Saying Goodbye, for Now

Dad and Reece riding in the car, Brittney Spears style! I told you that no car seat was way more fun...

Mom tried to put a hat on him earlier in the week, but he took it right off. He seems to like this one just fine, and Ally is very happy for it.

This is Allyson introducing future masculine identity crisis issues for our poor son (this is the hat he wouldn't wear at all early in our stay; he kept it on for about 2 minutes this time, enough to get a picture.)

Reece's moms--does the picture not say it all?

We've come to the end of our wonderful time here in Addis. This trip has really exceeded our wildest expectations. I was afraid that I might just want to come back home as soon as we got Reece, but we've really enjoyed having the time here to get used to him, away from all the distractions and demands of the everyday back home. I also feel privileged to like the people and the culture of our baby's birth country so much. It's really been an awesome time--well taken care of by our agency staff, plenty of sightseeing, great food at incredible prices (if you're not much for Ethiopian food, there are tons of quality Italian places, as Italy occupied the country for some years preceding and during WWII), and the best baby ever!



We met the birth mother this morning. Allyson was very stressed about it--actually, mostly sad because she can't imagine what the birth mother must feel to have felt compelled to give him up. The meeting, however, once again, went WAY better than we could have imagined. The mother was happy to see her boy, but also happy to see the family he's ended up with. Phew--we met her approval! We spent about 45 minutes with her as a social worker translated, and were able to find out a lot about the birth mother, her past, as well as how Reece was born and cared for before she brought him to our agency (Reece was with 6 1/2 months old when he got to agency; he's now 9 1/2 months old). We also got some great video and pictures that we hope will be of value and meaning to Reece in the future. By the way, I am in no way in my unemotional man-account doing any justice to the tenderness and specialnes of this meeting--I hope Ally can write about it soon, but she's coaxing a baby to sleep in the car right now...



I came to the most expensive internet cafe in town (Sheraton) in order to try to upload some pictures before we head back. The other "high speed" internet cafes weren't so high speed...we'll see how this goes...it worked!

See many of you home soon! We leave tonight, Friday, at 1030 pm on a Lufthansa flight, and will be home Sat afternoon. Thanks to everyone for all your comments and e-mails of love and support--