Ethiopia Day 4 (Monday)

Day 4 of our trip was very mellow. This was our first full day with Elias. We had a very rough first night with Elias. I was exhausted. Emotionally it was a very trying day. As if that wasn't enough I had been so excited the night before that when we got to our hotel at 4am I was only able to sleep 2 hours or so. Brian took a nap during dinner the first night we had Elias so he was ready to go for the night shifts. Brian and Emily got up with the baby the first 2 or 3 times although after being fed and changed I would eventually need to get up and bounce him to sleep or put him in the Moby Wrap. I believe there were a couple times when I let them sleep although we were all a bit delirious after getting up 6 times that first night, each waking lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

Our schedule on Day 4 was very open. The only thing we had planned was our 2pm appointment at the US Embassy where we would be answering questions to then have Elias' visa and passport issued. When we all eventually woke up Elias seemed happy. After only 2 doses of antibiotics I could already see that this was not the inconsolable little boy we met less than 24 hours earlier. He still seemed uncomfortable and didn't last more than 15 minutes without fussing but he never cried the same way he did at HH.

The first thing on the agenda was to give the baby his first bath with Mom and Dad.

This proved to be harder than it sounded. Wet, soapy babies in plastic tubs are slippery.
Elias was doing great until I dropped him.
Yep, his small little arm slipped right out of my hand and he hit his head on the side of the plastic tub. It wasn't a long or hard fall but it was enough to scare me and him. That's when Brian decided it would be best to "help" me.

"Dad help, the mean lady dropped me!"

I learned my lesson and have never dropped my slippery son since.

Later in the morning we had Almeu and Israel come to our hotel to hang out.

Their favorite pastime...watching movies on Emily's computer

Elias was content being held or having someone play with him.

Our happy boy has arrived!!!

He (I mean we) fell asleep for a nap right before we had to leave for the embassy. As I woke him up we got a call 5 minutes before we were supposed to leave. It was Almaz telling us that the Consulate hadn't shown up so we couldn't have our appointment. I was so bummed that I had woken a very tired baby just minutes before.

The other families in our travel group decided to spend the afternoon shopping but I wasn't ready to leave a still sick and fussy Elias. We ended up just hanging at the hotel for a while. Eventually we decided to head to HH to make sure all of our donations which were taken over earlier in the morning got there okay.

Almaz was really excited to see Almeu and Israel

We had fun playing with the kids. Alemu was shy and Israel wanted to get into everything because it was all new. We now know this is typical. Elias' nannies absolutely loved seeing him. We took a bunch of photos of them together. The next day Brian and Emily went out into town to get a bunch of photos printed. I gave each of his special mothers a hinged picture frame with a photo of Elias on one side and a photo of them together on the other. When we presented these presents you would have thought they had won the lottery.

Elias and Sofiya

We kicked a sweet little girl out of her crib which only days before was his crib so we could get some pictures. I had a lot of fun getting to pay attention to the way the special mothers interacted with Elias. They called him "Besu" and would sing a song when they held/bounced him. "Besu, Besu, Besufikad, Besufikad, Besu-ye, Besu-ye, Besufikad." It was also this day that I noticed details that I had missed during the first meeting. Elias' bottle was #5 and he usually sat in a pink bouncy chair.

One of Elias' special mothers named Almaz was extremely attached to him.

Elias and Almaz

She very openly proclaimed him as her favorite and grabbed him from me the second she saw us. She played with him until the director Almaz told her to stop paying so much attention to a child who already has a Mom and Dad here. It was harsh but true...she had basically been ignoring any other duties and played with him for a couple hours but I saw how much she didn't want to say good-bye. As we left she sobbed. I hugged her and thanked her. I didn't know what else to do. She looked at Elias and said something in Amharic that I didn't understand. Then she looked at me and smiled, grabbed his hands and said in English, "I love you so much. So much." She didn't have to repeat herself in English but she did it for me and I was very grateful to have shared that moment with her.

We went back to the Union to have dinner and hang out.

Emily and the boys left to go back to their place. I remember feeling a brief sense of dread that we were now on our own without Emily to help. I don't know how we would have made it through that first night without her. Luckily Elias' meds seemed to be helping him and we ended up having a slightly better night with only 4 or 5 wakings.