Travel Day Four - Part 2 (Meeting Birhan)

Tuesday, February 2nd 2010

We finally arrived back in Addis Ababa and were met at the airport by two wonderful CHI staff members. We drove directly to the House of Hope, our agengy's transition home for children, where we would meet our daughter for the first time. As soon as we arrived at HOH, we were ushered upstairs to a waiting room for parents. The room was full of everyone else from our travel group. They were hanging out there with their children whom they had met yesterday while we were in Mekele.

I guess I always imagined us meeting our child privately - not in a room with an audience. I'm a very private person and for a minute I was kind of nervously upset that all these people were going to stand around and stare at us during our big moment. But there was no time to protest - because someone announced, "She's coming." Our daughter was on her way up the stairs! It was actually great that the others were in the room with us, because they all graciously offered to take pictures and video for us.

Charles and I stood up just a moment before she walked into the room with Almaz. Birhan (we're not calling her Libby just yet) came directly to us and I hugged her first while blinking back the tears. I kissed her and said I love you, then it was Charles' turn. He was crying too by the way. We sat down together on the couch and Charles held her on his lap while we sat and talked and looked at the picture book we had sent ahead of time. She amazed me by reading to me in English the letter that I had sent her. We were told she spoke English, but I really had my doubts as to how much. Boy, did she blow me away! We also gave her a stuffed animal from Sam. I also showed her how to play Tic-Tac-Toe, she wrote her name for me in English and drew a picture in my notebook.

After a while, we walked downstairs and watched her play with the other children. I also had a package to deliver to another child for a waiting family. While we were downstairs, someone asked how me old Birhan is. I said "Eight." Birhan overheard and came directly to me and said, "No - Ten." I said, "No, eight-years-old, right?" "No - TEN!" (This was just the first indication that her paper age was not accurate, as is the case in a lot of Ethiopian adoptions.)

We returned to the HOH2, our guest house, and ate lunch together with the other families. We played ball in the courtyard, watched movies, played with Play-doh, and had fun with the other kids. She read the entire book Go, Dog, Go perfectly in English. But one of the best parts of the day was when I let her try on clothes. She chose a dress, looked in the mirror, then hugged me and kissed me and said, "Thank you, Mommy."