First meeting -- the full story

Guestblogging for Stacey....she sent me this email with the full story of their first meeting with the Newbie earlier today.

I had hoped and dreamed of how the moment would be when we met our daughter, but it was nothing like we had planned. We though that we were going to tour Addis today, but we found out at midnight last night that our program with the adoption agency began this morning.

Our day began this morning with no water at the Sheraton (I’m really glad we showered the night before when we arrived). The hotel was beautiful, actually embarrassing opulent in the setting. It was very comfortable for the 7 or 8 hours we spent there. No sleeping in on the agency schedule!

Before we left the hotel, we changed some US currency into Ethiopian Birr. Boy, were we glad we did (more later on this).

Our day started at the guest house, eating a quick breakfast, and we were off to our agency’s main office. We went up four flights up to a conference room where we signed two forms and met the social workers for the children. Then it was off to the care center to meet our children.

The care center is a really nice house which used to be a private residence. It was in the “nice” part of town, and had crystal chandeliers. After we took off our shoes and surrendered our camera to the guard, we went inside to wait.

We were the last family to be called. Before they called us upstairs, our social worker told us that the newbie was “a little sick” and that she had “diarrhea.” And so the panic began! This was not how I wanted the meeting of our child to begin. I’m sure as the cameraman filmed us, I had a terrified look on my face. As we walked up the stairs holding hands, I was very nervous. We walked into her room and a nanny was holding her. She looked really sick. The nanny handed her to me and she promptly vomited all over. Dan help her next and we were very worried. She was very dehydrated and listless, no tears, sunken fontanel, the whole bit. She vomited a few more times and fell asleep. We met with the care center doctor, who at first wanted to care for her at the center. But the newbie was not keeping any of the pedialyte down and had a fever. We talked about it, and talked to the doctor and told her that we would pay for a visit to the hospital. About 30 minutes later we were off to a private hospital with a nanny and social worker in tow. The government hospital, apparently has a much longer wait and was in their words “dirty.”

Thankfully, we had birr, because it was 50 birr or $5 US for the doctor to see them. A nurse weighed the newbie and then it was off to see the doctor. Dan was chastised because he gave the doctor the diagnosis and not the symptoms. After about 5 minutes with the doctor, we paid 180 birr or roughly $18 dollars for IV fluids and a dose of anti- nausea medicine. Three hours later, she was keeping pedialyte down and was a much different baby. After a few nice big pees later (Dan cheered, go kidneys!) we were released to the care center. They even did a stool sample and thankfully no parasites. As Dan said, it was the best $25 bucks we spent on healthcare.

We visited her later in the day and she was doing better. Crying and soaked with urine. Hopefully, the trend is up and we won’t get the stomach flu.

If I thought of the worst possible first meeting with our baby, having vomit involved would be at the top of my list. Low and behold, the vomit phobe gets the barfy kid. As Dan said, “she’s our kid.”

So I’m left feeling worried and disappointed. And happy, too. She’s gorgeous when she’s not barfing.