July 15

The stopover at the Frankfurt airport was about three hours. We had a small bite to eat and just hung out – felt very exhausted. My ear was still hurting and I was worried about flying again.

As we were boarding the plane, there was another young woman boarding at the same time. She too had a Canadian passport and so we started to chat. As it turns out, she was also heading to Addis to pick up her twin girls. Her husband was also left behind at home and she was traveling with her mom. It felt really good to connect with someone in the same boat. She was just as stressed as I was and we ended up chatting for a while on the flight. She was also staying at the Weygoss but didn’t have a plan to get there yet. We said we would ask Solomon, our driver, if she too could hitch a ride in the same vehicle.

Flying over the Sahara Desert - very cool!

Flying into Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:


We finally arrived in Addis Ababa at almost 7:00 pm local time on Wednesday. Got a visitor visa right at the airport and changed a bit of money to local money – Ethiopian birr. Went through customs – no problem – the man didn’t even ask us questions – except how to pronounce my name which seemed to just be out of interest, nothing else. My luggage was there right away. Went through gates and Solomon (who is bald – but not wrinkled or fat like he told me on the phone!) was right there waiting with his right hand man (can’t remember his name) They gave us each some flowers. Unbelievable people. Huge hearts. Will do anything for us.

The Addis Ababa Airport:


Definitely a huge relief to have this connection. As we were talking with these two men about the whole situation with our agency, they were tearing up. I could just tell how much this is affecting them. They love the kids and their jobs so much.

They had no problem taking our new friends to the Weygoss with us.

We got to the guest house and checked in. It’s beautiful and the people are very friendly. There were two other adoptive moms there with their boys. We got settled a bit in the room, Solomon made sure everything was okay and gave us more general information re: eating, water, etc. I made arrangements to meet him at 9:30 the following morning so he could take me to see Denver. Yay! I called home – talked to my mother-in-law briefly. I called Mike on his cell phone and chatted a bit. I missed everyone back home like crazy! We chatted for a while with the other adoptive moms – they gave us so much information about living in Addis – one of them had been there for seven weeks with her little guy already (long story that I won’t get into). I bought some water at the front desk and Solomon said he’d take us to do some shopping the following day too – after I see Denver. I will also talk to Solomon about trying to get us to the Canadian Embassy tomorrow.

I headed back up to the room, had a shower and went to bed. I fell asleep around 10:30 pm, slept like a rock for three hours and then laid around for two more hours (gotta love that jetlag). Finally got up to journal on my laptop.

July 14

After a long night without much sleep, we woke up still not knowing exactly what to do. I had done a bit of shopping the night before – particularly at the pharmacy and Mike’s mom came by train to help out with the kids – just in case I left at any minute. One option was to wait one more day to see if anything changed but I couldn’t get a flight for Wednesday. The next available flight would be Thursday evening and we felt that was way too long to wait. The MP’s office didn’t have an answer for us at this point and my flight was only on hold until noon.

The ultimate decision was made by Mike. He finally said I should just go. This decision was made a few minutes before noon so I quickly called the travel agent and said to go ahead with the booking. Thankfully I was all set with my passport and immunizations. My sister was able to pull it together at the last minute too (I had called her to let her know the situation on Sunday night) and we agreed to meet at the airport at 3:00 pm – less than three hours later. Wow! Packing in about a half an hour is not a good idea and this became even clearer when I arrived in Ethiopia without some fairly necessary items. Oh well – not the end of the world.

By the way, the entire time since Sunday night, my three precious children at home (Victoria, Austin and Samara) were pretty much ignored. I was super stressed to say the least and felt like I had no time for them. I felt horrible about the way this all went. I’m sure they were so confused as it’s hard for them to understand what was all happening. How do you explain the bankruptcy of an adoption agency to three young children? To be honest, all they cared about was that Mommy was heading to Ethiopia to FINALLY bring Denver home. At one point I happened to mention that I may have to stay for a while (didn’t say specifically just how long that might be) and this just about did Austin in. He had a bit of a hard time and missed me a lot when I was in BC at the end of May so he wasn’t too pumped about this whole thing. But kids will be kids and they took it all in stride. Me? Not so much. It was really, really hard saying goodbye and not knowing how long I’d be away.

At some point before leaving home for the airport our super duper, fantastic, amazing, awesome (you get the picture) social worker Donna called. We had been in touch via email on and off over the past few days but it was so good to hear her voice. She reassured me by saying that if she were in my position, she would be doing the exact same thing. She said we need to trust our gut and she can relate to the mama bear instinct. That was exactly what I needed to make me feel like we were for sure, 100%, making the right decision. After all, jumping on a plane and heading to Africa isn’t something I, or most people for that matter, do on a regular basis. So thanks Donna!

With only 15 minutes left before having to leave the house, I called the Weygoss Guest House in Addis Ababa where I knew other adoptive families often stayed when traveling to Ethiopia. I just happened to get through on my first try (even though I found out later that it was a power out day) and booked a room. I also got a hold of someone that used to work for our agency as a driver/guide and he agreed to pick me up at the airport and bring me to the guest house. We could already see how God was watching out for us on this journey.

We got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport – yep, just what we needed. We still arrived in plenty of time though and met my sister there. Saying bye to Mike was even harder than saying bye to the kids. Again, I didn’t know how long I’d be away from him.

We boarded the flight and left at our scheduled departure time. It was a long, long flight to Frankfurt – eight hours. I didn’t sleep much. I’m not really good at sleeping on a plane regardless but having so much on my mind didn’t help. I had a major earache when we were descending into Frankfurt – excruciating pain – but other than that, everything went well and I was done the bigger part of the journey to Addis Ababa – only six and half hours of flight left.

July 12 and 13

On the afternoon of Sunday, July 12 we received an email from someone letting us know about the possible bankruptcy of our adoption agency. To say we were shocked is a major understatement. We were told that because of the situation, we should be prepared to travel early and perhaps one of us count on staying longer than we expected. Because the transition home where Denver was staying was run by our agency, we were unsure how long they would be staying open. I can’t even begin to tell you how devastating this was for us. It was such a shock as we had absolutely no idea, no warning, no indicators at all that our agency was in trouble.

At this point, we weren’t even supposed to have found out about the bankruptcy but knowing the position we were in, having been through court making Denver officially our son, this person was kind enough to inform us of the situation.

I spent pretty much all of Monday on the phone trying to figure things out. Slowly the news was leaking out and the adoption community was becoming aware of the situation. Two moms of Ethiopian children – one that had just arrived home from Addis and one that was still there – sent emails out to everyone saying that if we were through court and had children in the transition home in Addis, that we should get over there as soon as possible. Apparently there was no money coming in anymore and there was only a few days worth of food left for the children. Yikes. I may have been a little stressed at this point.

You may be wondering why the decision to travel or not was so tough for me so I’ll explain. At this point, Denver was legally our son. We had his court documents, his passport and his birth certificate. However these documents were all at the High Commission in Nairobi and we were waiting for them to issue Denver’s facilitation visa so we could get him home to Canada. This process was taking approximately 12 weeks (give or take) and we were at week five. Our agency has a strict policy that you are not allowed to travel prior to this visa being issued. The concern is always about messing things up for those in the process behind us. However, at this point, we figured there wouldn’t be anyone behind us due to the bankruptcy of our agency. The other issue was that I would probably have to stay in Ethiopia for seven weeks (give or take) waiting for Nairobi to issue Denver’s visa before I could take him home. Having three children and a husband at home – that wouldn’t have been easy.

We also put a call in to our MP’s office and stopped by in the early afternoon on Monday to give them every single piece of paperwork we had. The woman at the office (we’ll call her “C”) did so much work for us already that first day. Even though she said she was only working until 3:00 pm at the latest that day, she was still calling us past 5:30. She is an amazing woman and we will forever be thankful for everything she did for us.

So we continued to think and pray about what to do. I called a travel agent and put a flight on hold for the next day just in case. This also wasn’t easy because I didn’t know what my return date was. To leave a ticket open ended is a huge cost (approximately eleven thousand dollars) so we just picked a date - the soonest possible day we could get for a reasonable price - with the plan to change it (a cost of $200.00 to change it and then pay the difference if the new flight cost more). When the travel agent called me back with the details, I realized that I forgot to tell her that I was coming home with a baby. Oops – minor detail! I clearly had way too much going on in my head.

Around dinnertime an official bankruptcy notice was posted on our agency’s website. We put together an email to inform family and friends of the situation and to ask for prayer – specifically for Denver’s health and safety as well as for us as we had some major decisions to make.

Yes, I am still planning on posting my journal on here. I'm not procrastinating. I just need to get my journal off the laptop I took to Ethiopia but it doesn't have a burner so I have to use an external hard drive. Ok, the truth is, I just have to do it. So much to do, so little time. So in the meantime, I thought I'd post some pictures . . .

The kids are enjoying their new little brother and as you can see above, they already welcomed him into their reading club. Even Samara is doing well in her role as a big sister. Overall she's pretty good with him although there are some things you can hear around here more often: "Samara, be gentle", "Samara, his arm doesn't bend that way", "No Samara, he can't have your chicken", etc. Don't worry, we won't let her babysit anytime soon!

P.S. To all you expert bloggers . . . does anyone know how to transfer text from a word document to my blog? Cut and paste doesn't seem to work. Please let me know if you can help. Thanks.

We're Home!

For those of you that don't know, I just arrived home on Saturday afternoon after spending 10 days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There were a lot of circumstances that lead to this last minute travel and I hope to blog all about it. I was able to journal while in Ethiopia and I will also share that with you when I am able to find some time. Here's an email I sent out to family and friends yesterday:

Hello everyone. Denver and I made it home safely on Saturday afternoon at around 1:30. I'm still in shock and can't believe that the events of the past two weeks really happened. My emotions have been through the ringer - pulled every which way. When I left for Ethiopia two weeks ago, I had every intention of staying as long as I had to and at that point it looked like it was going to be weeks or even months. Now here we are, two weeks later, all together as a family of six. God is good! Despite the extreme stress and uncertainties and although this trip was not AT ALL what it was supposed to be, we saw God's hand working clearly many times. He watched over all of us, kept us safe and healthy and never once let us down.

When I think about saying thank you, I don't even know where to begin. So many of you played huge parts in all of this and we want you to know how much we appreciate you and what you've done for us. We couldn't have done it without you and your support and prayers mean so much.

Denver is doing relatively well. He has been through a lot and he is extremely overwhelmed. Aside from two parents that love him to bits, he has three siblings that are in his face 24/7. They can't get enough of him and he needs to get used to all the activity in our home. He's a happy and content baby and he's eating and sleeping really well. Him and I are still getting used to Canadian time but the jet lag doesn't seem nearly as bad comign home as it did going there - for that I am thankful. Last night Denver fell asleep at 6:30 pm and I followed about an hour latera. The next thing I knew, it was 4:30 am and Denver was awake and ready to play. I feel quite refreshed today after having nine hours of solid sleep - can't remember the last time I slept so well.

Please continue to pray for us as we go through this time of adjustment. We're all getting used to the changes and it's going to be a while before we're back to some sort of normalcy - is there such a thing as "normal" with four young kids??? I also want to ask you to continue to pray for the situation with our agency and all the families that are caught up in the mess. We have some dear friends that were waiting for referrals, some others that hope to travel soon to pick up their kids and some new friends that I met at the guest house in Ethiopia that are waiting for visas so they too can return home soon. We know that God can make these things right and we pray that His will be done.

On my last day in Ethiopia I was able to visit the orphanage where Denver spent the first month of his life (before he was brought into our agency's transition home). One of the caregivers there was wearing a shirt that said "God will never let you down" and I thought it was so appropriate after all we had been through. I just want to leave you with this verse from Psalm 55:22: "Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall".

Love you lots.

Karen

Here are some of the pictures that were taken on Saturday. I can't believe I'm posting the one of me doing the ugly cry but I think it portrays the relief I felt at finally being on Canadian soil with our entire family all together.

Adoption Friends

On Sunday afternoon we went to a bbq at the home of another family adopting from Ethiopia. There were five families there all together - two couldn't make it. We had such a great time! They have a beautiful home with lots of room for the kids to run and play. It's such a blessing to hang out with other families that have adopted or are adopting - specifically from Ethiopia (one family has adopted from both China and Ethiopia). It's fun to get to know each other and share the joys and concerns, the ups and downs of international adoption. Here are a few of the many pictures we took at the bbq.

A cake with the names of the children referred to our families over the past few months. What a neat idea!


I had no idea Victoria was such a cat lover. Those who know me, know she did NOT get that from her mother (right Aunt Christy??)!

A little visitor

This morning we had a visitor at our place. We found him wandering around under our van in the driveway. He just stared at us as we took some pictures and then wandered out into the garden. After a while he had enough and walked across the street into the neighbour's backyard. A few hours later we saw him again walking down the street to the end of our court. Although he's kinda creepy and not the cutest looking baby I've ever seen, I did feel kinda sorry for him as he was clearly lost. He was so tired and looked as though he could hardly keep his eyes open. I hope he ended up finding his mama so he could finally get some rest (and not come back to our place again!)

Family Outing

Last Friday evening we got an email from a friend saying she had five tickets for a Blue Jay game for the following day and they were unable to go - does anyone want them? After briefly discussing it with Mike, we decided to take them (thanks Marg!!!). When we told the kids where we were going the next morning, they were beyond excited. We were actually going to see a real live baseball game in Toronto! At this point I have to admit I was having second thoughts about taking three small children to such an event. But it ended up being a lot of fun. The kids were very interested in the game and asked all kinds of questions. They really wanted to understand what was going on so they could cheer when appropriate; however, the Jays ended up losing 10 - 0 so there wasn't a whole lot of cheering going on. Regardless of the score, we had a great time and it was a very fun family outing.

Remember me???

So I guess it’s been a while since I’ve posted eh? Wow . . . over a month. Where does the time go? There’s nothing specific taking up my time, just a whole lot of everyday living.

• Since we passed court on May 20, I’ve been “nesting”. Organizing, sorting, chucking, donating, cleaning, reorganizing, etc. I’ve gone through a lot of clothes for Denver, sorted them all by size and am trying to predict what size he’ll be wearing. On our last update pictures, he was wearing a 12 month sleeper that we sent along in a care package. It fits him pretty good already and wasn’t even six months old when the pictures were taken! I’ve gone through Victoria, Austin and Samara’s clothes. I’ve even gone through mine and Mike’s clothes and got rid of a lot of stuff that we never wear anymore. I’m feeling lighter!
  
  
• I’ve also been doing a bit of packing. Putting things together that will be useful for travel. I want to be somewhat prepared when we get the call to go ahead and bring him home. (Can you really be totally prepared for something like that?!?!?)
  
  
• We went to get our needles. Ok, when I say “we”, I mean Samara. The three of us went to the travel medicine clinic so we could get what we needed and as it turned out, Mike and I didn’t need anything because we were all set from when we traveled to China 2.5 years ago. Poor Samara though. We had been telling her that all three of us would be getting “poked” and then it turns out she was the only one that needed not one, but two needles. She was so brave though . . . cried a little until the nurse gave her a candy necklace. Candy works every time!
  
  
• I’ve been running again . . . mostly on my own (or with our dog Teagan) but trying to get back into the swing of getting up early to run at 5:30 am with the great bunch of girls that I used to run with a few months ago. I miss them when I don’t run with them and I’m much more motivated when I run with a group. I just don’t have the same conversations with Teagan!
  
  
• I’ve been doing a lot of typing. For those of you that don’t know, I work part-time doing medical transcription from home. I’ve been doing it for over seven years and I’ve been blessed to be able to stay home with my kids and still earn a bit of cash. However, it’s been taking over lately and I’ve been very overwhelmed with it all. So, I’ve had to cut back and let three of the doctors know that as of the end of June, I won’t be transcribing their notes anymore. It was really hard for me to let go of them but I know it’s best for me and my family . . . especially after Denver comes home.
  
  
• I was in BC for a week at the end of May/beginning of June. My sister-in-law had her third chemo treatment and so I was able to help out with the kids and whatever else needed to be done. It was so good to be there and visit and catch up and just see how they’re all doing . . . which happens to be quite well despite their circumstances. Thanks for letting me come and visit guys. Keep up the fight Christel – you’re a trooper and a huge inspiration!
  
  
• The kids are out of school for the summer already. Again, where has the time gone? Victoria finished grade two and Austin finished kindergarten. I can’t believe they’ll both be in school full-time next year! So here we are trying to get used to being all together all the time with no specific routine. I bought the kids some workbooks so they can work on math, reading, writing, etc. during the summer. We work on it for at least an hour every morning (during the week) and they actually love it. In the afternoon, the kids always have an hour of “quiet time”. That means they are each in their own rooms either reading or doing something quiet on their own. We all need this time. It’s good for them to take a break from each other and it’s good for me to have this quietness too. And then of course there’s a whole lot of playing in between too.
  
  
• We plan to do some play dates and visits with friends at parks or splash pads/wading pools too. My sister-in-law and I have decided to “switch kids” for a full day once a week. That means one week I get the girls and she gets the boys and the next week, it’s the opposite. She has a daughter Breanna that’s Victoria’s age, a son Zachary that’s Austin’s age and a daughter Cassandra that’s Samara’s age. So it works out really well and they play quite nice together. We’re hoping it will be a good change for the kids (and their mamas!).
  
  
• We’re getting together with a bunch of adoptive families (adopting or adopted from Ethiopia) next weekend. We’ve gotten together with the women and small children before but this time it will be our husbands and all the kids too. Can’t wait! Since we saw each other last time, two more families have gotten referrals and hopefully there will be more in the near future.
  
  
• It’s a very exciting time coming up for my friend Catherine. She’s probably about a month (at the most) away from seeing her daughter Hannah’s face for the very first time. After waiting over 39!!!! months, she should be receiving a referral from China in the month of July. I can’t wait! She’s been such an amazingly patient mama and such an example in the adoption community. Did I mention that she’s waited for 39 months??!?!?!?!?
  
  

So that’s it. I didn’t mean to be this long winded but I guess that’s what happens when you don’t post on your blog for so many weeks. I will try to do some more posts to catch up in the next little while. If you have a blog that I usually follow, I am still reading and following along . . . just not commenting all the time. I hope all is well with everyone.