A week of firsts

Mati's had a big week. So many firsts, all in just 6 days time!

First...
-bath with Haven
-lunch at Chick-fil-A
-visit to the park

-stop at Target

-ride in a shopping cart

-visit to the library

-time meeting his pediatrician

-walk to the post office

-splash in the pool

-rides in his car seat

-walks on the bike trail

-bottles with whole milk

-sippy cups

-foods- including turkey, grapes, bananas, sweet potato fries, applesauce, sloppy joes, green beans, squash casserole- and those are just some of his favorites!

We are so thankful for how well Mati fits into our family and for a great week of adjustment as a family of four!

Getting adjusted

It's hard to believe that we've been home for two days already. We had such a sweet homecoming with Haven and were able to celebrate with several friends that evening.

Sunday was a fog and mostly forgotten by all of us. Yesterday found us feeling more like ourselves. We spent the afternoon at the International Adoption Center and everyone was so pleased with Mati's progress. He was not too pleased with the whole situation there as he got no sleep, they kept messing with him and took 11 vials of blood!

It still doesn't seem real that this has all happened and we are home together. But we are enjoying our new reality!

Big sister Haven always wants to be with brother. He's not too sure what to think about it sometimes!

Home

After three flights, 31 hours of travel and not much sleep we made it home! We arrived in Cincinnati around four yesterday and made it home just before six. It was SO amazing to see Haven and introduce her to her brother. Several of our friends also stopped by to meet Mathios and celebrate our homecoming. Thanks for praying us safely home...more to come!

Ethiopia: Day 5

It's been a much quieter day for us today. We decided to stay back at the guest house while some of the other families went to visit one of the orphanages that AW works with. I think it was a good choice for us. Mathios has come out of his shell even more today. He's pulling himself to stand on the furniture and even cruising a long it. This from the kid who just sat and looked at us 48 hours ago! He's laughing, playing and letting us know when he's not happy about something! We met up with our group for lunch at Metro Pizza. It was a really nice place, but directly across from a large plot of men herding their goats. Like we stepped off the bus and had to step around goats. Different!

This afternoon we hung out here while Mathios slept and then we went with a few other families to do a bit more shopping. The whole point of the trip was to go to a spice shop and I still don't know how that never happened. Transportation has been interesting this week! Everything was crazy today as people were going in a million different directions including back to the embassy. Praise the Lord that our two families that had delays at the embassy yesterday got everything worked out and will be leaving with us tomorrow.

Tonight we ate dinner in our room instead of having pizza again here at the guest house. Easy mac and tuna salad- yum! M ate spaghettios and he was a big fan! He's been eating so well. Thank you to everyone who prayed for that! The guys were supposed to have a guys night out tonight but our guide never showed up so they just sat around downstairs talking. I was planning on reading and relaxing while they were gone, but our suitemate, Sara, and I got talking and that was time much better spent. We are going to miss Shawn and Sara- they have been the best!

And now were headed to bed. I thought today would drag by, but it hasn't at all. I can't believe this is our last night here! Tomorrow morning we are going to visit a coffee factory and we'll be purchasing the coffee we promised some of you! We leave for the airport around 4:30 for our 7:30 flight to Dubai. A brief layover there and then a 2:30am flight back across the world! We land at JFK around 7:30am Saturday morning and will arrive back in Cincinnati around 4pm after a painful layover in NY. Please pray for the Lord to shower us with grace, perseverance and patience for our travels. We are so ready to be home and hope that the trip isn't as painful as we're expecting! So this will probably be it from Ethiopia. You'll hear from us again when we are safely home!

Ethiopia: Day 4 - Embassy

Well Mathios slept well last night, but we were up much of the night for no good reason. Mathios was pretty snotty, coughing and snoring the night away; it didn't phase him though, as he slept from 9pm until almost 8am. We have been battling the time change and the altitude and mostly losing, unless we have help from Ambien. We were drug free last night in case M didn't sleep well and we needed to be lucid. But tonight we're getting to bed early and taking back the night with sleeping medicine. He woke up snotty and soaked through with sweat (and another substance) - let's just say we need some more capacity from our diapers and to get the boy some Motrin. We also needed some help from Immodium and Cipro for our belly troubles today, but we persevered and were feeling better by mid afternoon; not sure what is doing us wrong, but suspect it was the cheese on our pizza last night. We laid low this morning and hung out in our room.

At noon the bus left for the embassy so we could get him a visa. After multiple metal detector screenings and various waiting rooms, we spent about 2 minutes with a representative from the consulate who asked us a few questions about our experience with the adoption process. After all 6 of our families waited and had interviews, we left (about two hours). Unfortunately, two of the families in our group are still awaiting paperwork from the states and will have to come back tomorrow and hopefully will be able to leave the country on Friday - pray for them. After the embassy visit we stopped at a few various shops. We picked up an Ethiopian national team soccer jersey, a parallel Bible (Amharic next to English), and a kid's Bible in Amharic. We got back to the guest house and hung out for a while before dinner. We got M to laugh and smile for us finally and when we left him to play down on the floor by himself he started crawling around. We just think that he's not used to being watched all the time like we've been doing!

There has been a major transformation in him in the past 24 hours. When he is with us (alone) he'll babble on and on, reach for things, crawl around, laugh here and there at us, and just engage with us. He's still reserved when others are around, but is opening up to us. We're so thankful for what the Lord is doing in our family. We can't wait to be home and all together again. Saturday evening is getting closer and closer!

Not much on the agenda for tomorrow. We might go visit two of the orphanages America World works with, but haven't decided what to do. We are really enjoying our suitemates and their little boy. Everyone in our group is wonderful and we are thankful to share this amazing
experience with them.

Ethiopia: Day 3

Another crazy day here in Ethiopia, but a fantastic one! We didn't have any plans until leaving for the market to do some shopping at 10am. We got a slow start and since we had to go to the airport to pick up our bags we didn't have a whole lot of time there. But we managed to wheel and deal and get quite a few things that we hoped to purchase here including a few small toys for Mathios, a traditional outfit and some gifts. We left the rest of our group at the markets and went with one of our drivers to pick up our bags- yippee!! We were SO happy to see them sitting next to the baggage carousel. Even going into the airport is different here- we had to pay an entrance fee. It was only 25 cents, but still funny!

After we got our bags we got dropped off at the guest house so we could put on clean clothes- hooray!- and get things in order for Mathios. We missed out on lunch with the group, but our Easy Mac came to the rescue. We got picked up and headed over to the Transition Home. We had photo releases for five different families so we had lots of kids to take pictures of and love on. Cale was out taking care of our 2 large donation bags and I was in the house holding Mathios and they just started bringing the kids out! It was a little crazy as I'm trying to hold onto M and get the other babies to smile while I took pictures. Thankfully he came back midway through the second child and we were able to tag team. It was wonderful for us to be able to meet all of these kids and spend a little time with them and love on them for their parents. (And if you're one of those parents- pictures and info coming soon!)

We had almost an hour at the Transition Home before the rest of the group got there. It was nice because although it was busy, it would have been a lot more hectic with five other families there! Our poor guy is super congested and was just not feeling well this afternoon so he was actually kind of fussy. But he managed just fine. We got to talk with the main nurse at the TH and hear a little more about his health and go over his "schedule". Nothing we didn't know, but it was still good to talk with her. So we spent the rest of the afternoon just playing with Mathios, the other babies and talking with the nannies. Right before we left, Mathios finally fell asleep in his mama's arms and rode away from the TH without even knowing it. Leaving there was really emotional. Knowing that has been his home and that they have taken such good care of him. One of the little girls in our group had a hard time leaving. She cried out for her nanny over and over and over. It was heartbreaking.

When we got back to the guest house we put Mathios down in his little cradle- and I do mean little- it's like a doll cradle! He slept and slept and slept. We finally woke him at 6:45 so we could eat dinner. He had a hard time waking up and was not too happy with us! We then were even more mean and put him in the sink for a quick bath. He didn't like it at all, but I think it was just too cold for him. But we got him all snuggled up in a towel and then he peed on Cale through the towel! On his clean jeans! Oh well! We mixed up a bottle for him of milk (he's been on a special formula and this was an experiment) and he ate a few ounces and then packed away rice, a few bites of carrots, some pizza and some Cheerios. Today was the birthday of one of the guys in our travel group so we enjoyed some cake and then came up to play with Mathios in our room.

Mathios is VERY reserved. No smiles or even almost-smiles today. But, two different times when Cale walked away or left the room he immediately started crying. That's a great sign! And once he even responded when Cale asked where's mama by looking right at me. We made fools of ourselves trying to fix his special formula tonight and made a mess of the kitchen, melted a plastic water bottle and still didn't end up with anything consumable. So we gave him more real milk and he downed it. Fell asleep drinking it and was totally out when we were trying to burp him. Apparently we kept him up waaay past his bedtime! Noted. He went right down in his bed and hasn't made a peep. Well, some coughing, but that's it.

It has been an amazing day and it just blows us away that our son is asleep in the next room! I don't know when it will really sink in that this is it...he is here...he is ours! We are loving every minute of it and just getting to know him. He does babble a little bit and his voice is soft except for when he's crying. Then watch out! Just like his big sister! He's still rather elusive to us, but we're loving it. Thanks to everyone for all the kind comments and emails. Thanks for journeying with us!

Bags and a boy!

Praise the Lord we got our bags this morning! And we leave in 30
minutes to get our boy!

Ethiopia: Day 2 - We Meet Our Son!!!

Wow! Wow! Wow! What a day. WOW...

We awoke this morning at 8:30 after a drug induced sleep; for some reason the fact that we've only slept less than about 10 hours in the past three days didn't help us sleep the night through. we awoke at about 3am and decided to get some help from our friend Ambien. We had breakfast here at the guest house then filled out all of the paperwork for our embassy visit on wednesday. Next stop was Lucy's restaurant near the Ethiopian national museum (which houses the famous fossilized remains of an early human). It was quite delicious; Cale had an indian dish, and kate had pasta with chicken. After that it was off to the transition home (TH) in the pouring rain. We got sidetracked when the road was blocked because a senior member of government was headed to the airport along our route. Eventually we saw the America World sign and our hearts started racing!

They opened the gate for us and took us up on the porch. They started bringing out the kids one by one in fairly rapid succession. We were last (alphabetical order, of course) but were surprised because we were watching the other families and video taping for some of them, so unfortunately we didn't capture the moment with our video camera. Cale had actually seen him through the window (his distinctive head profile!) as they were preparing to bring the kids out, but wasn't sure it was him due to the fact that he was wearing a white pajamas with large pink flowers. Sure enough, it was him. We should have expected it, as most of the other pictures from there have featured him in girly attire. That will surely change tomorrow.

He is such a handsome, beautiful little boy! I'm struggling with words to describe him here. He has quite a belly on him and definitely weighs more that 14 pounds. The must really have been pumping him full of formula. The emailed us on Friday and told us that he has been eating better and the took out the feeding tube, thankfully. Praise the Lord for that. He sat with Kate and drank about 6 ounces of formula - he downed it in about 10 minutes. He was generally chill and
liked to snuggle. His nanny would swing by periodically and call his name and coo at him and he would light up. He started to warm up and we got a few almost-smiles out of him. We only spent two hours there; it went by quickly. We are so thankful that the Lord has done this.

Can't wait until tomorrow when we can take him with us! We also get some time with the other children at the TH and to talk with the nannies/nurse about the details of his care.

After we left the ladies had some time at a spa (quite a jump considering what Kate had just experienced), while the guys got to go to a bookstore. After a quick stop back at the guest house, we headed out for a traditional Ethiopian dinner, complete with honey wine, music, and syncopated dancing. Words cannot describe... you'll have to see the video sometime. After about an hour and a half the tired, emotionally drained ground headed back to the guest house. Today was Monday, so the power was out in this neighborhood; here at the guest house they run a generator in the evenings, so were are able to send this update!

We did get some good news that our lost luggage will be arriving tomorrow around lunch time. Thanks for praying. An amazing, wonderful, exhausting day that we will never, ever forget! Praise the Lord!

Ethiopia: Day 1

We arrived in Ethiopia around 11am today. When we went to board our flight we were notified that we had been upgraded to business class. It was a great way to start the day! When we settled into our seats the other person in our row said, "Are you Kate?" It was one of our America World families who recognized me from the blog. So Allison and I spent part of the flight talking and getting to know each other. I could get used to the business class life- it was wonderful!

We were right at the front of the plane so we were quick to get in line for our visas and exchanged money very easily. After we passed through passport control we went to baggage claim. We kept waiting and waiting for our bags to come out. And then we waited some more. Two of our four bags arrived safely and we're not too sure where the others are. Unfortunately for our physical comfort, the two bags missing are the suitcases that contain all of our clothes and
everything I brought for Mathios. We filed a claim, tried not to get too upset and are praying that they will arrive on the flight from Dubai tomorrow morning. Please pray that they get here!

We were met at the airport by the tour company that works with our agency and were brought to the guest house. It's comfortable and clean and we have wonderful suitemates. We have private bed and baths and share a common area with a kitchenette. Sara and Shane, our suitemates, invited us to go sightseeing this afternoon. So just a few hours after we arrived we were driving through the wild streets of Addis Ababa up to Entoto Mountain. We visited a small Ethiopian museum (had a great tour guide), saw the oldest Orthodox Church in Addis Ababa and walked through the old "palace grounds." The views from the top were breathtaking and the history of this country is amazing. It was a great way to spend our first afternoon in Ethiopia.

As you can see, we have internet access and we're so thankful for that. This emailed post is coming to you from the comfort our own room. We just finished up dinner and are ready for bed. The last 2.5 days have been exhausting and we've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow! About the time you are getting up, eating breakfast and starting your day we will be meeting Mathios! We are truly amazed that this day has finally come. So what if we don't have clean clothes to wear- we get to meet our boy! Let's see if I can keep this attitude tomorrow if the bags don't come!

We're doing well, though we're pretty exhausted from traveling and now suddenly being at 8,000 feet or so of elevation. Hopefully a good night of sleep awaits us; we know that tomorrow will be great!

Dubai

Dubai: Millenium Hotel

Friday was the longest day of our life! Saying goodbye to Haven and life as we have known it for the last three years was every bit as hard as we imagined it would be. Haven did well talking about leaving these last few days and was ready to load up the minute Traci got there. But when we buckled her in her car seat, reality hit our sweet girl hard and she just couldn't stop crying. It didn't help that Kate was a wreck and they just sat there tears mingling together for a few moments. The windows were down as the drove away and Haven's poor sad wails still make our hearts ache. Traci said that she really did well the rest of the afternoon, especially considering what was going on. We are so thankful for that amazing girl the Lord's given us.

Our travels have been relatively uneventful to date. An easy flight from Cincinnati to JFK. Loathed JFK and it's ridiculous lay out. But we found some decent dinner and then just sat to wait. And wait. And wait some more. It was painful and Kate was really struggling. it didn't help that once we got on the plane and settled in we had another hour and a half ground delay. We did a lot of praying and through a few different things Kate was very aware that her struggles weren't just about missing Haven or being anxious about flights- it was a true spiritual battle. So we prayed some more and Kate prayed and journaled and listened to worship music. The Lord, in His grace, finally brought peace to our hearts, settled upset stomachs and gave our minds rest. By the way- Kate's soundtrack for this time was Travis Cottrell "Jesus Saves Live" and it was so appopriate! I wouldn't have thought this CD would be my favorite style, but the Lord has used it so many times in the short span we've had it.(The upset stomachs returned when they started serving curry for dinner at 2am. Kate slept with her sweatshirt over her head to block out the smell! And she even likes curry- just not at the hour!)

So now we're here in Dubai, getting ready to leave in a few short hours. We definitely have a countdown to Mathios running in our minds. 36 hours til we see our son's face! Praise the Lord!

We and 300 or so

We and 300 or so of our closest friends are boading a jet for a 13 hour flight to Dubai. Goodbye USA! See you on the other side...

Itinerary

We have had several people ask us what our trip is going to look like so we thought it would be helpful to post our itinerary for you. Here goes:

Friday 17 July 09: We are flying out of Cincinnati. We fly to New York and will have an overnight flight to Dubai. Thirteen hours. Oy.

Saturday 18 July 09: We arrive in Dubai at 7pm local time and will spend the night at a hotel. Thanks, Emirates!

Sunday 19 July 09: Depart Dubai in the morning and arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia around noon. We will go to our hotel and have the rest of the day to get acclimated.

Monday 20 July 09: We will have a huge paperwork meeting with all the other America World families in country preparing for our Embassy appointments later in the week. That afternoon we get to meet Mathios!!! We'll spend a few hours with him at the Transition Home and that night will have a special Ethiopian meal with all our travelling families.

Tuesday 21 July 09: We will have free time in the morning and that afternoon will get to go pick up Mathios for good! We'll spend several hours at the Transition Home, taking photos for a few other waiting families and loving on their kids and will have a traditional coffee ceremony with the nannies. Then back to our hotel for the evening.

Wednesday 22 July 09: We have a free morning before heading to the Embassy that afternoon. Each family gets called in one-by-one to be interviewed and I think having a last name that starts with Z will once again not be helpful. Could be a long afternoon for all of us!

Thursday 23 July 09: We have the opportunity to go visit two of the orphanages that America World works with in the city. We aren't sure what we will do yet, it depends on how Mathios is doing, but we hope to visit at least one of them. And word is that there is some sort of Guys Night planned for this evening!

Friday 24 July 09: We don't know exactly what is planned for Friday, but again, we can choose to do whatever we want. We might try to see some sites if we have the time, but we'll just have to be flexible. We depart Addis at 8pm headed back to Dubai.

Saturday 25 July 09: We'll start our day in Dubai and too many hours later will land in Cincinnati at 4pm. Home again, home again, jiggety jig! Hopefully we will be united as a family of four (and joined by several other family members and friends) by 6:30pm!

That's a lot going on for 8 days! It's going to be an amazing, life-changing trip! Pray for us!

An adoption party

One night last week, some sweet friends of mine and Amber's threw us an adoption party. It was a wonderful night and I left being so thankful for all these women who are so excited about the little boy getting ready to come home with us. The girls thought of everything and made prayer cards with our pictures for all in attendance, had an Ethiopia quiz, and had us share our adoption journeys by asking a series of questions. The food was delicious and the gifts were abundant. It was a wonderful night!

Gifts, prayer cards and adorable candle holders with Ethiopian colors

The food was wonderful and plentiful!

Marisa made these amazing banner for each of our sons. It said Mathios Jon: Gift from God. It's going to be hanging in our living room to welcome him home next week!

Thank you to everyone for such a special night!

Six days...

We are leaving to go get Mathios in six days! The last week of our life has been absolutely crazy. We found out late last week that Mathios has continued to have feeding issues and they have put him on an NG feeding tube. Of course this greatly worried us so we decided to take advantage of the resources at the International Adoption Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. We have been able to talk with the doctor there and she's helped us formulate a game plan for getting him home. We were encouraged this week to find out that he has started to eat some food again, but don't know what the situation will be once we get there. So we are preparing for the worst (which includes the two of us knowing how to put in and care for the NG tube!) and hoping for the best. We are so thankful for the support from the IAC and will do Mathios' follow-up care there when we get home.

We didn't receive our concrete travel dates until Tuesday and didn't realize what a miracle it was until later in the day. On Tuesday afternoon we were informed that the agency that handles all the paperwork and processing for adoptions in Ethiopia was suddenly shutting down for two weeks for training- effective immediately! Our agency's staff worked diligently after business hours ensuring that our final piece of paperwork was complete, thus enabling us to travel next week. It is truly miraculous! There was at least one other family that was supposed to be in our travel group that didn't get the necessary paperwork completed and their travel was put off until mid-August. We are praising the Lord that now is the time for us to bring our son home!

In between all the phone calls, doctor appointments, shopping, laundry, list making, packing and preparing to leave we've also been trying to make the most of our last few days as a family of three. Haven is so excited to have her brother here, but the anticipation of being apart from us has been hard for her. Please pray for her little heart!

So we leave in six days and we'll be ready. We have a few transportation details to work out and I'm sure we'll be at the store a few more times picking up "just one more thing". But come Friday, we'll have five suitcases packed and our hearts set toward Ethiopia. Can't wait!

By the way, you can sign up on the right hand side to have our blog updates delivered to your inbox. We will be posting as much as we can in Ethiopia and we'd love for you to follow along with us!

What's in a name?

Mathios Jon Kumalo Zeune.

Quite a mouthful isn't it?

Mathios: Amharic version of the name Matthew which means 'gift from God.'

Jon: Named after his grandfather and means 'God is gracious.'

Kumalo: His birth father's first name and this is his given last name by Ethiopian custom.

Zeune: Self explanatory. We didn't get to pick this one!

Mathios was named by his birth parents. Since the very start of our adoption process we have been certain that we would keep our child's given name. There were a few small caveats to this decision, but we felt very strongly about keeping his given name. The Lord knew our hearts about this and could not have given us a more aptly named child!

In Ethiopia, names take on even more significance, especially for boys, then they do here in the US. When a man has a child, the father's first name becomes the child's last name. There is no family name, but the father's first name is passed on only to the next generation. Our understanding of this cultural practice and the great emphasis placed on naming children in Ethiopia makes us appreciate our son's given name even more.

Now that we know a little bit about Mathios's birth parents and their background, knowing that they named him "gift from God" is amazing to us. He is indeed a loved little boy! He is certainly a gift to us and to our family! Our children both have two middle names, as do several of our nieces and nephews. We love this idea and of being able to honor both sides of our families and carry on those family names. There was no question that our first born son would be named after my dad, Jon and the meaning of that name is even more profound as we have been overwhelmed by God's grace in bringing Mathios into our family. We decided to keep Kumalo as his second middle name as a way of showing respect to his birth family and to his Ethiopian heritage. And well, then there's Zeune. Enough said.

And in case you were wondering, Mathios is pronounced Math-e-os. Or at least that's how we are pronouncing it! We think it is relatively correct based on our extensive internet research!

What's in a name? In this case, a lot!