The Meeting...

Sorry, it is getting harder and harder to find blog time! Merrie and I had our first solo run tonight. It went pretty well, although she was up an hour and a half later than her bed time due to an unfortunate combination of hiccups and badly timed barks from Stew and Rose.

Okay... On Monday, August 25th, we found ourselves and Shawn and Lisa H being escorted into a living room/ dining room area in the House of Hope compound. We were told to wait and were all sitting nervously, wondering when we were going to be allowed to see our children. Through the curtains on the windows I saw a procession: the HOH director, Tsegay, and three women carrying two babies and one child. The walked into the room, set a little girl and a baby on Lisa and Shawn's lap. I was stunned! Then, another of the nannies entered the room carrying Meron. We didn't even have time to get our cameras out to catch the moment. The nanny walked directly to me and Tewabech and I stared at each other. I was reluctant to try to hold her, because I was afraid the rejection might kill me if she cried. The nanny knew better, and plopped her into my arms. Meron whimpered for about 2 seconds and then just stared at me some more. If you have met her in person, you know that she is quite an analytical sort of girl and really needs to study new situations and people before she decides about them. I could feel the weight of her consideration, and it terrified me. What if she decided that she didn't like me? I didn't think I could stand it, because I had known for months that I liked her.

At that point, I realized I was hogging the baby and that Nathan might like to see her. We went and sat down on the couch together and I remembered that there were other people on the planet... even in the very room. I looked over to see Shawn and Lisa tickling their extremely cute 4 year old daughter while Shawn held their 11 month old son. It made me smile to see their new family. I think that was when I realized that Nathan, Meron, and I were a family... it only made sense because we were on the couch opposite them, and had the same stunned, happy, terrified looks on our faces.

Nathan and I took turns holding Tewabech and trying to make her smile. I got just a ghost of a smile for making faces, and then a little bit more of a smile when we did our first rendition of 'Soooo biiig' After about half an hour, Tsegay came in and said that the driver was ready to take us to our guest house and that they'd take us to a grocery store to buy everything we'd need to take care of Tewabech tonight. At this point I realized she was coming with us right then. I was excited, but nervous. After all, we hadn't bathed or slept in 3 days, were in a completely foreign environment, had no idea what our guest house looked like or if it was suitable for this miraculous little person I had strapped to my body, and were in many other ways.... not at our best. Wishing Tewabech luck, we followed Tsegay to the car. Ephrim and Tsegay drove us to a grocery store, where an armed guard gave Ephrim permission to park. We walked in like people in a daze and walked aimlessly around the store trying to figure out what we would need to buy . I think we ended up with two different bottles of baby wash, lotion, the worst diapers on the planet, something called 'baby bum butter' wipes, carrot baby cereal, formula, spaghetti, bread, coke and tomato paste. As I said, really not at our best. I still am not sure why I decided that I needed two different bottles of baby wash.

We arrived at our guest house, checked in, and went to our room after Tsegay told us Ephrim would be picking us up at 10am. We proceeded to change Merrie's diaper and dress her in something warmer that we had cleverly packed in our carry on luggage. She finally started to think we were funny. Nathan and I just sat in front of her, taking turns trying to make her laugh. Each of us vying for the favor of one little smile or wrinkle of the nose. We laughed hysterically at the aggressive way she attacked her cereal (it is hardly lady like, but very amusing), then washed the bowl and spoon with bottled water and gave it to her to play with... since we didn't have any toys for her. She pretended to stir the cereal, so I pretended to eat some. She then spent the next 5 minutes pretending to feed first me, then herself. Nathan and Meron finally collapsed into sleep, and I had just enough time to take a few pictures before following them.

All of these pictures are from our first day together.