Ethiopia: Day 2

So today was the BIG day, we got custody of our children. We got ready, packed our backpack (i.e. diaper bag), ate breakfast, and left for the orphanage. We needed to be there by 9am so we could go to meet our lawyer at 10am. When we got to the orphanage they put us in the room that I had seen on youtube.com and other families blogs. Every time I would see a video or picture of this room I would envision our meeting with our children. Let me tell you it was better than any of my daydreams. Knowing that these two precious children were to be handed over to us by their loving nannies was much more than I could have imagined. Before they brought the twins to us the orphanage gave us a bag for each child with a traditional Ethiopian outfit in it. They are so gorgeous, I can't wait til they are able to fit into them. They also gave us back all the care package items we sent to the twins. We kept the photo books and the disposable cameras but gave the toys and clothing back to the orphanage. Then we signed the form that said that we were now soul guardians of our babies!! We changed them into clothes that we brought so that the orphanage could have back the clothes they were wearing. We then found out that our meeting with the lawyer wasn't until the next day at 11am. We all went back to the guest house to get acquainted with our babies and eat lunch. When we got back to our room Matt asked me "Now what?" which I had no answer for. I had done all kinds of research on the How to's on adoption but not the How To's on parenting. We were a bit lost the first couple of days but we soon found a routine and it became a little easier. After lunch we went shopping in the Post Office District of Addis. We only went to one shop though because it starting raining Monsoon style right before we were getting ready to leave this shop. Going to this shop was the most difficult part of our trip so far. We hadn't been face to face with the poverty until this point. There were people everywhere wanting us to buy items from them or just to give them money for food. It was very hard to walk away from them but if we gave them any thing we would have been mobbed by all the street people and with three young babies, we were with another family, in tow that would not have been safe at all. So we had to no to everyone.After that we just went back to the Guest House and hung out there. That night when the children were sleeping Matt and I would jump at any sound they made. It was really funny but a tad bit tiring too. Thankfully we learned not to be so jumpy after that first night, or we would have been the walking dead the rest of our trip.

Ethiopia - Day 1 (better late than never)

We arrived in Ethiopia at 7am and were ready to get to our guest house for a shower and a nap. First we needed to get our luggage and our visas and find our driver. Easy Peasy! While Matt went to change dollars to Birr I stood in line to get our visas. We got our visas found our luggage and found our driver. We were out of the airport at around 8am. Pretty darn good for International traveling. To say walking out of the Bole International Airport and seeing our surroundings was a culture shock is not saying enough. People tell you about the poverty and you see pictures but it is nothing until you have seen it first hand. This was my first time out of the U.S. and I thought I was prepared for what I would be seeing and experiencing but I was not. Our drive to the guest house was only about 5 minutes thankfully because we were so tired and ready to get clean. When we got to our guest house we were greeted by the friendliest people ever. They took us to our room and then were taken to the dining room to eat some breakfast. This is where we met Susan and her mom, Maureen. This is also when we found out that we would be meeting our children later that day. After breakfast I went up to take a shower and to start unpacking. Matt came up shortly afterwards but before he could take a shower we found out we would be changing rooms. This was good because we were originally in a very small room with only one crib, two kiddos and one crib is not a good thing, especially the way our children sleep. So now we were on the fourth floor and had two rooms that were connected. It was great except for the climbing the stairs carrying a child and the fact that the air is much thinner in Addis Ababa than it is in Central Illinois. It was good exercise though. We both finally did get our shower and a small nap. Matt slept fine but I was all worked up. Many feelings going on at once. One: I was ready to go home, the culture shock was too much for me the first couple of days there. Two: OMG we are parents to not one but two infants. What were we thinking. Three: I am about to meet my children for the first time in just a couple of short hours. I can't believe that we are finally here. And many more thoughts were there also but those were the main ones. At 3 o'clock we left to go to the orphanage, we made a quick stop at the Hilton so Susan could get her little girl's lap ticket verification. The Hilton is beautiful BTW and it has some great little shops in it. We finally started for the orphanage, the moment we had been waiting for for so long. I videotaped the journey but unfortunately I deleted it on accident. As soon as we got to the orphanage my camera said that the memory was full so I also didn't get any shots or video of us meeting our babies for the first time. I know, we were so unprepared. We did get shots of us after we sat down and I was able to get a new memory card in our camera. After visiting with the twins we went back to the guest house and unpacked, ate dinner and crashed. We needed to be well rested to pick up our babies the next morning.

**As soon as our computer at home gets fixed I will post pics with each day of the trip.**