May 17, 2013

Today is the day for court.

We felt that today, we would not do much other than prepare for the court date, and for the visit we hoped to have later in the day.

As a result, we slept in a bit, and just relaxed.  We ordered lunch, and we prepped packages to go to the orphanage in both cases (if we passed and if we did not).  We had made arrangements to be picked up at 1:30 in preparation for a 2:00 court time.  We were a bit eager and went down at 1:00.  At 1:15 our ride showed up, and we went to Afroland to pick up Martha, who is the representative who looks after the adoption cases from the Ethiopian side.  She's a very friendly and down to earth woman.  We asked the question at this point whether we would be returning to our hotel before going back to the orphanage in either situation (passing or not passing), and we were told that we would come back first, so we left our packages in the room.  The 4 of us drove to the courthouse for court.  We arrived, and were seated in a room with many chairs, that was about the size of a large hotel room.  There were about a dozen other people waiting in there as well.  Apparently it was a very slow day.  We waited about 15 minutes.  We were called into another small room where there was a judge and a clerk.  The judge asked us a number of questions, ranging from "Have you met the child" to "How long has the adoption process taken".  It was very informal, and lasted about 5 minutes.  At the end of this she said "You are now the legal parents of Rufael, He is yours".  That was it.  We were now the parents of the most beautiful Ethiopian boy.  We left the room, and headed out to the car, and we drove Martha back to the agency office.  At this point, we realized that we were going to be driven back to the orphanage, without going to the hotel first.  As a result, we had not brought our package that we wanted to give to Elijah, to break the ice, and win his trust.

We arrived at the orphanage, and were ushered into the same room we had been in in the previous visit.  At this point, we realized that there were things painted on the walls.  We asked our driver whether those had been there the first time, and he said yes... I guess we were too focused on the children to notice the surroundings when we came the first time.  We waited for a while as they woke the kids up from their naps, and put them on the potty..  We peeked around the corner, and it was a very cute sight to see all the little kids (about 25 of them) all lined up in the hallway each on their own potties.  Very cool.  They are all in diapers, but learning.

We waited a few more minutes, and Elijah was brought into the room, by one of the nannies.  We spent just over an hour with him in the room, trying to get him to warm up to us.  He seemed very worried and concerned most of the meeting, but at some point, he was giggling and smiling, as Hilary held him, and danced with him a bit.  Hilary was also able to feed him lunch, Raman noodles, and he ate without a problem, and made sure that she got every last noodle onto the spoon.  We were able to get some pictures of him, and the two of us, which is what you've seen on Facebook and the blog so far.

At about 4:15 or so, we left, and our driver brought us back to the hotel.  The traffic was much crazier than we'd seen to that point.  I may never complain about our traffic back home, again.  There is a lot of road construction, and lots of detours that need to be taken.  We haven't seen any traffic lights that are actually in operation, and even when there are police directing traffic, it still seems to be a bit of a free for all.  We may have mentioned it already, but it bears repeating.... How many of us could deal with a 16 lane uncontrolled intersection?  The vehicles crossing this intersection, all seem to know what to do, but I wouldn't even contemplate driving here.  It's easier sometimes, just not to watch the traffic.  And the pollution... craziness..  My throat and eyes were burning yesterday as we were stuck in the traffic jam.  Hilary's glasses had a thick layer of dust or grime on them..

We got back to the hotel, and washed up.  We called our parents to give them the good news, and then went to Facebook to update it there.  We were blessed by the comments and likes that seemed to never end.  We spent the evening relaxing, and enjoying the fact that we are now officially a mom and dad!