ADOPTION BABY STEPS - WHERE WILL THEY LEAD US?

So..... After gathering all kind of information needed in order to prepare our adoption folder, we begun our sessions with our Social Worker. The sessions are aimed to discover if in fact Andreas and I are suitable parents to adopt an orphan from Africa or from anywhere really... In the beginning, both of us sat in these sessions, hence, it was OK. Once we had to move to 1-2-1 with the social worker, Andreas freaked out. He really is not the toye of person who likes to confide in anyone let alone a stranger. I on the other hand was OK, more than OK really, never had a problem with talking. Our social worker did a lot of talking herself so no problem there. Once the sessions were almost over, we started (rather I started) gathering the documents. Some of which were just a visit to the local KEP, others were a complete nightmare especially the medical exams from a PUBLIC hospital! OMG, how many times did we go to a public hospital, waiting in vain and how many times did we try to work our way through the system in order not to wait! In any case the ordeal was horrid. The problem is that neiter Andreas nor I could understand the process of doing these exams and so each time, we had missed out on bringing some valuable paper or other and so we had to start over. We were pathetic really. One day, alas, we managed to succeed! Which was such a relief... On the other hand, the psych eval of which we had heard horror stories was much smoother than anticipated. The psych hospital branch was very very close to our house, we went there during one morning and half an hour later we had our paper. That's it! (not sure however how effective the "eval" was, but there you go. Since Andreas and I know we are psych free people no problem here, is there?). Once we gathered all the necessary docs, had them translated (at a cost) and then the Ethiopean Consulate stamped them in order to autneticate them, and each stamp cost 81 euros... (so at a cost here too) and then we sent our sacred folder to our Ethiopean lawyer via courier (yep.. at a cost) we then booked our tickets (needless to say at a cost!) and arranged our trip during Easter time 2012. It was a bit scary to plan a trip to a place, where everyone said we should have had a lot of vaccinations like yellow fever or take malaria pills etc but once we went to the vaccination lady in the prefecture and she described all the downsides of the vaccines, Andreas and I turned around and left. If we are to get these symptoms, better to get them from the actual mosquitos and not the self imposed needles. Suddenly, my mum decided to spend Easter In Dubai! Which meant that my kids had to go to Dubai too, since she had promised to take care of them whilst we were away in East Africa. Since we had already booked Emirates for ourselves we added to the booking our kids and we were all off to Dubai to meet with my sister. We were then scheduled to leave the next day to Addis Ababa. Luck had it, that our DXB - ADD flight was delayed by one day and so we got to spend one day in Dubai and wish Max, my nephew happy birthday!One less day in Ethiopia of course which I hoped would not be detrimental. The flight in Addis was bumpy as hell, once we landed the pilot said: well i can't say a lot about the weather, since you felt it all!. Great, thank God for Jameson ... or was it Johnny? Who cares, the job was done. Once safely landed in Addis, I was also safely drunk and all I want is a good night's sleep. Goodnight for now, next time I will share the experience of this first trip to a wonderful country which we have come to love and from which comes our beautiful daughter Hanna.

2013, the year of Hanna?

So, it is March 08th today. It is 1.11 in the morning, so I guess it is March 9th. Andreas and I are sitting in the living room and each is staring at his own PC screen, a wonderful alienating, fascinating world. We went out tonight, it was good fun. Xanthippie and George are now 7 & 8 and it hard to imagine how life was with two small demanding children. Cause they are not small anymore. Nore are they demanding. Of course they have needs! And naturally there are times they are tiring, especially after they ve said mum a thousand times. But, still. They have grown up! They are becoming more independent as each day passes. They share the company of each other and as a result, Andreas and I have more time to ourselves. In the mornings when they wake up, let's say at quarter to eight, they play for a good one to two hourse before they start complaining about fulfilling some sort of basic need ie food or WC.... Sometimes they even prepare the food for all of us to eat. It is just so unbearingly sweet! 4 years ago I felt agitated. After some thought in to it, I realised I wanted another kid. Andreas was absolutely negative. Whatever I said or did, would not change his mind. Threats, mood swings, cunning romantic gestures or other tricks, all failed miserably. And as they failed, I was more and more desperate. Then,one day as I was cleaning the shelves of our home IKEA library, I found a folded piece of paper. I opened it. It was from a seminar I took at Shell a long time ago. We had been asked to write down 2-3 things we wanted to do in our lives before we die. I wrote, I want to climb Matsu Pitsu (God knows why), I want to adopt a baby and something else too, that I can't remember, hence it was probably not that important. Then a week later, I visited my childless and incapable of having any children, cousin and she mentioned reading an article about a guy who had adopted two children from Ethiopia. She thought it was great. Something clicked. Next morning I visited the Ethiopian Consulate in Greece which was situated 5 minutes from our house (is that carmic or what, Neni?) and I asked about any information they had on Ethiopian adoption. They gave me a long

to do

list. I went home and I opened an excel file in which I typed every item of the list. Afet I carfeully studied it, it was time to speak to Andreas again. Certain that he would disagree, I was ready for a big fight. Somehow the fight never came. He was not instantly open to the idea, but he was sceptical. I would see that he was processing the idea. I knew that if he agreed , my motives would be different to mine. I couldn't care less. My motives had to do with me having a third child. His, with saving an child. Fine, lets move on! In the next few blogs, I will share the whole experience from that visit in the Consulate until today... Goodnight everyone!