We have him!

Wow. We just arrived back from the foster home where we picked up Tesfamlak. He immediately smiled and laughed at us. He had just finished eating so he was very alert and happy. Oh my, he is beautiful. He looks so healthy and it feels surreal to actually hold him. One thing about babies in Ethiopia: They are NOT cold. Women here wrap them and wrap them and wrap them again. He had on a onesie, pajamas with feet, a blanket swaddling him and then ANOTHER fleece blanket wrapped around him again. it's about 72 degrees here and all the babies are wrapped this way. On the street, they're wrapped like a burrito and then have a winter hat on and also wrapped up in a sling-ish thing on their mother. They must love sweaty babies. We met Aster, his nanny, and she told us that he is a big eater. She gave us instructions about how much he eats, when he naps, etc. She says he goes to sleep for the night at 8pm but when he cries, you have to feed him. So....here I go again. At least this time around, I won't be the only one who can feed him. We also were able to spend time with Sydney, the Cook's baby girl. She's about 3 months old and beautiful as well. Martha sent written permission so we were able to video and take pictures of her. Got some good ones of Tesfamlak with her. I'm sure they're going to be big buddies.
The foster home here in Addis is where CWA sends children up to age 12 to live until their US parents are able to travel to get them. So, generally the children are getting medical care already. The home is clean and it looked very well staffed. It was much easier to be there because we know that all of them have families to go home to. There was one 2 month old that was by far the most malnurished baby I've ever seen. I can imagine that he looks like Tesfamlak looked when he first came to the orphanage. It was shocking to see how tiny he was.
No carseats here....so we drove home with him on my lap. He has been vocal about wanting to be held...which is fine with us. When he was getting sleepy, he cried when I leaned him back, put him down or sat down, myself. He only wanted to be walked around up on my shoulder. After he fell asleep I held him for a few minutes and then put him on our bed. Eric just walked in with him after about a 45 minute nap. Happy again.
We found out Tefamlak means Hope in God. "Tesfam" means Hope and "Amlak" means God. We're still deciding what to call him, though.
OK. I'm going to be with my baby. thank you for praying. He's amazing.
Love, shea