Mission Accomplished!

Our trip began, as you might expect, with a airplane flight…although not the one we expected.  Our plane was delayed out of Cincinnati for maintenance issues.  Although we were disappointed, it’s hard to be mad at them for finding something wrong with the plane you’re going to fly on.  In any case, the several hour delay caused us to miss our connection out of Washington DC.  Unfortunately, there’s just one per day from Dulles to Addis.  So our choice was to either stay overnight in DC and take the same flight the following day, or connect through Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Addis in the early evening.

Flying in to Amsterdam

We chose Amsterdam because it would still get us to Addis in just two days rather than three.  Still, it was not without problems.  When we were re-routed, they neglected to tell us the Amsterdam flight stopped in Khartoom.  For us, that was 180 degrees from what we asked for.  We said no unstable Middle Eastern or African countries (which would mean pretty much all of them).  By the time we found out we were stopping in one of the most unstable countries on the map, it was too late.  Fortunately, it was uneventful.

In DC, we ran into Jill Pitsch, who traveled with us for our court trip.  Turns out she was delayed out of Minnesota due to a 14-inch snowstorm.  It was nice to see her, we didn’t expect it.  It was long, and not uncomplicated, but we made it to Addis Thursday (late, late).  Jemimah (our hotel) sent two guys with a van.  As it turns out, the airline lost Jill’s luggage, so after talking to like 50 people about it, we left for the hotel, expecting the luggage to follow us in a day or two.  After getting settled, we crashed and awoke the next morning to familiar sights out our window.  We met some new families and on the way to the Holt office, caught up with Amanda & Matthew Anderson from our first trip.

We did tons of paperwork, paid for our trip to Durame, and headed off to lunch at a very nice place on the top of a hill.

Then back on the road to the care center.

We spent a couple hours with Tommy, and the other families and their kids.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.  He remembered us from the last trip and came to Jenny right away, big smile on his face.  We had a couple toys and a watch for him, but like last time, the mountain spring water bottle seemed to be the biggest hit.  We’re thrilled to show you these photos and for the very first time online, share our handsome new son with the world.

We played for about 4 hours then headed back to the hotel for the night.  Early the next morning, we headed south for a town called Durame in the Southern Nationalities Nations and Peoples Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia, about a 6 hour drive from Addis.  We traveled by van, about 20 of us, at high speed, on some of the scariest roads I’ve ever ridden.  The first 4 ½ hours was on modestly paved roads.  There were hairpin turns, fast moving trucks and cars, mule-hauled carts full of hay, sticks and people, cattle crossings, motorbikes, bicycles, three-wheeled taxis, whole villages hauling water, mud huts just off the road, camels, monkeys and baboons, and just about a million people, mostly in small groups, walking from somewhere to somewhere else.

Along the way, we stopped at the Schinchito Health Center Holt runs near a little village about 4 hours from nowhere.  Although they provide a variety of basic care for many people there, the primary goal is to improve womens’ and childrens’ health in an effort to help keep families together.  This is some of the unsung work that Holt and others do in Africa and other countries.  So much emphasis is placed on their efforts to support adoption (and rightly so), but they do so much to reduce the need for international adoptions by striving to improve the conditions for families in the countries where they work.  Here, they’re building a 60-bed hospital (by hand) that will have actual doctors to treat pregnant and sick women and children.  Sadly, real physicians and nurses are a luxury most regions (let alone villages) can not afford.

Finally, after about 100 km of unpaved road, we reached the village of Durame, a very modest sized and constructed village with a pretty big population, kind of like how Georgetown Ohio seems big if you live in Ripley.

In Durame, there is a care center where many of the children began their adoption journey.  It’s a very nice place, spartan for sure, but safe and well-tended with kind and efficient nannies.  First, we stopped at Holt’s facility there for a meeting with the birth families.

 

For some people, it may seem strange that we’re adopting children who are not true orphans. Most of our kids still have a living parent or grandparent.  It's just that the situation for many of the Ethiopian people, especially the ones from rural villages, is so tenuous that few good options exist when one parent dies (and LOTS of them die).   The government, especially the village government (called the Kebele) can't take care of all the indigent.   For the surviving parent, relinquishing their child is an act of both desperation and charity.  In some cases, they find themselves in the God-awful position of having to choose among their children; relinquishing some so they can focus their limited resources on the others. 

So, children are put into the Ethiopian version of foster care in a kind of a group home, where they can at least eat and be safe, and many get access to their very first health check from trained medical staff.  We visited one of the facilities where children in the south begin their adoption trek; it was both humbling and hopeful at the same time. The nannies are kind and efficient, balancing the needs of many children with love and faith.

There, we me Tommy's Ethiopian mother.  It was a God-filled interaction.  She was young and pretty, and dressed in the best clothes she had.  She was quiet and shy, and clearly embarrased by her situation and choice to relinquish her sons.  Jenny so wanted to bring her with us, and we both wanted desperately to giver her some money to ease the burden of her poverty a bit.  But we were strickly enjoined from doing anything that might appear like a trade or an enticement to release her child to us.  So, we made due with a photo book of Tommy and the rest of our family, and we told her we'd work hard to make sure he remembered his Ethiopian heritage and his Ethiopian family. 

We asked her what she'd like us to tell Tommy, and she said (through two interpretors--Wolaytinga to Amharic to English and vice versa) that she had a rough life, then it was good.  She felt blessed because of her husband and children.  He was a strong man who worked very hard; a carpenter.  When he died, she tried hard, but couldn't make it on her own.  It was clear that she loved him, and them, a great deal, and her choice was heartbreaking.  She said she was happy to know that Tommy has found a good family, and wants him to be raised "to know God, in God's house."  We left feeling blessed by her heart and her words.

<THE REST OF OUR STORY TOMORROW>

...and we're off!

Last minute flurry of excitement as we prepare for an early morning departure.  Our oh-so-cool friends, led by colluder-in-chief Rebecca Bailey, decided to throw us a party.  It was super nice.  We ate and drank and laughed, and it was a very nice distraction from the task at hand.

We got a very nice poster signed by everyone along with some nice gifts for Tommy.  It was so great seeing everyone else so excited about bringing him home soon.  Talked to my brother J and my sister La tonight too.  Very anxious to introduce the Philly family to him.

Departure 6:40 am.  Arrival in Addis sometime Thursday.  Here we come buddy boy!

With less than 72 hours to go...

Just under three days till we leave for Africa and what are we up to?

• Are we completing last minute paperwork? Heck no, that's what Monday morning's for!
• Are we packing? My gosh no, we'll do that Tuesday!
• Are we discussing transition plans? Are you kidding? 23 hour plane ride!!!
• Are we making sure the kids' week is planned? NOT! (sorry Gramom!)

Nope, We're painting the boys' room!  That's right, painting the boys room, as in stripping wallpaper, spackling holes, sanding, painting and re-hanging Morgan's 10,000 wall doodads!

OK, yes, this would have been a great project to have gotten done 3 months ago, or even 1 month ago, but not us!  No, we'd rather wait until the almost last second to get the room ready!  So scrape and spackle and sand and paint and hang we did!....all day long!

The old room:

 

The process:

  

...and the new room:

 

 now, whaddya say we go get a little boy to sleep in i!

    

Leaving in 5 days

This last week has been a bit of a jumble, first waiting to hear something from Holt, then being told that indeed they scheduled us for the embassy March 28th, but are actually expecting us in Addis on the 24th.  So, we had to jump through some hoops to get plane tickets.  There has been an unbelievable amount of turmoil in the Middle East and Africa over the last 6 months, and I really didn't want to risk a stop anywhere in between here and there.  God bless Erle at Azumano Travel, who managed to find us what might have been the last set of tickets on a non-stop flight from the US to Ethiopia.  So, we're leaving Wednesday morning and get to Addis Thursday morning.

So, here we are at the five days and counting mark.  If I said everything was packed, that Jenny and I are ready to go, that we're not the least bit nervous, I'd be lying.  Truth is, I'm nervous about several things:

• Despite not flying through Egypt, Libya, Israel, or even Japan, I'm very nervous about the flight.  This will be only about the third or fourth time since we've been married that Jen & I are on the same plane at the same time.  We've made a habit of flying places separately to avoid the potential for making our kids orphans in the event of an accident.  For some reason, it seems less appropriate when we're flying more than 24 hours away.  Still not sure it's a good idea.
• The other kids' nervousness is showing itself as skepticism and even rejection of the idea of adoption.  This late in the game, we're pretty sure it's mostly anxiety-related.  Still, it's hard to reassure them enough that each time we've added a kid to our lives, the result has been more love, more fun, more life, more God in our home.
• Didn't get done all the finance-related maneuvers I wanted to finish since Christmas.  We got our trust in place and we're pretty sure we're covered in case of an accident, but I just can't feel completely confident the kids will be ok if something happens to Jenny & me.
• The US Embassy could still be a problem, or we could have forgotten a piece of paper that slows down the process or even stops it.
• Traveling back from ET for about 23 hours with a 4 year old that might be a little shell shocked.
• How Tommy will feel about our dog, cat, turtle and fish; Ethiopians generally don't keep domestic animals, and he's certainly not had one at the care center.

Things we're not worried about:

• That adopting a young boy from Ethiopia is the right thing to do; in general and for our family.
• Whether, and how we'll love Tommy.  We just will. In fact, we already do.
• How Tommy will feel about us, the kids and joining our family.
• Getting his medical and physical condition addressed.  It'll take some time and major effort, but we'll get him going on the process and just continue to work on it like we did with Madi's neurological problems and like I do with my MS every day.
• Communicating with Tommy; based on our last visit, we think he's pretty good at it.
• Tommy's cognitive ability; he is a smart boy.
• My parents watching the kids for a week.

Leaving....quickly!

Word yesterday that we must be on the ground in ET next Thursday.  That means we're leaving in 7 days!  Ahhhhhhhhhh!

Lots to do!

The news has finally arrived!

We got word last night from Holt (click here):

Dear Romano Family, I wanted to let you know that today we received word from the US Embassy in Addis today that your case has been cleared to be seen for a Visa Interview!  Our staff on the ground in Ethiopia has let us know that they will be requesting a visa interview for your family during the week of March 28, 2011. We hope to hear from the U.S. Embassy that they can receive you during this time by the beginning of next week.

 That means in 13 days....

The last nine yards

This week has been hard; much harder than the last four.  A summary of our email and the forums shows that bringing home an orphan has become substantially more difficult in the last six months.  It seems the international pressure against US adoption of foreign-born orphans has ramped up, causing the US posture to become especially fraud wary.

In their effort to thwart fraudulent adoptions, the US embassy has taken the position that "all adoptions are fraudulent until proven otherwise."  That means the screeners at the embassy are requesting more documentation than previously; in some cases, documentation that doesn't exist.  For example, in especially rural locations, there may be nothing that documents an uncle assuming responsibility for his nephew when both the child's parents have died.  If that uncle subsequently relinquishes the child to an orphanage, the documentation typically begins with his "official" release to the orphanage, which could have taken place years after the death of the parents.  The embassy demanding the finding of such non-existent documents has slowed down the process substantially.

At the same time, through a series of reports from our agency, we've discovered the doctors in ET have been treating Tommy with some medicines that make us a little nervous.  Worse yet, through a series of communication challenges, although he's been on these medicines for several months, we've only now become aware of it.  Treating a serious neurological condition like Tommy's can be very tricky.  The medicines that are often used in neurology can be very useful, but they ALWAYS come with substantial risks.

Our biggest concern is that the doctors there, in an effort to get him better, introduce a therapy that creates a new hazard for Tommy's long term rehabilitation.  We don't believe the medical staff in Ethiopia are bad (meaning either evil/mean or poorly trained), we just know that under THE BEST of circumstances, you have to watch out for side effects from neuro meds, and they can be affected by who manufactured the medicine, dosage and frequency of administration, the attention of the administrator, and MANY, MANY other issues.  We just believe Ethiopia is not the place to start unproven or risky therapies.  If such treatment is warranted, after Tommy's been evaluated and diagnosed here, by our high quality medical advisory team, with the best of today's technology and testing, then we can begin that therapy and monitor it closely.  Most importantly, our team has the skill, experience and tools necessary to respond appropriately if a reactive problem develops.

It's as much a tracking and reporting issue as anything else.  We want to be sure we're giving his American medical team as accurate and detailed a description of his treatment as possible, and the fact that we've had difficulty getting the truth indicates that making more changes at this point could complicate and stymie those efforts.  For this reason, we've asked our agency to use their influence to intervene with the Ethiopian medical staff.  We've asked them, if they can, to propose not starting any new chronic therapy before we return to bring Tommy home.

To be clear, we don't think the information was purposely hidden from us.  We think it's more likely due to the infrequent and not timely medical reports, not-so-great communication between different medical personnel in ET, and mediocre documentation; all things we attribute to conditions on the ground, which we totally understand based on our in-person appraisal of what it's like to live and work in ET.  So, we're not mad at anybody for this situation; it's just that now, more than ever before, we want to get over there and BRING TOMMY HOME NOW!