Our First Few Days

Wow, the last couple of days have been crazy. I know all of you have been patiently but anxiously waiting for an update so I am going to try my best to keep it short but let you all in on our first few days in Ethiopia.

On Sunday Morning at 5:30 AM we left our house to head to STL to catch our first flight. There was crazy rain and storms happening and our first flight was delayed about 30 minutes. We were in the air for about 2 hours and had a pretty smooth flight. Arrived in DC at around 2:30 and by 4 pm we were in our hotel room. We were blessed to be able to meet up with friends for dinner. Came back. Went to bed. Overslept slightly. Ate our last American breakfast and boarded our flight.

Our flight to Addis was LONG!!!! I mean obviously a 13 hour flight is long but, seriously, it was really long. We knew that as soon as our flight landed we would be meeting our boy within hours and the excitement was overwhelming. I did not sleep for one minute the entire flight which was bad because we were just starting our first day in Addis whenever we landed.

We landed in Addis. Had our temperature taken to make sure we were not sick. Stood in a line to pay for our visas. stood in a line to go through security. Stood in a line to get our luggage. Then we began looking for our driver. First, let me say that we normally would have received several emails from our agency explaining the process for this part but with only having 48 hours and it being over the weekend communication was less than optimal. Our agency sent out the email with all contact information for in country staff as well as our travel itinerary while we were flying over the Atlantic ocean. We had planned to use the airports WiFi when we landed to get the information but quickly found out the WiFi only worked phones on an Ethiopia network. We looked around the entire bottom of the Bole airport before finally asking a military police officer for help. He firmly told us we needed to go outside. As you know that is the last thing you want to do when stranded in a International airport without a phone to call anyone is walk outside. We walked outside and were told by another military policeman that we needed to go down into parking lot area to find our driver. I immediately panicked. The parking lot was full of people and it seemed like the most unsafe decision to make. Brandon stayed calm, like he usually does, and told me to stay up by the doors with our luggage while he went down. I immediately began praying protection over us and provision of our driver. About 5 minutes later Brandon returned with our driver from our guesthouse who assured us we were never in any real danger and that he was looking for us all along. We had an hour long ride to our guesthouse and I needed every minute of it for my heart rate to return to normal.

We arrived at our guesthouse, brought our luggage to the room, grabbed a few small toys and headed off to meet our son for the first time. It took another hour to get to the orphanage. We mostly rode in silence, gripping each others hand as we took in Addis for the first time and tried to keep our emotions in check. Our driver pulled up to a sheet metal door in a whole road of sheet metal doors and calmly said “we are here”. He knocked on the door and we were immediately greeted by several eager kids who wanted to be held and loved on. Nati was not one of them. Our agency representative walked up to us and said “Are you ready?” I just nodded my head. Of course we were ready. I have been longing to hold him in our arms and tell him how loved he is for 18 months. We walked into the orphanage, through one doorway and just like that he was standing in front of us smiling. The nanny scooped him up and handed him to me. I had prepared myself for him to try to resist or try to return to one of his caretakers but instead he just put his hand on my cheek, leaned in for a hug and acted like we had always been doing this. The next 3 hours were a blur. I must have kissed his face a million times and whispered “I love you” about as many times. We were able to hold him, cuddle him, play with him and even feed him his lunch. Then came the hard part for me, time to say good-bye until tomorrow. I knew it would be emotional for me to leave him but what I had not prepared for was the emotional response we would receive from him. He cried and my heart broke. It broke for all the times he has been left to cry without adults being available to comfort him. It broke that he was experiencing me walking away even once as he cried out to be held again. It was rough.

We returned back to the guesthouse and slept all afternoon. Woke up to eat dinner and went back to bed again. Then woke up ate breakfast and headed out to do it all over again. If possible I think the second day was even better than the first. And yes we both cried again when it was time to go.

We feel so blessed to call Nati our son and tomorrow what we have know in our hearts for a long time will become legal. At your 1 AM tomorrow we will stand before an Ethiopian judge and swear to love and protect this boy always, no matter what. 

It is going to be beautiful. There will probably be more tears. 

Then the picture overload will begin. I know you guys have all been waiting for the pictures of him in our arms but these words will have to do for now. We cannot wait to share pictures of the 3 of us together but we cannot publicly do that until the Ethiopian court grants us custody. When we can share you better watch out. We cannot wait to shout to the world that Nati Solomon is ours. 

That he was chosen, wanted, loved and fought for by not only his family but by His creator.