Oh my, where to start????
Perhaps I'll start right after our referral since I haven't shared much since then. Just a warning- this is a looong post, so if details are your thing I got you covered...
We first saw the picture of our son on June 21st- what an incredible day that was and we documented it here! From that day forward it was a rush to get submitted to court so we would have a possibility of receiving a court date before the impending rainy season court closure. Yup, court CLOSURE. For up to 2 months. You better believe we were praying like crazy [and asked many of you to join us!] and we followed up with our agency regularly just to make sure our case was on their radar. We finally got news on July 13th [incidentally the anniversary of our engagement] that our court date was scheduled for JULY 30TH! PRAISE THE LORD!!! Honestly, after every setback and delay, this felt like an absolute miracle and we were thrilled.
(Fast forward through the frantic preparation to get there...)
We arrived in Ethiopia Friday night the 27th pretty late. Our plane landed around 9pm, and by the time we got through immigration, exchanged money, located our luggage, and found our ride, it was close to 10:30 already. The 22 hours of flight time plus 7 more of layovers contributed to a very sleepy Trace and Randee. We slept fabulously that night even though the next day we would meet Simmie for the first time. At this point everything felt surreal. We were excited and thankful but it didn't feel "real"- like what we had been praying for and dreaming of for years was finally happening.
Sat morning came and I nervously got ready. I couldn't believe THIS was the day I'd been waiting on for so long! The guest home we stayed in provided breakfast so we headed down there to try and eat. It was there that I discovered one of my favorite things about Ethiopia- the amazing coffee! I ordered a macchiato and Trace ordered a cappucchino. That's right, my never-drinking-hot-drinks husband ventured out and ordered coffee! I was so proud =) We had a great breakfast and waited for our ride to come pick us up to take us to the transition home.
Finally the time came to go to the home where our little guy lived! When we arrived we walked into a downstairs sitting room that was empty. In a few minutes we were ushered upstairs to go to the baby room, but on the way the ADORABLE toddlers and older kids found us and "hi's" and hugs began. [I had seen many of these kids in pictures before, but seeing them in person was thrilling! They are super precious and it was a blessing to get to love on them during our time in Ethiopia.] Even though we had a beautiful 'detour' we made it to Simmie's room pretty quickly, and OH MY how wonderful it was to finally hold our sweet son!!!
Trace captured me seeing Simmie for the first time on video, and I'm so thankful because that time is really priceless. I don't think words can describe the pure joy I felt in holding and kissing him for the first time. This picture above probably shows a bit of that [even though I'm smiling so big it appears I have no eyes...] Simmie is even more beautiful, sweet and perfect than we ever could have dreamed he would be. Every day I spent with him I was in awe that we would be entrusted with such a special baby.
This day was incredible. We started to get to know a little about his personality [laid back] and discovered that he loves to be held and cuddled. We took turns holding him making an effort to prefer each other as we each assumed the other was dying to hold our sweet boy. Trace was amazing and deferred to me a lot. Even though I treasured every moment I held him there was something indescribably special about seeing Trace with his long prayed for son. Here is one of my favorite pics of this.
On Sunday another couple with our agency arrived to meet their baby girl and for court. It was fun to get to know, and spend time with them as we visited our kiddos, ate our meals, and shopped that week. It blesses me to see how God leads families with different backgrounds and stories to adopt and change an orphan into a son or daughter!
The next BIG day was Monday when we were scheduled for court! The four of us were surprisingly relaxed as we had breakfast and headed over to meet our lawyer at the courthouse that morning. We followed him into an elevator and walked into a room where lots of other people were sitting quietly. There were lots of white faces [adopting couples] as well as brown faces [lawyers or other Ethiopians there for family court] and we found some seats and settled in to wait our turn. [side note: in the court room I met a woman whose blog I had been following for over a year! She and her husband were adopting their second child from Ethiopia. It was another surreal experience!] My nerves were more excitement at this point as we fully expected everything to go well.
After a pretty short wait we were ushered into the room where the judge was along with the other couple from our agency and our lawyer. The judge spoke to a clerk and our lawyer back and forth in Amharic and kept saying our son's name. The problem was that she wasn't saying the other baby's name nearly as much AND she didn't look particularly happy. We were told our file wasn't on her desk at it should be and someone went to search for it. That is when we started getting nervous! We chatted with the judge and waited for a really loooonnnggg 5-7 mins. She is a very nice woman =) Anyway, the clerk came back in and after she located our file- HALLELUJAH! After that it went pretty quickly as she asked a few questions and then said that our file was complete and asked if we understood that when she rules that the adoption is final and cannot be undone? We emphatically said "YES!" [although not that loudly] and we were done!
With the essential reason for the trip completed successfully, we couldn't wait to go back to the transition home and see Simmie! I got to feed him a bottle for the first time and I'm certain I cared a lot more about that than he did =) For me, I think this was the day when it all clicked and it felt "real". I'm not sure if there was something spiritual about passing court and hearing the words "he is yours", but I think maybe there was.
We had more special times with Simmie that week, but this post is getting quite long! There is much more I'd like to share about Ethiopia and our trip, but I'll save that for another day.
To try and sum up so many aspects of this trip, I can honestly say that JOY is the word I would use. We felt peace the first time we saw his picture, and now having seen and held him we both feel so blessed that we have the privilege of being his parents!
Perhaps I'll start right after our referral since I haven't shared much since then. Just a warning- this is a looong post, so if details are your thing I got you covered...
We first saw the picture of our son on June 21st- what an incredible day that was and we documented it here! From that day forward it was a rush to get submitted to court so we would have a possibility of receiving a court date before the impending rainy season court closure. Yup, court CLOSURE. For up to 2 months. You better believe we were praying like crazy [and asked many of you to join us!] and we followed up with our agency regularly just to make sure our case was on their radar. We finally got news on July 13th [incidentally the anniversary of our engagement] that our court date was scheduled for JULY 30TH! PRAISE THE LORD!!! Honestly, after every setback and delay, this felt like an absolute miracle and we were thrilled.
(Fast forward through the frantic preparation to get there...)
We arrived in Ethiopia Friday night the 27th pretty late. Our plane landed around 9pm, and by the time we got through immigration, exchanged money, located our luggage, and found our ride, it was close to 10:30 already. The 22 hours of flight time plus 7 more of layovers contributed to a very sleepy Trace and Randee. We slept fabulously that night even though the next day we would meet Simmie for the first time. At this point everything felt surreal. We were excited and thankful but it didn't feel "real"- like what we had been praying for and dreaming of for years was finally happening.
Sat morning came and I nervously got ready. I couldn't believe THIS was the day I'd been waiting on for so long! The guest home we stayed in provided breakfast so we headed down there to try and eat. It was there that I discovered one of my favorite things about Ethiopia- the amazing coffee! I ordered a macchiato and Trace ordered a cappucchino. That's right, my never-drinking-hot-drinks husband ventured out and ordered coffee! I was so proud =) We had a great breakfast and waited for our ride to come pick us up to take us to the transition home.
Finally the time came to go to the home where our little guy lived! When we arrived we walked into a downstairs sitting room that was empty. In a few minutes we were ushered upstairs to go to the baby room, but on the way the ADORABLE toddlers and older kids found us and "hi's" and hugs began. [I had seen many of these kids in pictures before, but seeing them in person was thrilling! They are super precious and it was a blessing to get to love on them during our time in Ethiopia.] Even though we had a beautiful 'detour' we made it to Simmie's room pretty quickly, and OH MY how wonderful it was to finally hold our sweet son!!!
Trace captured me seeing Simmie for the first time on video, and I'm so thankful because that time is really priceless. I don't think words can describe the pure joy I felt in holding and kissing him for the first time. This picture above probably shows a bit of that [even though I'm smiling so big it appears I have no eyes...] Simmie is even more beautiful, sweet and perfect than we ever could have dreamed he would be. Every day I spent with him I was in awe that we would be entrusted with such a special baby.
This day was incredible. We started to get to know a little about his personality [laid back] and discovered that he loves to be held and cuddled. We took turns holding him making an effort to prefer each other as we each assumed the other was dying to hold our sweet boy. Trace was amazing and deferred to me a lot. Even though I treasured every moment I held him there was something indescribably special about seeing Trace with his long prayed for son. Here is one of my favorite pics of this.
On Sunday another couple with our agency arrived to meet their baby girl and for court. It was fun to get to know, and spend time with them as we visited our kiddos, ate our meals, and shopped that week. It blesses me to see how God leads families with different backgrounds and stories to adopt and change an orphan into a son or daughter!
The next BIG day was Monday when we were scheduled for court! The four of us were surprisingly relaxed as we had breakfast and headed over to meet our lawyer at the courthouse that morning. We followed him into an elevator and walked into a room where lots of other people were sitting quietly. There were lots of white faces [adopting couples] as well as brown faces [lawyers or other Ethiopians there for family court] and we found some seats and settled in to wait our turn. [side note: in the court room I met a woman whose blog I had been following for over a year! She and her husband were adopting their second child from Ethiopia. It was another surreal experience!] My nerves were more excitement at this point as we fully expected everything to go well.
After a pretty short wait we were ushered into the room where the judge was along with the other couple from our agency and our lawyer. The judge spoke to a clerk and our lawyer back and forth in Amharic and kept saying our son's name. The problem was that she wasn't saying the other baby's name nearly as much AND she didn't look particularly happy. We were told our file wasn't on her desk at it should be and someone went to search for it. That is when we started getting nervous! We chatted with the judge and waited for a really loooonnnggg 5-7 mins. She is a very nice woman =) Anyway, the clerk came back in and after she located our file- HALLELUJAH! After that it went pretty quickly as she asked a few questions and then said that our file was complete and asked if we understood that when she rules that the adoption is final and cannot be undone? We emphatically said "YES!" [although not that loudly] and we were done!
With the essential reason for the trip completed successfully, we couldn't wait to go back to the transition home and see Simmie! I got to feed him a bottle for the first time and I'm certain I cared a lot more about that than he did =) For me, I think this was the day when it all clicked and it felt "real". I'm not sure if there was something spiritual about passing court and hearing the words "he is yours", but I think maybe there was.
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| First feeding |
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| Trace getting some cuddle time after we passed court |
We had more special times with Simmie that week, but this post is getting quite long! There is much more I'd like to share about Ethiopia and our trip, but I'll save that for another day.
To try and sum up so many aspects of this trip, I can honestly say that JOY is the word I would use. We felt peace the first time we saw his picture, and now having seen and held him we both feel so blessed that we have the privilege of being his parents!
[Stay tuned for an update on when we get to bring him home for good!]
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