Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Ethiopia Days 1-5



Day 1, Friday

  • Traveling, traveling, traveling, nothing more than this.

Day 2, Saturday

  • More travel, travel, travel.
  • Plane arrived in Addis Ababa at 9:00 pm.
  • Went directly to hotel

Day 3, Sunday

  • Went directly to Adoption care home and met the children.
  • They simply just handed him to us. It was crazy, to realize we had truley been entrusted to care for this child and they just let us have him.
Things we learned in the first 18 hours with our son:


  • He eats every two hours or so
  • He had only had formula from bottles in feeding
  • He is a big little boy…somewhere around 20 lbs
  • He has a good set of lungs
  • He has a very strong will and impatient temper...but we love him!
  • He talks to you with his eyes

Day 4, Monday

More of the same. It is hard to do very much here in Ethiopia with a baby. The other couples from our agency who have the same embassy appointment as we do all have older children, so they are able to go about doing a lot of things and all we really want to do is hang out in the room, sleep when Ezra naps, eat food and drink coffee.

Day 5, Tuesday

  • Thank you for praying, whoever has been praying. We had our best night of sleep thus far. Ezra only woke up twice and was asleep from 9:00 pm to 6 am.
  • Pray for poopie! Ezra has not poo'd since we got him on Sunday morning…so it has been 48 hours. We are going to go to the pharmacy looking for something to help…maybe a suppository or something like that. [this prayer request has been answered in a BIG way, 'nuff said].
  • I would write more about the city and people of Addis Ababa, but I have to say we haven't done very many things outside of normal care for a 10 month old baby.
  • We did go to a pizza restaurant last night…a good change of pace from some of the other food we have been eating, though we have liked what we've eaten.
  • It is Tuesday morning here and today we stand before the US embassy judge. It should only take about 10 minutes and then they declare us a family. Yeah! Yesterday we worked on our paperwork with the adoption agency so hopefully all will go smoothly.
  • Please continue to pray that we'll all stay healthy. So far so good but we all accidentally brushed our teeth with the tap water here.


9 comments:

Unknown said...

Dustin, Heidi and Joy:
It was so good to hear how you are doing and how "big" Ezra is doing as well. I will continue to pray for God's blessing on your adjustment with Ezra, that he would bond with you and come to feel secure in your care, and that you would be able to get rest and stay healthy.

Love,
Dad

Connie said...

Hi,
Thanks for the update. We're praying for you and very excited to watch your family grow.

Ethan was excited to see the pictures of you with Ezra.
Andrew saw them and just kept saying, "Heidi, Heidi..." Then he ran to the window and kept saying, "Heidi, Heidi..."

We look forward to greeting you soon.

Andrew, Arianna, Liam, and Asher said...

It's great to see pictures of you all together as a family! We'll pray for the embassy meeting and for your trip home.

Andrew, Arianna, Liam, and Asher said...

It's great to see pictures of you all together as a family! We'll pray for the embassy meeting and for your trip home.

julie said...

Hurray :) We're so excited for you guys as you begin your parenting experience en vivo. Praying for you all with great expectations of the Lord's goodness for this new chapter. Hope that things go well this morning!

Joe & Julie

SIX Thirys said...

It thrills my heart to see you with your precious son! Praise God for how he's building your family. You'll be in our prayers as you all adjust to eachother.

Unknown said...

Yeah! I love seeing pictures of your family! I am going to print one out and put it on my fridge. One question...why was Ezra wearing a Pink jumper? ;-) -Alison

Brianne said...

Praise God for Baby Ezra! :) It is amazing to see you two with a precious baby boy. I loved the shot with the back-carrier! Dustin looks like he has quickly adjusted to being a daddy!

eggtropolis said...

Yay! I'm so glad that Joy got to go! I didn't realize this- how special for grandma to be there as you pick up her grandbaby!

Love you guys!