Ethiopia U.S. Embassy Trip - Part 1

December 9, 2011 – March 6, 2012 - Waiting is just too damn hard!

February 23, 2012 - In the mean time, we finally picked names. Introducing:

Payam Abebe Heckscher - Payam means message in Farsi and Abebe means blossoming in Amharic.                                      

Arman Kebede Heckscher - Arman means hope in Farsi and Kebede means grace in Amharic.

Towards the end of January 2012 the wait started to wear on us and so we started debating traveling to Ethiopia and staying with the kids until we clear Embassy. At this point we had no idea how long the waiting would last, so we were potentially talking about staying in Addis Ababa for one or more months.  Well, we decided to just go for it and so we decided to book our trip for March 14^th through April 5^th.

Wednesday March 7, 2012

Received an email from the US Embassy that we have cleared Embassy and we should set up an appointment for our Embassy interview. After discussing options with our adoption agency we decided on Monday March 19^th as our Embassy interview date. Since we had already bought our tickets for March 14th, we didn't need to worry about that little detail for the trip!

Thursday March 8, 2012 - Jan and Gee (Max’s parents) were in Ethiopia from February 26th through March 11th as part of a volunteer group to help out at some orphanages in Addis Ababa (none associated with our adoption agency). Jan and Gee (after some sneaky meetings with the lawyer in Addis) went to the foster home and met their grandchildren in person for the first time.

 Wednesday March 14, 2012 – Leaving for Addis Ababa

Plan was for Amy Newton-Ernst to pick us up at noon and take us to the airport. But Negar was not able to check in for her flight online that morning and kept getting an error message. So we decided to drive to the airport early in the morning, check in all the bags and checked into the flight and then come back home and wait for Amy to pick us up.  As it turned out it was good that we did that. It took a long time to check us in because there was a problem with how they had issued Abebe and Kebede’s return tickets and so we had to redo the ticket so that our itinerary was released and we could check in. Also it was nice to get the bags out of the way. And so at noon we headed out with Amy to start our second trip to Ethiopia.

Leaving for the airport

At Portland airport - Thanks for the ride Amy!

One last drink at the airport as DINKs

Hello Addis!

At Addis Ababa Airport

We arrived in Addis Ababa at 10:30 at night on Thursday March 15, 2012.

Friday March 16, 2012 – GOTCHA’

Today was the day we took custody of the kids.

We visited the boys in the morning to hopefully remind them of us. The nanny who usually takes care of Arman and Payam was very sad when she heard we were going to take custody that afternoon. The staff at the foster home was not expecting us so soon and had thought there would be another week before we came for the boys.

We left the boys at noon to go grab lunch and to pickup supplies such as baby formula, baby cereal, wash basins for clothes and dishes, dish washing liquid, etc. and take it back to the hotel.

We went back to the foster home at 3 pm to pick up the boys. We stayed there for a while so the nannies could say a proper goodbye to Arman and Payam and we reassured them that we were going to be in Ethiopia for another 3 weeks and that we could come back for a proper Coffee Ceremony on another day.

On March 16, 2012, at 4:04 pm Ethiopia time (6:04 am Portland time) we took Arman and Payam from the Foster Home.

GOTCHA!

Saturday March 17 and Sunday March 18, 2012 – Joys of Parenthood

The boys decided to welcome us into parenthood with exploding diarrhea, vomiting and fever.

Both boys entered our lives with diarrhea which was expected. But Saturday night Payam started also vomiting his food and was not keeping any solid food or formula down. By Sunday morning he was running a fever and so we decided it was time to take him to the doctor. We started our visit at the emergency room at the Korean Hospital around 9 am (simply because it was a Sunday and that was the only option, not because we felt it was urgent at the time). The doctor examined both Payam and Arman and ordered stool samples for them.

Korean Hospital

ER doctor

By the time the lab results were ready and we got to see the ER doctor again it was about 3 pm.  The results showed bacteria in the stool so the solution was simple: antibiotics for both of the boys and ORS (Oral Rehydration Solution, similar to Pedialyte) for Payam since he was not keeping any formula down.

However, at this point Payam had gotten so dehydrated that he was completely lethargic. He would not respond to us or take a bottle and his pulse was very weak and so the ER doctor admitted him to the hospital for an overnight stay for IV hydration. So Max went back to the hotel for overnight supplies for Negar and Payam and Negar stayed at the hospital with Arman and Payam to wait for a room. Payam was hooked up to IV in the emergency room while we waited for a room and was finally admitted to the Pediatric Ward around 4:30 pm.

Payam’s stay at the hospital was not without problems. Negar was having the hardest time getting the nurses to send the Pediatrician to the room. The nurses would not start the IV drip before the Pediatrician had seen Payam even though Payam had been hooked up to the IV in the ER before he was even admitted to the Pediatric Ward. As it turned out the Pediatrician was not even at the hospital since it was Sunday but the nurses failed to mention this and kept telling Negar that they would call him!!! Negar finally got so mad at them that they called the doctor and told him to come to the hospital and Payam’s IV was finally started at 7:30 pm! At this point Max and Arman left to spend the night at the hotel while Negar spent the night at the hospital with Payam. Conditions at the hospital were not conducive to the family staying together on this particular night.

To make matters more complicated, we had our U.S. Embassy appointment scheduled for the next morning at 9 am. We called our adoption coordinator in Addis, at about 7 pm and told him about the situation to see if we needed to reschedule the appointment. He actually showed up in the hospital to personally check on Payam. He also talked to the doctor and the doctor agreed to discharge Payam in the morning for a few hours so that he could go to the Embassy as long as we brought him back to the hospital afterwards for reevaluation.