Ethiopia Part 4

On Tuesday, April 25th, Adam and I left early for Adama with Semmy, only this time we were going to pick up AJ for good.  Because it was going to take 4-5 hours for the entire trip we left before we got the required signature from MOWA in an effort to keep all 3 families on the same time schedule. We were confident MOWA had received written confirmation of the verbal order already given and the papers would be signed while we were in Adama and then all 3 families would be available to go to immigration that afternoon and apply for the kids' passports.

Seeing this herd of camel walking down the road was a quick reminder that we weren't in the US anymore.

AJ came into the office holding the hands of 2 of his friends at the orphanage. He is in the middle.

During our visit I went out and sat on the curb in the shade and AJ came and made sure he was sitting right beside me.

We played with AJ for a little bit while Semmy took care of the required paperwork and just as we were getting ready to leave we took pictures with a few of the nannies that were on hand.

 I found it so strange that we were going to take him from everything he had ever known without any sort of warning or fanfare.  With a quick wave to anyone who happened to be standing around we climbed into the back of Semmy's car with AJ on my lap and left the orphanage.  That was it, his life was going to be different and he had no idea what was going on.  At first he just fell asleep but when he woke up about half way back to Addis Ababa he just quietly looked out the window with a quizzical expression on his face and snuggled up to me.This was definitely a new experience for him.

Our first clue that things were not going as planned was when we got back to the hotel and the other families did not have their kids with them. Oh no, I thought, this isn't good.  They were going to pick up their kids in Addis as soon as the papers were signed so if they don't have their kids than the papers haven't been signed. It was decided that our continued presence at MOWA might be the thing to get them to actually sign like they said they would so I stayed with AJ in the hotel room while Adam went back to the MOWA office with Michael and Casey to see if they could figure out what was going on.  They came back a few hours later with more questions than answers.  The papers for the other 6 Spanish families' who were in our same boat had been signed, but MOWA didn't sign our papers and it didn't look like they had any intention of doing so. When asked point blank why they signed the Spanish families and not ours the Minister simply said that "it was a mistake".  A "mistake" in the form of a bribe, no doubt. We will never know exactly why they decided to sign for them and not for us and can speculate all day long, but it doesn't change the fact that we were now in unchartered waters.  MOWA has never refused to sign off after a legal court decree has been issued before so both West Sands and the U.S. Embassy were scrambling to try and find what the next best step might be.

We have been in constant contact with the Embassy since the suspension was announced and I must say that the team over adoptions has been fantastic.  They flew into action at the first sign of trouble and have been working very hard to advocate for all of the US citizens being affected by it.  Apparently this suspension came down as an executive order from the Prime Ministers office yet the courts were still processing adoption cases on a daily basis and more families were en route for their court dates.  Our 3 cases are considered top priority for the Embassy because we were the only ones that were finished with court BEFORE the suspension was announced, everyone else came afterward.

AJ did well at the hotel although that first day was a little rough because the nap he took in the car interfered with his afternoon nap so he was a little tired in the late afternoon.

We played with toys and watched Baby Einstein videos.  When the maids came to clean the room I took him up to the sky lobby on the floor above us to look at the view.

He did well at dinner and we got him to sleep at around 8:00 p.m. which was his normal bedtime. Once again he slept until after 8:00 a.m. the next morning.

AJ is a thumb sucker. 

We knew that Wednesday was going to be the day of decision, but now everything was more complicated for us because we had custody of AJ.  If they signed then we would be able to keep him and move forward, but if they didn't we would have no choice but to take AJ back to the orphanage and go home and wait it out.  I'm sure you can imagine our emotional wrestle.  The other families were on edge, but the difference was that they didn't have their kids with them so they weren't going to have to send them back. By this time we had had AJ for a total of 3 days and 2 nights which is long enough for him to get used to us and warm up to us. 

Once again Adam spent the morning at the MOWA office and then in the afternoon I attended a meeting at the Embassy.  It was clear by the end of the meeting with the adoption department that they were doing everything in their power to help us and were working to set up meetings with top government officials to resolve the issue, but there wasn't a timeline and I knew we couldn't just stay in Ethiopia indefinitely.  It's just too much to ask a family with 4 kids at home.

We left the Embassy at around 4 p.m. and Michael and Sarah Beth had already decided to catch the 11:10 p.m. flight out of Ethiopia that very night.  Traffic was busy so I had Michael use the one local cell phone we had with us to call Adam at the hotel and tell him to contact our travel agent (who specializes in Adoptions) so she could start looking for flights home.  We decided that spending more time with AJ would only confuse him and make it even harder for us to leave so leaving sooner rather than later would be best. I was so upset with the Ethiopian government that I remember thinking to myself as we were making our way back to the hotel, "I just want to get out of Ethiopia right now!" We booked tickets on the same flight as Michael and Sarah Beth that very night.  

Semmy arranged for AJ to stay with his family overnight and assured us that he would take a social worker with him in the morning to return him to the orphanage in Adama. After getting to the hotel we left once again with Semmy to take AJ to his home.  He is married and has 2 daughters ages 14 and 11 to help watch him and I knew AJ would be in good hands.  All day long AJ had been so sweet and loving and you could tell he was enjoying the extra love and attention that come with having a Mommy and Daddy of your very own.  I held him tightly as we drove through the streets of Addis Ababa where it was getting dark and starting to rain. Walking into Semmy's house and handing AJ over to his family without knowing when we would be back to get him was one of the hardest things Adam and I have ever done. It was awful.  I'll just leave it at that.

We had exactly 30 minutes to get packed and leave for the airport once we got home from Semmy's house.  Our adrenaline was pumping as we threw everything into suitcases making it to the lobby without a minute to spare.  We flew to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to Chicago with Michael and Sara Beth before we split up. They continued onto Birmingham and we went to SLC. At this point I was so ready to be home again and see the kids, it had been a long 10 days in Ethiopia. 

After 20 hours in the air we touched down on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. While it wasn't the ending we were hoping for, we have confidence in all of the many people at the Embassy and elsewhere that are working on our behalf and are sure that everything will work out in the end. Our names are being discussed in high level government meetings in both the United States and Ethiopia, which is definitely not anything I ever thought would happen.  The good news is that we were able to spent 3 days with AJ.  After 20 months of looking at his picture and not knowing anything about him, it's nice to finally know a little more about his personality and his likes and dislikes.  When he does come home we will be better prepared to receive him.