12/12/2006 12:43 PM

Well, it’s official in Ethiopia: Isayas and Molla are ours! We spent the afternoon at the U.S. Embassy finally, waiting for an hour to answer a few questions and raise our right hands and swear that we told the truth. The past 1.5 years, filling our endless pages of paperwork, enduring grueling investigative interrogation from our social worker, sending check after check to the agency, trying to find the place where we needed to get fingerprinted…etc. And it all boiled down to a 5 minute interview, and then we sat down to wait for the other families to go through the same thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I am quite ecstatic that we are “done” with the adoption process, at least as it is in Ethiopia. But where were the balloons, and fireworks; the juggling poodles and Bob Barker giving me a huge sidehug and a peck on the cheek? Where was the huge celebration that we so richly deserved? It came in the form of a screaming tantrum from Isayas, mad because I wouldn’t let him run away from me and out of the Embassy. Yeah!

After the Embassy, we then headed over the Hilton Hotel to confirm our tickets on Ethiopian Air and to exchange some U.S. Dollars for Burr. Em and I have been praying that we will be able to get on the Friday night flight (we are currently on the Sunday night flight…..boo!) so we went into today hoping that we could at least get 1 seat so that Em could take Molla home early and see the girls.

While Em held Molla and waited in line, I held a very tired Isayas, who eventually fell asleep in my arms. I got to hold him for about 45 minutes. That’s about the time my entire left arm and my right shoulder went totally numb. I then switched with Em, who had a stinky Molla by now. I quickly asked Em how it was going and she said, “Not good.” It looks like we are confirmed on the Sunday night flight (10:30 pm), but we are on the wait list for the Friday flight and we are going to call and visit the Ethiopian Air office the rest of the week, trying as hard as we can to get home!

I must tell you that it is so frustrating to be “stuck” here. Not that Ethiopia is horrible, it’s not. It’s beautiful and fun and interesting. But we’ve been away from home for so long, our hearts hurt from not seeing our beautiful girls, our loving parents, our super friends, and my XBOX 360 (Em says, “Don’t write that! That’s horrible!”). But God is near, we can feel His presence and we can hear Him whisper words of encouragement and strength to us. But we are still very much home sick and heart broken each time a group of families head home.

Well, we dropped Molla off with the nannies tonight so that we could get a complete night’s sleep. He’s gets up every hour or hour and a half throughout the night, and I’ve been doing Molla duty since Emilee’s been sick. So, I think I am going to head to bed now. Tomorrow is shopping again, so that should be fun. We did some window shopping last week, so we kinda know what we what to get this time, especially art. Ciao!