7/30/10

7/30/10 Friday - Meeting the children

The sun is coming up, the dogs barking, the roosters are crowing and the chanting has begun. Mike and I are sitting here right now trying to wrap our minds around the fact that we are going to meet our 2 new children in just a few hours. We really do not know how old they actually are, how big they will be, what will they actually look like. We have studied the pictures over and over again, even the video that I took at our first brief encounter but still we just do not know what to expect. How will they react to us? What will we feel when we see them? OH LORD, Please Calm our anxious hearts !!!!!

We have them! They are with us and to quote Mike, “Could this of gone any better!” They are beautiful and extremely affectionate children. We start walking from the gate to the house, they see us and come running. All four of them, our 2 children and the other 2 twin girls they have been with and grown so close to at the orphanage. I am almost worried that they are too affectionate and the bonding is going too well for just the first day. Although, they have seen pictures of us and have been told all about us for sometime, you read about attachment disorders where the children will go and are affectionate with just about anyone never making that proper real attachment to their adoptive parents. I really am not sure if that is the case or not.

From the care center in Addis we right away drove to Soddo. We were so concerned for the children regarding the ride down there for we heard they were not use to driving in cars and would often get car sick. We had grabbed two vomit bags from the plane just for this very reason. However, they were not the ones we needed to be concerned about. Both Mike and I, pretty much the entire trip had to be looking forward out the open window, trying not to make any movement of our heads, with the good ole’ vomit bags in hand to be used at any second. Not sure it is due to the extreme rain they have had this season but all the roads especially the ones trying to get out of Addis (which took a good hour itself) were under extreme construction or needed to be. The huge bumps, that I was sure we were going to get stuck in any second, and the constant swirving, stopping and going, combined with the constant smell of exhaust could make anyone who was not use to this lose their breakfast.