Going to Ethiopia

We got to the airport on the morning of May 12th with just about every feeling running through our bodies.  Excitement.  Eagerness. Anxiousness.  And of course being tired since we had gotten up at three in the morning! We only slept maybe 1-2 hours each in the 18 hours from then that it took to get to Ethiopia.  By the time we got to Ethiopia, we were incredibly tired but we had only one goal in mind.  We wanted to meet and hold our son!

  Meeting Rogi was incredibly special.  He was fast asleep on the floor when we arrived, but quickly woke up a few minutes later.  All he could do initially was stare at the people who were obviously there to see him over all the other babies in the room.  By the afternoon, he had warmed up and was laughing and interacting with us.  We put together a video of meeting Rogi:

Being in Ethiopia was special.  They are so kind.  If we needed any help, there was always someone who was willing to help.  The theme I felt all week in Ethiopia was community.  While the US may not know their neighbors and sometimes prefer to be left alone, community is always king in Ethiopia.  People walk together and talk together and take public transportation together.  It creates an environment of cooperation and trust that I loved.  Rogi comes from an amazing country, and I always want him to know that.

While we were there we got to do many amazing things.  We went up to Entoto Mountain which overlooks Addis Ababa and is almost 10,000 feet up.  On the mountain we got to see a 125 year old Orthodox church that was filled with some of the most exquisite paintings that you will ever see.  The next night we went to see cultural dancing-some of which looked like this:

But the main reason we were there was for court.  Ethiopia started requiring parents to come to court over a year ago.  This was to testify that we had met our child and that we accepted him.  This was the easiest thing in the world to us-of course we accept him!  We are head over heels for him!  But we were so expecting to fail.  There was a paperwork slowdown going on, and we were convinced we'd get caught in it!  We told everyone who would listen in Ethiopia that we would fail.  We went to court on Wednesday, May 18th and went inside the building where court was.  We waited as patiently as we could as family after family went in to see the judge.  Finally, it was our turn.  The judge asked us a few questions that we answered, and then suddenly came the words "Congratulations, he is yours"  What sweet, unexpected words!  We ran out of there hugging each other and asking the person who took us "Did she say that?  Does that mean what we think it means?" It did, and we became Rogi's parents that day!

The next day we were able to go out and see Rogi's birthplace.  It was an amazing day that we will tell him about when he gets older.  Normally, you don't get to do that until your second trip, but through a stroke of luck and some hard work by the Ethiopian staff we were able to go on our court trip.  We are really glad that we did!

Leaving Rogi on the last day was really hard.  Even though we were his parents, we still had to come back to the US while paperwork was created and the Embassy decided on his case to issue a US visa.  When we came back without him, we left a part of ourselves over there.

The family briefly together in Ethiopia: