Saturday, October 28, 2006

38 days....

until we meet Ella Mesay!
The last month has been hectic-- lots of emotional highs and lows, and more waiting. As we noted in our previous post, we'd spent a frightening week worrying about this still nameless little girl, hoping she would be healthy, whoever she was, and whether or not she would be our daughter.
We'll back up a bit, to Monday, September 18....
This semester, Julia doesn't have to teach on Mondays, and Kent didn't have a sub job. We contacted CHSFS first thing, and then anxiously waited for the emailed referral information. It was an incredibly emotional morning, as we poured over every page and wondered about all of the information, present and missing. The most difficult part was seeing Mesay's photo. A tiny little girl, head shaved bald, wearing a pretty blue dress, sitting on a toddler bed, staring at the camera. We fell in love with her at the instant we saw her face, just as our hearts broke for her, this incredibly sad little girl, with the biggest brown eyes ever.
Julia said, "She's pretty, isn't she?" And Kent said, "Jule, she could have three heads, and we'd think she was cute!"
We thought perhaps her estimated age (11 mos. at time of referral) was a little off. The referral reports said she was walking and saying "mama," as well as eating some solid food. While these milestones might easily be reached in a developing country, we thought perhaps some early deprivation would mean she may have typical developmental delays.
It is frequently difficult to get an accurate age for a Ethiopian child available for adoption. In part, this is due to Ethiopian culture at large placing much less importance on birthdays. Knowing specific birth dates is also complicated by Ethiopia using an entirley different calendar system, and the majority of children available for adoption coming from remote, rural areas where calendars are of little importance.
We requested an updated developmental report right away, and received it within two days. The updated info was more complete, and reassuring, though still limited. The doctors at the care center also noted they would be conducting an age reassessment, and we expected the results in a few days.
We waited, and waited and waited. After another week, it was too late: we'd fallen in love with this little girl, and felt we needed to 'claim' her-- she deserved as much! And we were already hers!
And thus began the crazy whirlwind month of September. We had exactly one Saturday to celebrate becoming parents, before Kent's involvement in the local community theater production of Neil Simon's 'Brighton Beach Memoirs' sucked him off into a vortex of greaspaint and adulation! He was a great dad. :-) (See the Chronicles of Dolzilla for more on his tour de force as Jack!)
This week, we finally received the updated age reassessment we'd requested from the doctors at the care center in Addis. A week earlier, we received an updated set of measurements. She is growing, gaining weight and has a "pincer grasp." Yippee!
This week was also remarkable, because we got our travel dates! We're to be in Addis on Friday, December 8th, which means we'll leave Minneapolis on the 7th. Our embassy date is currently scheduled for the following Tuesday the 12th, but we're going a few days early because we will be traveling to the Southern Regions. CHSFS and the care center in Addis have recently begun arranging two-day trips for adoptive parents who are interested in seeing the region from which most of our children come. We'll travel, with other families, about 8 hours south (about 100 miles) to the city of Hossana, where CHSFS sponsors an orphange. This region is where many many of the children adopted via CHSFS are from, and the orphanage there serves as a drop-off center for children both relinquished by their families, or abandonded and brought in by someone else. We know Mesay spent the month of July in Hossana, and we're anxious to see the area. Also, there is a possiblity of meeting members of her birth family while there, and that's an opportunity we wouldn't miss for the world!