Pictures :)

First birthday party!

First Halloween:

Just looking cute!






We have a walker!


Here are some pictures of our sweet girl!

Long Overdue Update

Better late than never, right? As I write this, my sweet baby girl is asleep upstairs in her crib for a nap. I sat in the comfy rocker in her room and held her as she drank her bottle, then accepted a sloppy wet kiss as I told her I loved her, before laying her down in her crib with her blankie and baby doll. And I still, after almost four months, sometimes can't believe I am able to do those things or that she is really here. To anyone reading who is deep in the throes of paperwork, or waitlists, or embassy slowdowns, or any of the other thousand steps that make you want to just pull your hair out and give up somedays...hang on. This day will be here for you as well. And just like I found with labor, when the child you have waited on, and prayed for, and missed from afar is home, you forget how bad the process was that got them there.

We were very, very fortunate in that Gabby was taken such good care of in Ethiopia. We took her to an International Adoption Clinic in early November, and the doctor was blown away by how amazing she is (we, of course, already knew that!). She said her attachment was going great, cognitively she looked great, developmentally she is mostly on target, and physically she is perfect. It was nice to get that reassurance from someone who has seen thousands of adopted kids, even though we were pretty sure of all of that already. She is a little delayed in her eating skills and fine motor skills, mostly from a lack of exposure and experience. We qualified for First Steps, Indiana's early intervention program, and she gets Occupational Therapy for an hour a week to work on these things. We started this in November and she is making speedy progress on the fine motor skills. Because she hadn't played with toys much at all, she didn't get how to use a finger to push a button, or open/close parts of toys, etc. She's becoming a pro! Her new favorite toy is a princess microphone that plays songs, and we listen to her push the song buttons dozens of times a day :)

Since she's been home, she's also learned to wave, clap, play peek a boo, give kisses and hugs (especially to her baby dolls-it's seriously adorable), feed mommy bites of her food, and shake her head to imitate a horse's whinny (the only animal noise she cares about). The big news is that she is finally a walker!! She came to us already crawling like a champ and cruising furniture, but took her sweet time building up confidence to take steps by herself. She took her very first steps in mid-December, and has finally become a walker. She still crawls from time to time, but walks the majority of the time, though still very wobbly. She also just figured out how to stand up without first crawling over to something to pull up on. It's amazing to see the lightbulbs coming on left and right as she learns all these things. She has started using a few words: mama, uh-oh, yay, and hi. She says dada, but we're not convinced it's really directed at Chad yet.

Things she loves (in no particular order):
-her brothers...oh, she adores them and they SO adore her. I'm kind of amazed that after several months home, her newness hasn't worn off for them yet. I think it might just truly be love, not novelty, that has them treating her so well. Now if only they would treat each other even a fraction as nicely!

-Gymboree...we started a play and learn class with her about two months ago, and she loves it! She has her class, and then some free playtime later in the week, and she has so much fun. If she's cranky getting into the car beforehand, all I have to do is tell her we're going to Gymboree and she cheers right up. It's so funny!

-mommy and daddy...of course! She is with me almost every minute, and I'd say she has completely bonded to me. She gets upset if I try to leave, even for the bathroom, she seeks me out just to check in and cuddle with me, and she knows that I am the fulfiller of her wants and needs. What's been more wonderful for me to see is the love she has for Chad. She LOVES him! If he comes home from work and doesn't immediately pick her up, she is very vocal about how unjust that is!

-toys...she loves the microphone I mentioned earlier, her baby dolls (she has more than a few!), and balls of all kinds. She still mouths things more than I think is average, but she's learning how to actually play with things now too. She also loves dancing to music now too, which is super cute.

We're still working on eating. After some trial and error, we are pretty sure she has some kind of milk allergy, so we've switched to soy milk and that seems like a good move. She loves certain foods-yogurt, cheese, banana, blueberries, but little else. She LOVED meat when she first came home, and now she won't touch it. At least she'll eat the Greek yogurt packed with protein. She's a sleeping champ, for the most part, and after we realized that she was done with a morning nap in early November, she now takes one good 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon and sleeps for 11-12 hours straight through at night. We are very blessed in the sleep department!!

What else...? We love her more than I ever could have imagined. She is so smart, beautiful, funny and fun-loving. She is pure joy. She is ours, and I can't imagine life without her!

Created for Care!

Okay, so I know...I don't post for forever, then I promise a post, which is totally a lie, and now I finally pop back on only to try to persuade you to buy things. Bad blogger! (I just slapped myself on the wrist, in case you're interested!)

I want to share real quick about the Created for Care retreats and merchandise. I am so blessed to be going to my first retreat in less than two weeks, and I can't wait! These retreats are for adoptive mamas and anyone with a heart for adoption. My adoption BFF, Sarah, and I are taking a road trip to a beautiful lodge north of Atlanta to enjoy a weekend of fellowship, worship, education, and relaxing. Does that sound perfect or what?

One of the best parts is how reasonably priced the whole thing is. It's run by volunteers who donate tons of time and effort. This year they are selling some absolutely adorable merchandise to help offset costs, and I wanted to share their store with you all, just in case someone else wants to buy something super cute. I've already bought the PJs!!

Here it is: http://createdforcare.org/resources-2/ I am lusting after the brown bag, but trying really hard to be good. We'll see how long that lasts!

Quick Update (and a promise for more soon!)

I don't want anyone to think we've fallen off the planet, so I wanted to post a quick update that things are going AMAZINGLY well! Gabby has adjusted better and faster than we ever dreamed, and we are all getting along fabulously. Honestly, I must say to myself two or three times a day that I can't believe how lucky we've been. There are so many things to update on...her big first birthday party, Halloween, her visit to the International Adoption Clinic, all of the skills and tricks she is learning. I promise that will come soon (along with pictures!). Life with three kids is a whole lot busier than I was prepared for, but I really want to get back into the blogging swing of things, so I'm putting this at the top of my to-do list!!

We're Home!!

Truthfully, we've been home for almost a week, but man, life is busy with a new baby in the house! No one told me how much more work a third child would be...I'm pretty sure that's a secret moms of three or more keep to themselves to fool unsuspecting moms of two who are contemplating expansion of the family.

I don't have more than a minute (because I'm exhausted, and sleep outweighs pretty much everything right now!) but I wanted to tell you how amazing our sweet girl is. She is doing WONDERFULLY! She's adjusting even better than we'd hoped for so far. She seems to realize already that Chad and I are special people in her world, and prefers us to everyone else...this is all we had hoped for by this point. She loves her big brothers. Griffin can make her smile and laugh all the time, and he has been an amazing helper. Cooper says he likes her, and plays with her a little, but has been mostly indifferent-it's been a big adjustment to give up being the baby!

The things we're working on right now are eating and sleeping. Given the huge changes she's undergone over the past week, she is doing great at sleeping. She wakes up anywhere from 1-5 times a night, but seems to be getting a little more consistent at only waking once or twice. Naps have been harder, and very inconsistent. We are trying not to let her cry, so we've been rocking her to sleep, but a lot of times she wakes up when we try to transfer her to the bed. In the long term, we'd love to get away from that, but for right now, we just want her to feel loved and secure. She loves her bottle, but we're having a hard time with solids. Although she ate them at the transition home, we've had trouble finding foods she likes, and a way to feed them to her. For right now we're relying mostly on the bottle, and continuing to offer solids to her. I figure as we settle in and she gets more comfortable, she'll eat them more.

Other things we've learned about our Gabbers: she LOVES bath time, HATES having her diaper and/or clothes changed, hates the car seat, loves being tickled, loves the Exersaucer, loves to be held, and is smiley pretty much all of the time (seriously), unless she is tired or hungry. We are so blessed!

She is coming HOME!!!

Finally, the words I have longed to write for 7 long months, since the moment we first saw her face! Our baby girl is coming home. We had a scary few days over the weekend when I realized that we in fact never did have a newspaper ad run, and I worried that the document we did submit was not going to be enough. And of course it was the holiday weekend, so we had an extra long time to wait! I had to take a little sleep "help" Monday night, because I knew I would be up every hour checking my e-mail for a message from the Embassy. I'm so glad I did take it though, because I slept for a solid eight hours and woke up to an e-mail bearing the much hoped for, prayed for, cried over subject line "Hennessy Family, Cleared Case"!! My birthday was the next day, and I can say without a doubt that is the best present I have ever gotten.

Our Embassy appointment is scheduled for September 19th. On top of finding out that we cleared, we got two other great pieces of news. First was that my good friend Jessica cleared as well, and her appointment is the same day. We have been chatting back and forth since January, and I am so, so excited that we get to bring our girls home together. We've even arranged to travel from DC to Addis and back together. The other piece of great news, the icing on the cake, is that because of how our embassy date fell, we were able to get in on a sale Ethiopian Airlines is having for BOGO tickets!! I can't believe it. Chad was very nervous about how much our tickets might cost for this trip, since we didn't have very much notice. He had prepped me for the idea that if they were too expensive, I'd have to go alone, which I was dreading. So now not only did we clear, but we are paying WAY less than we did less trip, and traveling with a good friend...God is in the details!

We booked our tickets this morning! We'll be in Ethiopia for 5 days, and I'm excited to see our daughter's homeland again. Even more important, I can't believe I will be holding her in my arms FOR GOOD in about 200 hours!! (I have to say, calculating that has brought on new, greater panic as I work on 4 different to do lists, plan for the boys to be taken care of while we are gone, and get us ready to leave!)

Even as we celebrate and run around like chickens with our heads cut off getting ready, my heart breaks for my friend Ashley. They keep hitting delay after delay in their efforts to clear the Embassy. They live only two hours from us, and our girls were born 6 days apart, and Ashley might be one of the sweetest people I have ever met. It's not fair. So please, if I haven't exhausted my prayer requests, would you keep the Baker family and their daughter Zoe in your prayers?

Ethiopia-Day 4

It's been so long since we were there, I worry I've forgotten so many details, but I really want to document our first trip, both to share and as a record for Gabrielle one day. So...on to day 4!!

If you remember back to our previous day in Ethiopia, we had arrived back at the guest house just in time for the power to go out. I had debated taking a sleeping pill to see if I could finally get a decent night's sleep, but thought that I was so tired I would surely sleep well. Wrong...

At about 12:45 am, the power came back on and so did our overhead light. I woke up to turn it off and couldn't go back to sleep for two hours. I finally fell back to sleep only to be woken up at 3:30 by chanting coming over the loudspeaker of the church next door. The prayers continued every 30 minutes for the rest of the night. Chad and I both wanted to die.

However, there was no time for wallowing in sleepiness...today was the whole reason we had come-court! We went downstairs for breakfast and chatted with Woudneh while we ate. We asked him if there was anything we needed to bring for court, and he told us no (remember that!). We took quick pictures with the babies since we were all dressed nicely, and then headed to court at 8 am. After driving through Addis, we arrived at the courthouse at 8:40 and made our way through the streets, metal detector, and then up to the 4th floor. As we arrived at our floor, JW off-handedly asked Woudneh, "We didn't need our passports or anything, right?" Woudneh's face sank and he told us that yes, we would need them. Woudneh stayed back at the courthouse to try to stall our appearance while we drove back with our driver. He was so awesome, totally flooring it to get us there and back as fast as possible. We arrived back at the courthouse at 10 am and were told we hadn't been called yet. I had to go to the bathroom so bad, and we found one I could use, but it was the MOST disgusting bathroom ever. You do what you gotta do, but I'm glad to never see that one again! We had raced up the stairs, and I felt weak and shaky. It was hot and crowded in the room, and I worried I would pass out, so I found an empty seat and looked around. The room was filled with such opposite ends of the spectrum-all these white families there to adopt, and so many Ethiopian people there to give up the rights to their children. It was a sad room to be in, especially because not even the adoptive families were happy, as they weren't passing court (no MOWA letters). The window blinds fell off the wall at one point and hit an Ethiopian woman...it was an interesting experience.

After a little while they called both us and the Godwins back. It was a small room, maybe 8"x16", with the judge's desk at one end, chairs for the families on the other end, and a long desk for her assistants in the middle. We were the furthest away from the judge, and it was difficult to hear her, especially as there was construction going on outside. She asked 5-6 questions, then told us that we didn't yet have MOWA's recommendation, so she couldn't approve us yet. It was what we were expecting, but still disappointing.

We left the courthouse and began to drive to Ambo, a town about 2 and a 1/2 hours from Addis where the Godwins' daughter was from. We were driving through the busy streets when we witnessed our first car accident. The driving there was the craziest we had seen anywhere we've ever been, and we had asked about accidents, but never thought we'd see one! A truck and a motorcycle collided, and the motorcycle driver was injured. I was so impressed with Chad, who immediately hopped out of our van to see if he could help. They brought water to the man, but a huge crowd had formed so they left after that. Woudneh said the other driver would bring the man to the hospital himself, and then pay him off to keep from going to jail. Pretty exciting stuff!

We continued on to Ambo. We stopped to eat at a hotel, where Chad had a “fish sandwich” and Jana had a “cheeseburger.“ JW had a club sandwich with beef and egg in it. Then we went on to Bright Vision Orphanage. We got to see all the kids and hold the babies. The director is very young, 26, and Muslim (Muslims are typically anti-adoption). They have a nurse and clinical room, but no medicines or supplies. Chad spoke with local doctor to get list of what is needed, and we are going to try to get them. We had another coffee ceremony, but it was not as good, and once again I had to get Chad to drink mine! The toddlers all try to pee on tiny pots. We took pics of all the kids there to send to parents because all the kids are referred. We passed out candy to the kids and workers (this was the first time it occurred to me that the workers probably don't get candy a whole lot either, and they were so grateful and happy to get a piece). It was a nicer and newer facility than Gabby's orphanage, and with only 10-14 kids, but they had less supplies.

We began the two and a half hour drive from Ambo back to Addis. It was around 3 pm, and Woudneh told us we might be able to shop when we got back. He had also been trying to arrange a visit between the Godwins and their daughter's birth mother. It began to rain on the way back, and all of us napped a little bit, read, or listened to music. We were all exhausted, and for the first time did not stare out the window at the countryside. We got into Addis and went to a part we hadn’t been to before, so we assumed it was to shop. All of the sudden we heard Woudneh say, “Oh, she is here,” and the van stopped. We thought we were getting out to shop, but instead a young woman and an older woman got into the van with us. It was the Godwins’ daughter’s birth mother and her employer. Very awkward. The Godwins were completely caught off-guard, but did a great job asking all the questions they had prepared. We stopped to get pictures of her with them. It was starting to get dark after that, so we decided to go straight to eating dinner instead of trying to shop a little. We ate at an Italian restaurant. Chad had lasagna, and I had cheese pizza. We stopped at a gas station to get drinks and cookies, and laughed hysterically while Woudneh tried to teach JW and Chad to speak Amharic.

It was about 8 or 8:30 when we got back to the transition home. We went upstairs to try to Skype, but the kids and Sue had gone to the Children's Museum. We met JW and KC and watched The Hangover downstairs while we ate snacks-we really ”partied it up” on our last night in Ethiopia! We headed up to bed around 11 pm. This time we both wised up and took sleeping pills, and got a really decent 7 hours of sleep. One more day to go!

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No Real News

Just in case anyone out there doesn't have the opportunity to see my frequent updates (read: whining) on facebook, I wanted to fill you in on where we are in our ever-present waiting game. (And warning...there is more whining ahead!)

If you recall, we were having an ad run in the newspaper to hopefully satisfy the Embassy's requests. We believe this began running around the 16th or 17th, and it is supposed to run for two weeks, meaning it may be done as of today. If not, then definitely within the next day or so. Once the ad has run its course, a new letter is written by the police, then translated, and eventually submitted to the Embassy. I am hopeful this will be done by the end of this week or early next week. At that point, they will (once again) review everything and either clear us or ask for something else. Our agency tells us they really think this should be it. I am trying to believe that, while preparing my heart for the possibility that there could be more. I have e-mailed with the embassy a little bit, and from what they have told me, I have a glimmer of hope that this will satisfy them. It seems there has been just one real "hole" in our documentation, and the ad should fill it. Please pray with us that this is true!

So...it is possible that by the end of next week, we could be cleared to travel. I am trying to walk a fine line between positive energy and faith AND pragmatism and realism and all those other unfun -isms. I honestly don't know what I will do if they ask for something else, so I'm trying not to worry about that possibility too much. At this point, 12 families have been submitted to the Embassy from our agency that I know of over the past two months. Six before us, one with us, and four after us. Of all of those, one family submitted before us remains (and has been dealing with many of the same issues we have), one family after us remains, and then us. The other nine have all cleared, some with no issues at all. I have been really struggling with WHY these delays and problems have happened to us. I don't think we've done anything wrong. I don't think we love Gabby one bit less than those families love their children. There is not thing about this process that is fair, or easily understood, or routine. And that is really hard for a type-A, control freak, impatient person like myself to understand. I fight everyday to be happy for those families instead of just sad and bitter for myself.

So...that's where we're at. I'm hanging out at the corner of whiny and bitter. I'm trying to make my way up the street to the intersection of hopeful and faithful! :) So many of you tell me that you are praying for us, or thinking of us, and I want you to know just how much that means to me. Please, keep us in your prayers just a little while longer. I really hope this whole thing is behind us in another week or so!

Delayed. Again.

Or as Chad would say (and did say when I told him), "Surprise, surprise!"

Apparently, our agency tried to submit the document the Embassy wanted again (second try), and they still weren't happy. So they have asked for an ad to be run in the newspaper there for 2 weeks. The theory is that at the end of the two weeks, the police can then sign off on that being done, and the Embassy will be happy. Our caseworker told me she can't think of anything else they could want. I'm sure the Embassy can! But I am choosing to believe that this will be it. The ad hopefully started running today (fingers crossed), so it will be right around Labor Day that the letter is written, signed, translated, and submitted. The Embassy then needs to review it. My birthday is September 7th, and the ONLY thing I want is to be cleared to travel. I had really hoped to be with Gabby for my birthday, and I realize now there is no way that will happen.

Another family from our agency is about a week ahead of us in the "ad running" process, so seeing how things go for them will be a good indicator for us. We desperately want to travel with them-the mom has become one of my very best adoption buddies. There is another family, with another wonderfully supportive mom, who lives just a couple hours from us, and they are also mired in paperwork gathering. I would love to travel with them as well, so I am hoping that perhaps God has orchestrated all this so that we can all go together and meet in person. That would be a nice silver lining to all this waiting!

I'm not going to lie, when our caseworker called to tell me the update yesterday, I was devastated. I was a sniffly mess on the phone with her, and promptly had a really good cry once I was off the phone. I don't understand WHY this has taken so long. It has been over six months since we first saw Gabby's picture. We were referred a 3 month old, and she will (hopefully, assuming no more delays) be almost 11 months old when we bring her home. That's crazy to me. I have struggled, and struggled, with how much of her first year we have missed. It breaks my heart that I won't have all the baby stories to share with her that I do with the boys.

And then that wonderfully supportive mom (Hi Ashley!), going through the same thing, linked me to a blog post at Kisses from Katie. Katie is a hero in the adoption community. She is a 22 year old woman who left her entire world behind in the US to move to Uganda, where she is in the process of adopting 13 (yes, 13) children. She is amazing. As she lamented the other day about missing out on the moments of one of her children's early life, she wrote this: "He did not choose me for those moments, He chose me for these." Wow. I have been repeating this to myself for the last 30 hours, every time I start to get sad all over again.

So I am choosing joy. Or trying to, anyway. I have two beautiful kids here to keep me busy and happy and laughing. And I know that the moments in Gabby's life that God did choose me for are coming. Now to keep remembering that...

Update...

Well, the document the embassy requested was indeed submitted earlier this week. And they promptly rejected it and asked for it to be redone. Of course. I am assuming the redo will take about the same amount of time as the first attempt, though I have no idea. If that's accurate, it will be submitted early next week. Then it has to be accepted (not rejected), and then they will either clear us or ask for yet more documentation. The biggest downside right now is that the Embassy is not going to see appointments the week of the 29th, so even if we do clear next week, it will be a miracle if we travel before Labor Day. Of course, I believe that God is bigger than calendars, so my prayer is for a miracle to occur and for us to pass early next week and get an appointment for the week of the 22nd still. This seems unlikely, but I'm praying for it anyway!

In other news, Gabby's room is officially complete, and adorable if I do say so myself :) Now, I just need her home to look adorable in it!

I'm a slacker, I know...

I know, I know...I've pretty much fallen off the face of the earth! This summer has been INSANELY busy (a wonderful thing, because it's kept us busy and given me lots of distraction from missing my girl). Just to give you an idea what we've been up to, we left for Ethiopia the day after Griffin's last day of school, and things haven't let up for a second. We've had:

-a week of basketball camp for Griffin
-a week of soccer camp for Griffin/VBS for Cooper
-a week of VBS for both boys
-summer reading programs and activities at our library
-3 weeks of swim lessons for both boys
-class picnics and birthday parties for Griffin
-the 4th of July and block parties and fireworks at the lake
-Cooper's 4th birthday and his big party
-a weekend away for Chad and I to celebrate our 10th anniversary
-lots of trips to the zoo and Children's Museum
-afternoons at the Y pool
-a week in the Outer Banks
-camping trips

Whew! We have 10 more days before Griffin's first day of 1st grade (my baby is a 1st grader...boo hoo!), and we're still trying to pack in a day at the State Fair, one more camping trip, two days at Holiday World, a day trip to see my high school best friend and her kids, another birthday party, one more trip to the lake, and getting haircuts and new shoes and all that other "back to school" stuff! Seriously, I have never enjoyed a summer more, and as much as I miss Gabby every minute, it's been really enjoyable having two older kids who can play all summer long! They even gave me the great gift of getting along most of the time (although all bets have been off the last week or so...pretty sure it's time for school to start back up!)

So that's what has been keeping us going. And like I said, it is a wonderful blessing that we have been so busy, because we've spent the last 2 months just kind of biding our time, adoption-wise. We returned from Ethiopia two months ago today. We got the news that our MOWA recommendation was in on June 17th, and since then we've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, to be submitted to the US Embassy.

I am not an expert on the process by any means, but my rough understanding is that after passing court, we needed a court decree, birth certificate with her "new" name (her Ethiopian first name and then Chad's full name), passport, and medical exam in order to be submitted to the US Embassy in Addis. Every adoption agency has their own day of the week to submit families, and ours is Wednesday. Last Monday we were told that everything was pretty much ready, we were just waiting on translating, and odds were good we could sneak in. Then we were told on Wednesday that it didn't happen. I was SO disappointed. There was a lot of crying and despair and being mean to Chad because the poor man is stuck with me.

Then the next day, my best friend Jen gave me a gift. It's a beautiful silver bracelet, hand-stamped with "so blessed" on the inside. She gave it to me to cheer me up, and it did. I began thinking of all the blessings I have in my life. Three wonderful children, a stellar husband, great friends and family... And I began thinking in bigger terms too. I am so blessed that I have never had to face the heart-wrenching choice to give up a child because I can't afford to care for them. And as much as I mourn how much of Gabby's first year I am missing, I know that I will have the rest of her life with her. And her birthmother can't say that. Blessed...

And right as I was all proud of myself and my newfound maturity, I got an e-mail on Tuesday morning from the US Embassy, requesting additional documentation for Gabby. I was so confused and excited, and after some clarification, it turns out that we somehow were submitted last week after all-a miscommunication between our agency's in-country staff and US staff. It wasn't the best news we could have gotten (that we were approved to travel), but given where I thought we were at, it was a great surprise! The document they requested is pretty straight-forward, and is expected to be there early next week. At that point, we will either be approved, or the embassy will ask for still more documents. The embassy staff changed in July, and they seem to be requesting TONS more info from everyone, so we'll see what happens. I am trying to be patient and calm, and convince myself that even if there are more weeks of embassy review it won't be too bad. We'll see how long I keep that up :) If, by a miracle, we are approved next week, we could be traveling in the next few weeks. That would be amazing!! My birthday is September 7th, and ALL I want for my birthday is to celebrate with my baby girl.

Hopefully this update makes up for the total slacker I've been over the past couple months. I still have two days of our trip left to write up, and I do still plan to do that. I better get on it, since I KNOW :) we will be going back in just a few weeks!!

Ethiopia-Day 3

Our 3rd day in country was Wednesday, June 1st. It was by far our busiest day, so I'll warn you now that the photo slideshow is a long one! :)

After a terrible night's sleep filled with rock-hard mattresses and gunshots, we woke up to our alarm and headed down for breakfast. The hotel had a buffet, and although it had a good bit of "interesting" items, we found plenty to eat-potatoes, eggs, crepes, and we tried some of the other things without success. We saw the eye clinic volunteers at breakfast, and learned we would be heading to the clinic for our first stop of the day.

We packed up and headed to Dehra, about 30 minutes away from Nazareth. As we drove, we saw people waiting on the side of the road with big yellow containers for water. Woudneh told us that they had probably been waiting since sunrise, and that they may have to wait until midnight for water to arrive. This was one of the hardest things we saw the whole week, and we saw it over and over. The fact that people have to wait for hours, or even days, for something that is NEEDED to survive, and we can just turn on our faucet and watch it flow...it's not fair. The first time I took the boys to the pool after we came back, I just watched all the kids wasting water (including my own), and had trouble reconciling what we have here with what I saw there. It's heart breaking.

We arrived at the community center where the eye clinic was being held, we saw a huge group of people pushing up at a gate, and realized they were all trying to be allowed in. Inside was a huge line as well, and then there were more people waiting near the rooms where things were set up. At one point they opened the gate to let a van with supplies inside, and people began pushing and shoving to try to get in. The people in charge tore a branch off a tree and began beating people back...yikes! I couldn't believe how many people had come...word spread quickly! Chad, KC, and I were quickly put to work matching people's prescriptions with the hundreds of donated pairs of glasses, then helping them try them on and test them out. It was an amazing experience! My eyes are terrible (like legally blind), so I think I especially appreciated the difference these glasses would make for them. There were 5 of us in a hot, small room, and we quickly got sweaty, but it was such an amazing experience. After a while I really had to go to the bathroom, so Chad helped me find the hole in the ground out back...always an adventure!

After a couple of hours there, Woudneh came in and told us it was time to move on to our next stop. I was so glad we had the opportunity to help with the clinic. Out of everything we did while we were there, it was my favorite experience (next to being with Gabby of course!!). We headed from there to Woudneh's parent's home a short drive away. We were invited to stay for some food, and wonderfully cold bottled Cokes :) I was amazed at how many people were in the house-parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces, cousins...lots of people! Their home was very nice, and they were very gracious hosts. We passed out some of the candy I had brought along to the kids on the street, who came running when they saw white people with goodies!

From there we stopped and got some bananas, then made a stop at a resort where we got to feed wild monkeys. Chad and I had done that in Thailand, with very aggressive monkeys, so we were a little nervous this time. But these monkeys were much more mellow, and although I still refused to feed them, Chad, KC, and JW had a blast (I took pictures!).

On our way to our next stop, we stopped on the street to see a young boy who had caught a wild chicken. He was so proud of himself, and Woudneh told us he would probably get 40 birr (about $2.50 US) for it. Finally we made the stop Chad and I had been hoping for-we went to Gabby's original orphanage. It was very surreal to walk through the gates and know that our sweet baby girl had been brought here several months before. It was really neat to see how self-sufficient they were. They had cows, chickens, coffee trees, banana trees. Then we had a chance to meet with the director of the orphanage and hear some of Gabby's story, which was a wonderful surprise and blessing. After talking with her, a woman came out to do a coffee ceremony for us. This was one of my biggest fears! I HATE coffee, but I didn't want to offend anyone by not drinking it. I finally took a few sips, then slipped my mostly full cup to Chad and he traded me for his mostly empty one! While we drank the coffee and ate popcorn, some of the older kids came out and sang for us. We toured the orphanage, then passed out candy and left them a soccer ball before leaving.

We headed back toward Addis, and stopped for dinner along the way at a beautiful resort. We sat at an outside patio on a lake, and enjoyed some good pasta (after finding out they were out of the first things we ordered-same thing happened with our desserts!). Salads were included with our meals, but we had been told not to eat raw fruits and veggies we didn't peel ourselves, so we weren't going to eat them. But they sounded SO good, so we all broke down and ate them. We also all had stomach issues later in the week...not sure if that's why! JW, KC, and I tried to get massages or pedicures at the attached spa, but they were all booked up. Chad did get to go kayaking, which he enjoyed, even though he got soaked.

We weren't too upset that we couldn't get spa treatments, since we thought we'd get back early enough to see the babies. However, literally as we pulled up to the gate surrounding the guest house around 7:30 pm, the power went out everywhere. Boo! The house was pitch black, but luckily we had a small, hand-crank flashlight to try to see while we got ready for bed. I was miserable and cranky, but go-with-the-flow Chad just took it all in stride (which of course made me crankier!). I debated taking a sleeping pill, but decided that after sleeping on the rock mattress the night before and being up half the night, I was surely so tired I wouldn't need it (can you sense the foreshadowing?!).

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Ethiopia-Day 2

First off, I should warn everyone that the slide show for this day is pretty much entirely photos of Gabby. Sorry, but we don't ever get tired of looking at her beautiful face!! There are some pictures from our drive to Nazareth at the end :)

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good after a very decent night's sleep. Poor Chad hadn't fared so well, and his stomach was feeling pretty awful. The plan for the day was to spend the morning with our girls, and then Woudneh was picking us up at 11 am to drive about 2 hours away to Nazareth, which is where Gabby is from.

We headed down for breakfast and the guys went to get the babies right away. We headed outside to the courtyard with them and enjoyed the sunshine. The best part about the guest house and transition house is that the transition home (where all of the kids waiting stay until we are able to bring them home) makes a U-shape, and in the middle sits the guest house. We were never more than a hundred feet from Gabby's room, which was super convenient and made it easy for us to spend some quiet time with her in our room. This picture is of the transition home-where we stayed was right behind where I was standing to take the picture.



I had brought the Ergo my girlfriends gave me at my shower to try out, and Gabby and I both LOVED it! Highly recommend one for anyone adopting a baby-I think it will be awesome for travel, and it was super comfy. We played with the older kids for a while as well. There was a swingset, and Chad taught them Ring Around the Rosie :) They were all so sweet, and just wanted some attention and love. It made it much easier to know that they all have loving families anxious to get them home and give them just that!

It was getting close to 11 am, so we took the girls up to the front porch and waited with them for Woudneh, trying to get as much time as possible with them. We waited and waited, and used the time to get tons of photos of the babies with us. After a while, Gabby got fussy and we realized she was hungry. I got a bottle from the nanny and got to feed her-it was wonderful! She fell asleep while she was eating, so we took turns holding her while she slept. Around 12:30 the staff told us lunch was ready, so we ate (we still aren't sure what it was!). After lunch Chad went upstairs for a nap. Poor thing, he was feeling SO lousy (and he never lets on when he's sick, so I knew it was bad). We hung out with the girls in the main room of the guest house (pictured below).



After a while the nannies came to take the babies for their baths and the rest of us rested on the couches. Then they brought them back and we snuggled some more. It was such a wonderful chance to just relax with them and really soak in tons of time with them. Such a blessing! Chad came down from his nap feeling a little better and spent some time snuggling with Gabby as well. We finally asked someone to check on Woudneh, and were told he would be there at 5 pm. We thought it seemed odd that we wouldn't leave until then, but just nodded along.

Woudneh arrived around 5:30 with tons of apologies. The donated eyeglasses he was trying to get Customs to release so they could be used with the eye clinic mission had taken all day (and quite a bit of money) to ransom! Luckily he was able to get them, and now had 1,351 pairs of glasses to pass out to people who desperately needed them. He explained that we would be driving to Nazareth and then staying overnight, so we quickly ran upstairs and packed an overnight bag. Always an adventure!!

It was really neat to get out of the city and see a different part of the country. It took about 2 hours to get to Nazareth, and we saw some interesting things along the way. We saw a huge crash site where a river of gasoline was spewing and hundreds of people were bringing their gas cans to stock-quite the risk, but gas is over $5 a gallon there, so I imagine you do what you have to!

We arrived in Nazareth around 9 pm and checked into our hotel. Woudneh had told us that it was very luxurious, and only $24 a room, and it was very nice (much nicer than the guest house). We went to a hotel down the street for dinner and ate by the pool. We were excited to see many American-friendly options on the menu. Chad got pasta, and I chose a cheeseburger. Imagine my surprise when it arrived and looked like a huge hunk of meatloaf (very spicy meatloaf-they put peppers on top!) between two pieces of bread with mozzarella cheese on top. Different. We headed back to the hotel and enjoyed the vastly superior shower. We hopped into bed (two double beds), ready to enjoy a good night's sleep. Well, we attempted to hop. The mattresses were like bricks. Seriously. I was almost convinced that they were actually box springs (we had that happen on a Chinese cruise, it was awful). I attempted to put the comforter on top of it to soften it, but it helped not at all.

We eventually fell asleep, but I woke up at 1 am and could not get comfortable. Chad was awake as well, as he had heard a gun shot outside and was on the balcony investigating! We laid awake for most of the night, but around 4 am we fell asleep until we needed to awake at 7:30. Poor Chad, two bad nights in a row!!

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Ethiopia Day 1 at OneTrueMedia.com

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Ethiopia-Day 1

Okay, I am going to try something different. It seems like uploading all the pictures and putting them in the right spots is taking me forever, and keeping me very unmotivated to document the trip. So I am going to make a slide show quickly for each day and post it along with a description of our day (all the photos in the slide show will go in order throughout the day, so you should be able to follow along). I know it's not ideal, but I promise to move faster now!!

When I left off, we were on our way to the guest house and transition house. The drive was LONG, and we got our first taste of Ethiopian driving. We've traveled quite a bit, and have experienced Thai driving, which we thought was crazy, but we both agree Ethiopia wins! The exhaust was immense, the roads were bumpy, and it takes forever to get anywhere. By the end of the week we were totally used to it though! After about 50 minutes, we arrived and I saw the sign for our agency's home that I had seen in other blogs. My heart began to beat faster when I realized our daughter was right behind the gate!

We got out and the staff took all of our luggage inside for us. We had only one suitcase plus our carry-ons that were our things, and the rest were filled with donations, so we had them leave them downstairs, and they went through and sorted all the items to distribute. It was about 11 am at this point, and they brought out some breakfast for us to eat. They had told us they'd bring the babies out right away, so we tried to quickly freshen up and then picked at the food. I think we were all bundles of nerves!! We were so happy to see the rest of the eye clinic mission group hanging out in the room, and they sweetly offered to film and take pictures for us, which was a huge help. As we were eating, we spotted two nannies carrying two babies towards us through the window, and knew the moment had come!

The first nanny asked for the family of the other baby, and then we heard a nanny holding a baby covered in a soft pink blanket ask for "Lina's family." That's us! She handed her to me and I just drank her in, crying and smiling. She was even more beautiful than her pictures. She seemed a little unsure, but content. After hogging her for a few minutes, I let Chad have a turn. She got a bit upset, but calmed down after a minute. We took her upstairs to our room, where she got fussy again, but I quickly realized that she was tired. I rocked her for a few minutes and she fell asleep easily in my arms. I got to nap with her on the bed for a while, which was wonderful!! Chad hung out with us and also tried to get the internet to work on the computer so we could e-mail home and tell them we'd made it.

At some point a couple of hours in, they came to tell us lunch was ready (yes, about an hour and a half after the breakfast they'd made!), and we brought Gabby downstairs with us. Chad was going to hold her and we'd take turns eating-neither of us minded missing a meal to hold her! But then the nannies came in and took her back to her bed, so we ate and took a nap to recover a little. After we woke up we grabbed the babies back and spent some more time with them. It was a wonderful way to start our trip to get to spend so much with her the first day. We were totally and completely head over heels in love!!

Woudneh came back at dinner time to take us out to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant. We ate a bit, and Chad was thrilled to get Tej, a honey wine we've had at our local Ethiopian restaurant here. As we ate the dancers came out and started to perform. They also pulled us up to dance throughout the evening-it was fun! We were all SO tired, but Woudneh kept telling us the best part was still to come. He also told us we needed to stay awake until 10 pm or so, so that we'd end our jetlag. I thought I was going to fall asleep sitting at the table!! The big number was a dance re-enacting a marriage ceremony. They brought JW, KC, and Chad and I up on stage and sat us in chairs with the happy couple in between. They brought out another plate of injera and a pot of spicy meat, and then began feeding us, and encouraging us to feed each other. It was funny, but the meat was spicy, we were tired, and they just kept shoveling it in!! We had a great time, but were thrilled to head back to the guest house.

We were disappointed to learn that our shower totally stunk. It was a bit like having someone squirt you with a water gun while they stood directly overhead. After our long travel and first day, we were happy to take whatever kind of shower we could get, but it was kind of funny! At least it was hot! We were also surprised to learn that our bed pillows didn't have pillowcases, rather they had the decorate shams that came with the comforter. Again, it wasn't a huge deal, just kind of funny! Despite a lot of noise outside, I slept for a blissful 8 hours, but poor Chad got only about 4 hours of sleep and woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pain :(

First Trip-Travel

Alright, time to relive our trip!!

Sunday, May 29th-Our flight plan was to leave Indy at 6 am, arrive in DC at 7:33 am, and then depart DC for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at noon, arriving into Ethiopia the next morning at 7:45 am (their time). I had petitioned unsuccessfully to take a flight the evening before so we didn't have to get up super early and start our trip sleep-deprived, but my husband (being the cheapskate that he is) felt strongly we shouldn't pay for a hotel room if we didn't have to. Boo! So up we were at 3:30 am...yuck (but totally worth it, of course!). We'll see if I can't win that battle for the next trip :)

We had almost everything packed up the night before. Three of our pieces of checked luggage were full of donations, and then we had one big suitcase with our personal things to check, plus a laptop bag (thanks Ben and Shari!), camera bag, rolling suitcase, and backpack all to carry-on. Here are our 3 donation bags:


We got up, dressed, and headed to my parents' house. My wonderful mother had stayed at our house the night before so the boys were all set, and my wonderful father had offered to drive us to the airport so we wouldn't have to park our car in long-term parking. We got to the airport at 4:30 am, unloaded, and got ready to begin our journey!! We were able to check our baggage without problems (I'd been a little worried they wouldn't check it all the way through to Ethiopia, which was completely wasted worry), and headed to our gate. Here we are waiting to start boarding:


Our plane ride to Dulles was short and sweet. We had about 4 1/2 hours to kill until our flight to Addis, so we found some nice, long, deserted benches and both laid down and took naps for an hour or so. Then we got up and navigated a maze of a tram, shuttle bus, and about 40 escalators to get to the terminal we'd be leaving out of. We walked around for a while to find breakfast, and finally settled on Max and Erma's. Yum! We had been waiting for the Godwins, the other family traveling with us, to arrive, and luckily they did just as we picked our restaurant, so they joined us and we had a nice meal together. We were all excited and happy to finally meet after months of e-mails and phone calls!

Apparently they began boarding the flight way earlier than the 30 minutes ahead of time that we're used to, and by the time we got on, most of the plane was full. We weren't able to get much overhead space, so unfortunately most of our carry-ons went under the seats. We learned a lesson for the return trip!


We sat next to a woman going on a mission trip to Zimbabwe, and although she wasn't very talkative, she was quiet and didn't take up a lot of space...good enough! Our flight was uneventful, but the poor Godwins weren't so lucky and got bitten up by some kind of bug throughout the flight, and had people vomiting on all sides of them. We each watched a couple of movies, read a little, and slept a little. The meals were pretty "eh". Don't we look awesome?


After only 13 hours (!) we finally arrived in Addis, 30+ minutes after we were supposed to.


We disembarked outside and took a bus to the terminal, where we met up with the Godwins and stood in a VERY long line to get our Visas. While we were waiting, JW and I exchanged money and got loads of birr. We all met another adoptive family with a different agency who was there to pick up their new child and bring him home, so we asked them tons of questions. We got our Visas after waiting 30-45 minutes in line, and headed off to find our luggage. There was momentary panic when we had only 3 of our 4 pieces, and the one missing was the one with all of our personal items. We had plenty of soccer balls, children's clothes, formula, and candy, but none of our clothes or toiletries. After a little while of searching Chad was able to track it down. Whew!

We were unprepared for our luggage to be x-rayed before we could leave the airport, but it was, and it was an ordeal. I think the person running it was looking for laughs, so he kept purposely running the belt back and forth to dump all the luggage onto the floor on each end. Fabulous. A porter jumped in and grabbed all of our things before we could tell him not to, and promptly broke the handle off of our brand-new suitcase. Awesome. Then he got angry with us for not tipping him enough! Luckily we loaded up our cart and headed out of the baggage claim, where our agency's in country director, Woudneh, was waiting for us. He was with an eye doctor who was there for a medical mission trip, also through our agency, and was trying to get a ton of eyeglasses he had brought released from customs. So he got us to our van, we met our driver, and then he left and we headed to the guest house. We were on our way to the guest and transition house, and even better, our daughter!!

Best E-mail EVER!!!

This is what I woke up to this morning: "MOWA LETTER IS IN......IT IS FINAL!!!!!!"

Are those not the best words ever written?!?!

She is ours. We knew this in our hearts already, of course, but to know that (as far as the Ethiopian government is concerned) it's official is the best feeling in the world.

More to come later, including a day by day travelogue (I didn't forget, I just didn't want to post it without pictures!), but for now, let me introduce our daughter (!!!), Gabrielle Elise Hennessy.

We're Back!

Just a quick note to say that we are back from Ethiopia!  Our trip was all that we expected and more.  Meeting Gabby was one of the best moments of my life, and we are completely and totally in love.  She is the most beautiful little girl, full of smiles and giggles.  We did not pass court, as our MOWA letter wasn't there, but we are hopeful it will just be another 1-3 weeks until it makes it to court.  As soon as it does, I will post roughly 342 pictures of her :) For now, we will just say that we left a huge part of our hearts in Africa, but we know that she is being loved and well-cared for until we can bring her home.  I promise to share all the details and do a complete, day by day, travel log soon!  Thanks so much for all of the love and support while we were gone.  We would appreciate prayers for our letter to arrive SOON!

Leaving On a Jet Plane

Only a few (very few) more hours until we get on our first flight.  AHHHH!!!  We leave Indy bright and early at 6 a.m., which means we literally will be getting up at the crack of dawn.  Although 3:30 is not my normal wake up time, I will happily rouse myself to get this show on the road!!
 
Tonight we kissed the boys and tucked them into bed, and it was super sad knowing we won't be here when they wake up in the morning (my mom will be, for those who worry about child protection or want to rob us).  I hate leaving them, but I am so excited to meet our other child.  Griffin asked me to take 40 pictures of Gabby, 20 for him and 20 for Cooper.  Oh, melt my heart!!  I know they will have a blast with their grandparents, and we will probably miss them more than they miss us. :)
 
So, this is it.  I can't believe that about 30 hours from now, we will be holding our sweet girl.  It is unbelievable to me.  God is GOOD!!!

Testing!

Just testing to see if I will be able to post from Ethiopia :)