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Friday, November 6, 2015

Adoption Awareness Day 6: How we met

I left the US early on a Friday morning and arrived in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia early on Saturday morning. I technically traveled by myself by met up with another family from my agency in DC before the flight to ET. I spent Saturday and Sunday exploring Ethiopia. I shopped, took pictures, went to church, ate and tried to adjust to the time change and the altitude difference. The rest of the families in my travel group were not scheduled to arrive until Monday night and meet their kids on Tuesday. I decided I couldn't wait and that maybe the calm of it just being me might actually be easier. So I had Little Man brought to me Monday morning/early afternoon.  
I spent the morning impatiently waiting every time I heard a car. I changed toys I had brought down for him to have 3-4 times. I may have even paced a little. Thankfully the lovely ladies who worked at the guest house where I was staying were kind and loving. When he did arrive they took video and pictures for me since I was there alone.  
Then he arrived and all the nerves stopped...here was my son. He came in the arms of the nurse from the care center. My one year old child in 6 month size clothes that I had sent, with a baggie of gifts I had sent over the 9 months. He was tiny, frightened and very unsure. I sat and talked to him for a few minutes while his nurse held him and eventually reached out to take him. He was unsure. He cried, reached back for his nurse calling her "Amaye" (mother in Amharic) as she headed back to the car. She left, he cried, I held it together for the time. And slowly he calmed in my arms. I was a mom holding my child for the first time. He was a child learning his mom for the first time..my voice...my smell...my touch..my heartbeat. We stayed downstairs for a while and then I took him inside, fed him a bottle and laid him down for a nap. That is when I cried as I looked at my precious sleeping child and examined his fingers and toes and ears and all of that!
#knittogetherbyadoption  #adoptionawareness  #loveknowsnoboundary

 





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