African Adoption article from NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/01/world/AP-AF-Adoption-from-Africa.html?pagewanted=1&_4=1

Here's an article from yesterday's paper addressing the growing "trend" of Americans adopting from Africa and how Madonna's adoptions might be affecting that.  I get questions about this frequently (more in Atlanta than Berkeley) so I thought I'd post it.....HOWEVER I don't know why the link won't work or why I can't paste it here, so once again, I've just pasted it as a comment. 

The Cooks are in Ethiopia

Our friends, Martha and Andy Cook are in Ethiopia RIGHT NOW picking up their 4 month old daughter and trying to speed up the process to get her 2 year old biological brother home.  If you're interested, please check her much more informative blog about adoption, specifically Ethiopian....surrenderingtotheunknown.blogspot.com

Things have been "rocky" -her words- so far in Ethiopia but we are praying their son will be able to miraculously join them on their flight home this coming thursday and not have to be in the orphanage another day.  

home sweet home

So Audrey has been dying to have a little someone to dress up.  She couldn't wait to get this pea in the pod costume on the baby.  She's always saying, "hey mommy, look how cute this is. take a picture!"  

Caleb looks typical in the 3rd picture.  He hardly ever DOESN'T have his face right in the baby's face.  

Sights in Addis

This is the day I went out with another family and our driver to the Market.  Eric was at home at the guest house recovering from a night spent in the bathroom.  If ANY of the baby's skin was exposed at any time here, I would have a woman giving me a dirty look or asking the driver where the baby's hat was or one woman even walked by and slung my blanket over his face and kept walking.  

1st picture is a woman selling bananna leaves.

A portion of the textiles in the market

Spices

Cool bikes in Addis

Getting to Eli

This was our last outing before we left town for Ethiopia.  We rode up to the top of Stone Mountain and then hiked down.  It was a really really memorable and fun day.  

Then the kids got to meet Bob and Larry and Emma and Eric did a little climbing.  Emma did great!



Laura and Martin Elvington picked us up at 3AM to take us to the airport.  Here we are with our luggage.

We walked into the room and saw one of Eli's nannies picking him up after changing him. We were overwhelmed.

This is Eli with Sydney Cook, his friend.  Martha and Andy Cook will be traveling next Wednesday to bring her home and meet her biological brother who is 2.  They'll be bringing him home in a few more weeks. It was sweet to meet her.

Aster, Eli Tesfamlak's Nanny, was a sweet woman we were honored to meet.  She prayed for us and we could tell she really loved Tesfamlak.

Update

Hi friends, sorry no post for a few days. Sometimes there is no electricity and then yesterday, when we had electricity, the computer broke. There's a saying...."This is Africa".
I have to say, I'm looking forward to coming back to ethiopia. The people are incredibly hospitable and kind. The families we are with (also adopting with CWA) are great new friends. All of this, but still we can't wait to get on that plane! We miss our children a ton and can't wait for Tesfamlak to see them and the rest of the family and friends. Our flight is a brief 18 HOURS from Addis to DC. We're leaving Friday night at 10ish and we arrive in atlanta on Saturday at 2:23 pm. About 24 hours.
Something else significant about our trip is that both Eric and I have been sick. Eric was sick starting in the middle of the night on Wednesday morning and I started getting sick last night before bed. It's been nasty but I think we're on the mend. We've had to change some sightseeing plans. I went by myself shopping with the baby and another family yesterday and today eric went to a cathedral and to the National Museum (to see "lucy") today by himself...well, with the driver/tourguide. I can't even summarize our trip....i don't know where to start. Maybe I'll work backwards after I get home. By the way, the baby's name is going to be (drumroll, please.....) Elijah Tesfamlak Gilbert. We will probably still call him Tesfam (nannies would sometimes shorten it like this) or Tasfamlak along with Eli for a while while we get used to it. Tesfam means Hope and Amlak means God. "My hope is in God", we are told. He is beautiful.
See you all soon!

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

We are here!

We arrived in addis at about 9am after a long flight, but actually we were surprised by how comfortable it was. the flight wasn't full so eric moved to the back of the plane and we both had 2 seats to stretch out in for a few hours at a time. It wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it would be. Everyone has been extremely friendly. We thought we would be able to pick up the baby today BUT we aren't. There is another family coming in tonight and so the CWA driver will pick us up in the morning at 10am (about 2am your time, sunday morning) and take us all to the foster home tomorrow. It's turned out to be fine though because we were pretty tired. We came to the Addis Kidan Baptist Guest House, took showers, went to a local pizza place (good pizza, actually) and came back and slept for 3 hours. Kadist (wife of alayu...they run the guest house) and her sister Tagist cooked dinner for us (spaghetti) and now we're sitting in the l iving room. Eric's reading and I spent 25 minutes trying to get onto my aol account, blogspot account and now finally this bellsouth account. Connection is S-L-O-W! Needless to say, there will be no uploading pictures while we're here. Martha's going to post this on the blog so those of you who want to keep up with our travels are able to. I wasn't able to check email, so I guess I won't be emailing much individually. So tonight hopefully we'll sleep well. There are Muslim prayer calls at 5am, so we'll be rising early! We have a little room in the front of the house with a double bed and bunk beds. There is a bed rail that I guess we'll put on the side of the bottom bed for the baby. Or I'll sleep with him in the double and boot Eric to the bunk. :)
love to everyone!
Shea and Eric

5 1/2 months old

a few pictures

well, now that Tesfamlak is officially ours, we are legally able to share a few pictures...
we don't have a ton - but here's a few to look at.
The first picture is the earliest we received. You can see the difference between it and the other three (taken about 6-8 weeks later) and how much he has changed and grown. From what we hear, he apparently has gained even more weight in the last few weeks, so we are encouraged by that news.

Thank you

Tonight we were showered with blessings from Target! I mean, it poured!

Our family at Perimeter Church (mainly in worship and arts) gave us an ENORMOUS number of Target gift cards. I haven't gotten to look at them all but I can safely say from the full gift bag I carried home that our load will be lighter financially because of it. Diapers, formula, clothes, food......can't you buy everything at target???

Thank you, thank you, thank you, friends. We are so grateful.

SUCCESSFUL COURT DATE!

As of yesterday, Tesfamlak is our SON!!!!

We are so filled with love for him, excited and anxious to get him home, now. We were hoping that we would have a date for our embassy appointment after the court date, but it will still be a week or two more before we know. What we did find out for sure is that it will most likely not be the 1st half of April, but the last. (the 3rd or 4th week)

We are very thankful that it is going to finally happen, however, we're feeling some disappointment because we thought it would be in 2 or 3 weeks. We just want him here. I am now allowed to post pictures so I will do that very soon, I promise. I'm just not able to upload them on this computer and eric's isn't available right now.

Often I'm hearing, "it will be here before you know it"! And, "that's really fast compared to [friend's name] who adopted from another country!" I know I know....time will fly.....but now it is no fun waiting. My friend Martha, who is also adopting a baby girl from the same orphanage Tesfamlak is in just responded, "that really stinks". Ahhhhh....her negativity was refreshing! We didn't realize it at the time, but in a later conversation that evening realized we were both WANDERING the aisles of 2 different Targets....searching for something....anything....to buy for the babies we can't have yet. I bought more bottles and she was buying formula. I spent 1 1/2 hours by myself in Target literally strolling down almost every aisle. glassy-eyed. Saying to myself, "I know I should be happy, but I am just annoyed that it's not FASTER".

So if you see me any time in the next month, expect me to be ecstatic and care-free (because it's spring and we can be outside) or rude and angry (because I'm in a crappy mood and can't fake it anymore that day) or crying (because I am often sporatically crying because of the baby) or completely emotionless (because it's my most common emotion lately).....Each day is an adventure with me these days!