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.