GOTCHA DAY!!!!

I can not even describe for you the excitement that we all felt as we left the guest house to pick up Ayana and Moses...they were going to be a part of our family forever now. (here are Erin, Megan and Joshua as we set off!)

The vans were not as quiet as the previous day as we traveled along. People felt happy, anxious, nervous, chatty and giddy with excitement...we now knew the route to the foster home ...I felt like cheering as we turned into the bumpy dirt track leading up to the gates.

Unlike the day before, we all went in together and sat in the living room waiting for the children.

Suddenly, the nannies started to slowly enter the room, all carrying a baby or leading a child by the hand. My eyes filled with tears (yes...I cried again folks!) as I spotted a beautiful, smiling woman carrying Ayana in, she was all dressed up in the special outfit that we had chosen for this incredibly momentous day. Then there was another nanny with Moses and before we knew it, we had been handed these children FOREVER!

I again marveled at the enormity of it all, our family was now a family of seven, I had five children to care for! Ayana and Moses were a bit stunned and again looked around the room for a while before really looking at us. Moses was quite fast with his smiles this time and even laughed as we tickled him...a big open mouthed smile that we now know and love. Ayana seemed slightly more relaxed, but still smiled with a forced anxious smile if we caught her eye.

We had about 10-15 minutes with the head of the foster home, a wonderful woman that loves these children so much. She went over their routines, likes and dislikes and tried to answer any questions that we had. How do you prepare a list of questions to enable you to take over the care of two children? We asked about sleep, soothing methods, toilet training, foods, birth history etc, but it was so fast and emotional that I forgot most of what was said to me. Dave took notes thank goodness!

Every family had a chance to spend time with the head woman and then we said goodbye to the caregivers, we got to take lots of pictures of them with the children. It will be an awesome memory to share with them as they get older...we will be able to say, "Look, these women looked after you and loved you...here you are with them when we picked you up."

The nannies kissed the children and hugged them goodbye. It was so incredibly moving to watch these women saying goodbye to the children that they have taken care of and grown to love over the last few months. They sang with them, stroking their faces and kissing them. They picked them up and cuddled them, cooing to them in Amharic, gently touching their hair. Every single woman was crying as they said a final goodbye and as we walked out, holding our children, they came running out for one last cuddle, one last kiss.....everyone was sobbing as we left, it was just so overwhelming. We will never see those women again, but I know that they were sweet and gentle and loving and giving with our children...I have the deepest admiration for them.

I will post some pictures of Gotcha Day in the next post as this post is ...again!!!...too big for images.