to the CWA offices to complete our paperwork for the embassy as fast as we could: we had an appointment! Here is a picture of Deressa, i call "servant of the Most High God"; he performed the miracles it took to get our girls home EARLY. We had a LONG, intense day: run, run. run...wait, wait, wait...PRAY. By the end of the afternoon we were sitting with a couple other dozen white families with their beautiful children waiting for our names to be called at the American Embassy. It was like sitting at your local DMV. It was now almost 3:30 and we hadn't even had our interview yet. After our interview we would have to pray and hope they could get the girls' VISA packages together before the office closed at 5pm. This was no small task. After our interview, the paperwork would have to be sent to Washington DC via email so that it could be reviewed and approved on their end. Then all the information, including the approval would have to be emailed BACK to the embassy in Addis. The people at the Addis office then had to organize and compile the file, (x2 - Aliyah and Ariel) which was about an inch thick. We weren't sure it humanly possible to be able to get that done in the little time we had left, this was a government office we're talking about!

Ariel had been having explosive, diarrhea diapers for a couple of days. While we waited she started filling her diaper. We waited until she seemed done then Claire and I headed to a corner to change her. YIKES. It was so full and bad that it was already leaking out and everywhere. We were exhausted, hot, stressed and emotionally stretched...I laid her on a pad on top of the plastic chair and started to change her. Suddenly, diarrhea shot out of her booty right as i was putting the new diaper on her. It shot all over my skirt, my arms, the chair - everything. Claire and i kinda let out a little scream and then Claire got the giggles. She gave them to me and we were laughing so hard we had tears streaming down our faces. The whole room turned their eyes to us and claire said, "if we don't laugh, we're going to cry." We heard a mother say," we've been there and done that and it's bad."
I'll never forget that diaper change...

We heard our names called around 3:30. Our interview went fast and i thanked the man for getting us our VISA packets that day as all the other families were being told to come back Friday for their children's. He corrected me because their office would be closed the next day for the holiday...it would be impossible to get them until Friday. Shika (CWA) said something to him about it being expedited. After looking on his computer he told us to wait, it would be ready in about an hour and a half. TWENTY MINUTES LATER our names were called again and we were handed the girls' packets - they were cleared to enter the US! We have no idea (except for miraculous) how the paperwork could've possibly traveled to the US and back to ethiopia and assembled in 20 minutes! We were hugging and laughing - we were going to make our flight thursday night now. Friday was elijah's birthday and we HAD to make it in time.