A Natural Family

List of things we are 'working on' and how we are working on them:
Salmonella---Liquid Cipro (antibiotic) 2x/day
Cryptosporidium (parasite)---Alinia (given after Cipro is finished)
Anemia---Liquid Iron supplement (mixed with bananas)
Acid Reflux---Liquid Zantac 2x/day
Rickets (vitamin D deficiency)---15 minutes of sunlight per day
Ear Wax---Debrox drops 2x/day

You hear the baby fart/poop and in unison with your partner yell, "Yay!!" because you were just contemplating what to do about baby constipation. Or... you yell across the house "He did it!" and your partner comes running because he knows this means that the baby rolled over all by himself.

Or you get Salmonella from your kid and don't hold it against him... for long... :) That is what the sickness is/was--Salmonella. It turns out that after going to the doctor and getting the 'take immodium' advice, and still feeling really poorly several days later and finally asking your child's doctor (who is fabulous)--you find out that your kid's stool samples came back positive for salmonella (among other things) and that ALL your symptoms fit in with a case of salmonella. So, you take Cipro because you already have it in your medicine cabinet. And, your kid gets to take liquid Cipro, too. (This just in... Gramma CC also got prescribed Cipro as she is still not quite right after spending two weeks with her grandson.) Cipro is like magic.

So, all in all, now that I am feeling better I would say that we are adjusting pretty well. We've had a couple of days alone at the house (no parents or house guests) and nothing has fallen apart, the baby is still living, and we are still happily married. Friday we have our first post-placement visit then we head into NYC for a weekend in Queens (and Brooklyn) re-celebrating my birthday since I was out of commission for the actual event. Then, Sunday, Aunt Jenn comes to stay for a few days.

me: viral conjunctivitis, flu symptoms (everything coming out both ends, splitting headache, skin hurting, fatigue), maybe an ethiopian bug?
baby: acid reflux (also possibly caused by an ethiopian bacteria) and a few other things that don't really effect his day to day

equals: justin as single father, one really really crappy birthday, and my mom staying until sunday instead of leaving today.

Guest post from J...

The guest house where we stayed in Addis is attached to the babies’ rooms, and the big kids (ie, 3 years old and up) live down the street at (get this) The Big Kid House.

It’s hard to leave a baby behind, but K and I had promised to take pictures of a couple of the big kids for parents who are still waiting to travel, so I headed down the street one afternoon with S and L, who were angling to be the Most Popular People in the Big Kid House by bringing tons of candy with them.

We arrived just as the kids were leaving their rooms from naptime and joining together in the common area for a little singing and dancing.

And nothing says ‘Hope you had a nice nap’ like thousands of milligrams of sugar bolting through little kids’ veins.

I got to share a particularly sweet moment with a little boy who we’ll call Dawit. He, like most of the kids, had several different kinds of candy, and as he was working on his Skittles, he came over to me and held out a red one.

‘For me?’ I asked, feeling a little insecure about the fact that I don’t speak Amharic.

He placed it in my hand and smiled. I thanked him, and he reached up toward my hand, presumably to take it back, pulling the ‘almost share’ that children are so good at.
Instead, he pressed my hand toward my face. So I popped that sticky little red Skittle right into my mouth. It’s the little things that can get you. I chewed, looking at Dawit, thinking about the special moment we were sharing and the wonder of children that can shine through despite language barri-

S: ‘Dude! Did you just eat that?!?’

I assume her accusatory tone is the result of her missing part of what’s happening here, that it’s the result of her thinking I just took candy from, you know, an orphan. ‘He wanted me to have it,’ I explain, ready to launch into a soliloquy about sharing and nurturing and the basic goodness of all people.

S: ‘So?!?’

If this were an episode of House, here’s what would’ve happened next:

[Tight shot of my face, mouth hanging open slightly. As understanding dawns in my eyes, the camera zooms to the back of my throat, down my esophagus, and into my stomach, which is already churning the red Skittle. As we attain the most extreme closeup of the Skittle, we can see millions of angry little micro-organisms eagerly checking out their new digs.]

‘It probably isn’t all that bad,’ I think to myself, as I turn to see Dawit take several Skittles, add them to a stash he has created by folding up the front edge of his shirt, then stuff that stash into the front of his pants. That’s when I knew the Skittle would probably want to fight later.

The Skittle won…

The kids were there as soon as we got off the bus. I thought we'd have a minute to prepare, drop our bags off at our room, check myself in the mirror... maybe brush my teeth before meeting my son for the first time. As families began getting off the bus, the kids started coming out. First was a couple from Binghamton, NY who'd waited 17 months for the referral of their 10 month old boy. Then, T, another 10 month old boy, was given to his new parents from Syracuse, NY. As I looked to my left, I saw a familiar tiny face in the far door. Could it be? Was it really happening? And that was the end. The moment I ceased to exist--breath gone, existence floating somewhere out of body. Our boy... two years in the making. A product of over five years of love and growth in my relationship with Justin coupled with a gut-wrenching decision on the part of a first mother who I'd not yet met. Plus, he is and was from that first moment (or before) absolutely perfect. Perfect little features, soft skin, precisely proportioned little body, even temperament, bright curious eyes. We held him, then he fell asleep.

Next day: First Family Visit
My feelings: detatched, eerily calm, curious
My perception of her feelings: relieved, sad, guarded, peaceful
Free Association: two translators (English to Amharic, then Amharic to Sidama), breezy, hug/cry, intimate, long but too short, overwhelming, want to know more
My feelings the next day: Need personal space to process but am not getting it.

Monday: Embassy Appointment
Everybody and their babies piled into the bus and we headed to the US Embassy for our appointments to get each child's visa. Thank god our paperwork had arrived. The interview was short: Is this the child you were referred? (Yes.) Have you met the birth family? (Yes.) Are you planning on supporting them financially? (No.) Congratulations. Monday night everyone had dinner out together at a traditional Ethiopian restaurant. After that: We took custody of the boy. Bottles every three hours. Tuesday morning bottle greeted me with this: projectile vomit.














Tuesday through Thursday:
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...
Thursday: shopping at the market, oldest coffee shop in the world, mall-ish place


















Friday: Coffee ceremony
Time for the nannies to say goodbye to the babies. The aroma of coffee roasting (in the room), popcorn, and freshly baked bread. Older kids singing (really tough to see the waiting older kids who haven't been matched with families b/c no one is requesting their age range). And Emmett Adugna... well, he slept through it all.





Loading up the bus... getting on the plane... coming home...

So, now that I have been told I am a tease for just posting a couple of pictures and not the whole story... I will tell you that I'll post the story... later...

Suffice it to say that the trip was good--hard--challenging--long--exhausting--but very very rewarding and good. We did all that we went to do--met EmAdu's first family, had a successful Embassy Visa appointment, and observed his country and structure of his life to this point. Plus, we came home (yes... a 16+hour plane ride) with a beautiful, need I say perfect, little boy.

He is a bit sick right now. Low grade fever, major congestion. But, he is going to the best of the best doctor this morning. Then to lunch at Alice's Teacup with Aunties Mimi and Niff. :)

The real reason why I haven't been able to post more is that we have had TONS of people at the house. Pretty normal for us, but with a new variable in the equation (Em) I haven't had much internet time.

I will leave you with a link, username, and password for two video clips of our arrival and of Em his first afternoon home.
http://gallery.me.com/rmhanson#100000
username: letmeseeemmett
password: now!

http://gallery.me.com/jennhanson#100031
username: emmett
password: adugna

pictures: http://gallery.me.com/rmhanson#100015 and http://picasaweb.google.com/kathrynburton/EthiopiaJuly2008

More later.

love,
K, J, and Emmett Adu.

(Pictures to the left are of the village where Emmett Adu was born.)
A couple of people have specifically asked about the birth family visit. For whatever reason (I have some theories), this seems to be the part that terrifies people the most about our trip. Information usually distills fears, so here is a bit of information. As most of you
know... my whole masters thesis was on racial identity development in transracially adopted kids. During the reading for that paper, it became very clear that the most under-represented, misunderstood, little talked about member of the adoption triad is the birth family (or more specifically birth parents). It is really for the health of all of the people involved in an adoption (child, birth parents, and adoptive parents) that this meeting between adoptive parent and birth parent (and hopefully child) takes place. It allows for asking of questions, getting some answers, and alleviating fears. How else will we know what the day of his birth was like? How else will he know how his first mother laughs or what his first father liked to for fun? How else will she know that the people who are taking him, her sweet boy--her only child, to a land far away actually love him and will take care of him? How else will we be able to make peace with the process?

So, as you can see, even though it is daunting... it is SO necessary. It is so important to maintain as much contact as is possible with an ocean separating us. Because you see, we have a whole new extended family now.

J and I have decided to call them his 'first family.' It somehow seems more respectful and mindful of them than birth family. They have done more than give him birth. They agonized over a difficult decision for over two months before making an adoption plan. And, if we have shared with you the circumstances leading that plan, you are one of a lucky few--as that is a story we won't be telling anymore. When Emmett Adu is old enough, he will know and he will be able to decide when and where he shares that information. Because, as much as it has become part of our stories, it is his story.

We are only allowed to take two things to the first family for our visit. One of which we are still working on... We take a photo album including the pictures we have of him, some of our home, and some of our family. This facilitates some conversation and these may be the only pictures she has of her son. Second, we take a letter to her--telling her about us, about our hopes for him, and ... (we'll see...). This has probably been one of the most challenging things.

Guest posting by J (father to be.)

Our attic is the same square footage as our apartment, which means that we don’t get rid of anything - we just put it upstairs. Over the last three years, the pile of [valuables] up there had sprawled into a complete mess. And that complete mess included a good deal of baby stuff given to us by friends and family.

So one day, K, because she’s better than me, headed upstairs to tame the wilds of our attic while I attempted to assemble a bookshelf in our apartment (I’m not sure who ended up assembling whom). Just before we split up, we had this conversation in the kitchen:

Her: Okay...I’m going up now...there are birds [practically spitting the word] up there, I just know it.

Me: Birds?

Her: I heard them chirping the other day. You heard it too.

Me: Yeah, I thought they were just nesting in the gutter outside or something.

Her: They’re up there. I know it.

Me: Mmm-hmm. Probably big nasty Hitchcock birds that mean you all sorts of harm.

[She leaves the kitchen to go to the attic. One one thousand, Two one thou-]

Her: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! [high pitched and accompanied by the sound of her scrambling down the stairs] There are birds!

Me: [Giggling, marveling at her excellent comedic timing]

Her: I’m not kidding!!! There are four birds up there! One’s just sitting on the rail looking at me all mean.

We both go up to the attic now, me leading and her trailing with the lid of a rubbermaid storage container (they could’ve been wielding swords, and then I would’ve looked pretty silly).

Bird count: two. They look hungry, and they aren’t the kinds of birds you would want as pets. I think they might be related to that bird my cat dragged onto the carport when I was 6. I have to assume they’re willing to go Inigo Montoya on both of us.

I open the screens on two of the windows and start coaxing one of the birds toward one of the windows. He didn’t seem all that smart, and he definitely wasn’t interested in leaving, so I finally found some sort of stick-like poker and nudged him out.

Well, the second bird saw the whole horrifying scene and was having none of this. He backed into a corner and stared me down while I opened the third window screen. I tried scaring him out, then I tried luring him with bread - no dice.

Meanwhile, that bookshelf’s not building itself, so I went back downstairs, leaving K with instructions to call me if he makes a move toward the window.

Ten minutes later:

Phone: [ring]

Caller ID: [Kathryn]

Me: Hey.

Her: [in a whisper, small and terrified] Help me.

The second bird went out the window, and K and I are thriving in therapy.

In lieu of sending a mass email with our flight information, and, inevitably, leaving someone off the list, I am just going to post our flight information here.

07/04: United EWR to DC 6:00 a.m. to 7:13 a.m. (7970)
07/04: Ethiopian DC to Addis 10:05 a.m. to 8:20 a.m. (503)

7/11: Ethiopian Addis to DC 10:15p.m. to 7:55 a.m. (500)
7/12: United DC to EWR 12:13 p.m. to 1:59 p.m. (7971)

Also the current itinerary for the trip is as follows:
Arrive 7/5 and meet the boy :)
7/6: 5:30 a.m. leave to travel to Awassa to meet Em Adu's first mom
7/7: Return in the a.m. to Addis
7/7: Pile in with Em Adu and all of the families in our group to go to our Embassy Appointment
7/8-7/10: BOND with baby; learn about his schedule; work on this whole "we're parents" thing; do some shopping for stuff for the boy as he gets bigger
7/11: Coffee Ceremony (time for the nannies to say goodbye), receive Em Adu's passport and immigration packet
7/11: Get on the long flight home... !