Picker Point

Ethiopia Day Two

Posted by Mary Beth on Thursday, August 20th, 2009
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Friday, July 24th finally came; meeting day, the day I had been dreaming about and imagining for a year was finally a reality. We met the rest of our travel group in the lobby of the hotel. It was fun to meet friends in person that I had been chatting with online for several months. We were all antsy to get next door and meet our kids. First we had an orientation meeting with some of the Holt staff. Again, we were blown away by the kindness, grace, and beauty of the Ethiopian people. The Holt staff is so warm and friendly, we immediately felt comfortable with them.

After a brief meeting, we were given our name tags and taken next door. We were told that before we met our kids, they wanted to give us a tour of the facility.

The Holt Care Center is so beautiful and clean. Outside of being with their own loving family, I can’t imagine a better place for these kids to be.


They took us into the rooms where the children sleep and play. They have the kids divided into different age groups, and there are nannies assigned to each group.

We saw a few children as we toured the center, but I knew that we hadn’t visited Josiah’s room yet. As none of us had yet seen our kids, we felt sure that they were keeping them in another room until it was time to meet. After viewing the first and second floor, they took us up to the third floor where there were a couple more baby rooms.

There were quite a few of us, fifteen traveling plus the staff that was giving the tour. Somehow as we walked up to the third floor, I got in the back of the group. As the group crowded into the last nursery, I could hear them ooh-ing and ahh-ing. It seems one family had seen their baby. I couldn’t see into the room, but I listened as the new parents greeted their baby. Then the director asked if anyone else was adopting a baby. “Mary Beth and Casey,” someone answered. “Who is your baby?” the director asked me. “Marefu.” “Ah, Marefu is in here,” she invited me in. “Can you find him?” she asked.

What??? Pick out my baby from a group of eight or nine, in front of all of these people?!! Didn’t she know that we had only gotten a couple decent pictures of him, and who knows when they were taken or how old he was then? Suddenly everyone moved out of the way to let me in. There were cribs lining the walls of the small room. A few babies played on the floor, but they weren’t mine. I began to feel panicked. What if I got it wrong? What if I picked out the wrong baby in front of everyone? I noticed there were name tags on each bed. I started looking for “Marefu.” “Don’t look at the name tags” the director called. What? He may be in a bed with a different name? To make it even worse, Ethiopians have no qualms about putting boys in pink, and all the children are so pretty that is often very hard to tell if they are boys or girls.

I cheated. I looked at the name tags. When I found him, he wasn’t at all what I was looking for, but I could tell that he was our little Marefu. Here’s what I was looking for:

Here’s what I found:

There he was, lying in his little crib. He seemed happy and content, if not a little surprised to suddenly see this white face staring down at him. I picked him up. They had him dressed in a huge fleece jacket. I felt like I was hugging someone in a parka, like I couldn’t really get to him. Soon Casey was at my side, taking pictures and stroking his head.

To be honest, the whole thing was so surreal. I don’t know how long we stood there looking at him. The rest of the day is a blur to me. I know that we took turns holding him for a while, and that at one point a nanny brought me some cereal to feed him. He seemed happy with us, and barely cried the entire morning.

At lunch time, we left him to return to our hotel. We ate lunch at the hotel and had another meeting with staff about our upcoming embassy appointment. Later that afternoon we were able to return to the care center to see our kids. This time we walked around the center with him some. It was fun to see the other families and meet their kids.

The whole day seemed to fly by. My memory of it is somewhat blurry, like memories of our wedding day, or the day Caleb was born. I know what I did, and I remember the events of the day, but the reality of what was happening and the emotions that follow were so overwhelming it was almost numbing.

When I look back on this whole adoption process, this day, meeting day, will always be the day we jumped off the cliff. I thought boarding the plane was jumping off, but that was still part of the climb, a long, hard, steady climb. This day, the day Casey and I held him and looked into his eyes for the first time, will always be the day that we held our breath and jumped.

Posted in: Adoption, Travel.