I kill technology

About three nights into the all-night-feeding marathon that has become
my life, my watch stopped. This was pretty annoying. If you're going
to be up for hours feeding, you want to know HOW many hours you were
up for, feeding, so you can claim the appropriate sympathy from your
spouse the next morning. [No OF COURSE I'm not doing all the feeding.
We're just not always up at the same time]. Also, you can find out
whether that cry really is for the next feed, or if you just fell
asleep out of sheer exhaustion for about sixty seconds and actually,
that cry is part of the same feed you were already doing and thought
you had finished but the baby was only faking being asleep and now
wants MORE MILK, darnit, MORE, NOW.

Anyway, after a few nights (and days) of no watch, and J getting a
little fed up with me saying 'what's the time, sweetie?' about every
ten minutes, I decided enough was enough. I bought a new watch, for
the princely sum of fifty birr. This was great! That night, I knew
that when I woke up, it was 12.30. And then, next time, it was
12.45.... what? That doesn't add up, especially since the first feed
had taken about an hour.

And that was when I found out that my second watch had stopped, too,
on the very first night I owned it. (And no, it wasn't a wind-up. We
tried).

So anyway. I think I have accepted the no-watch situation, until we
get back to the land of branded replacement batteries. But that is
really just my way of gently introducing the fact that today,
completely out of the blue and unexpectedly, my LAPTOP died. Utterly
and completely - I can't even turn it on. It was only three months
old, and I really loved that little machine. I loved that it enabled
me to send email. I loved that I could download my photos onto it. I
didn't, but I could. I loved that it had all my music on it, that I
could play through its tinny little speakers in the middle of the
night.

For now, I'm typing on my mum's. But it will go back and live in her
room, and mine is staring at me blankly, with its empty screen mocking
me. What's the point of all this? No idea, really, except that I now
feel even more cut off from everything and everyone.

And since it seems my powers of killing technology are increasing... I
really, really hope that there are several spare engines on the plane
on the way home.

Me again...

It's really hard to know how to write at the moment, because my
thoughts are so jumbled up inside my head. Maybe one day I will be
able to make sense of all this, but at the moment, in the middle of
it, I definitely can't. Some of what I'm feeling seems really
negative, and I hate the fact that this sounds like I'm complaining.
I'm really not, I promise. I look at those two little faces grinning
at me, and I know I'm the luckiest woman in the world.

But. Parenting is famous for being something of an adventure. And
being in a foreign country, with (as it turns out) NO idea of when you
are going to be able to go home, is also something of an adventure.
And I've discovered that I like my adventures one at a time, please.
What's getting me down is just all the really boring stuff - we are
staying in a guesthouse that is mostly okay, but the bathroom door
doesn't close, the shower doesn't really work, the drainer doesn't
drain, there are loads of cockroaches, there is (obviously) no clean
water coming out of the tap and mostly we are just a looooooong way
from home. We had to pack our bags for our first month of parenting
with no freaking CLUE what we were really going to need. And now that
we have more of an idea, we can't get any of the stuff. I'm beginning
to obsess about how wonderful it would be to have MORE BOTTLES. I'm
going to embarrass myself here and admit that we only brought four.
Yes, you read that right! Four! For twins! We have the whole Playtex
drop-ins system, which is fine, and means the bottle bodies don't need
to be sterilised, but ack! This means that we can't make up any more
than four bottles at a time, which is absolutely no joke when we are
faced with two tiny malnourished panic-feeding babes. I'm sure there
are decent bottles somewhere in Addis, but I don't have any idea how
to find them, and I don't really have the time to scour the city - see
above, re: two tiny malnourished panic-feeding babes.

Last night I was asleep for long enough to get into a proper REM
cycle, and here's what I dreamed - I dreamed I went to the supermarket
and bought more bottles (and some chicken… sorry vegetarians). This is
how much I am missing having access to standard consumer goods - I am
dreaming about those fluorescent-lit aisles as if it was some kind of
paradise, rather than the kind of place I would normally spend a week
eating mouldy fridge leftovers to avoid.

In case it's not obvious, yes I do feel incredibly guilty for how much
I miss the comfortable bits of my life at home. I know how great it
is, technically, to be spending all this time in our babies' birth
country. But the thing is - we're not really in Ethiopia here, we're
in a hotel room. We have a view of Ethiopia from our windows, but it's
incredibly difficult to get out during the day (see above, re: two
tiny etc) so we're not really adding anything to our sum of fabulous
Ethiopian experiences during this trip, we're just trying to survive
our transition to a family of four and that feels like quite enough.
Last trip, and this trip, I've been hit hard by how much lower my
capacity for thrilling new experiences is than I had assumed it would
be. If you haven't travelled yet, I think my one piece of advice would
be - plan to take it slow. Becoming a parent to a child who has no
idea who you are is a huge and giant thing. And if you had gone into
labour and delivered a child in a hospital in Addis, you wouldn't even
be thinking about doing sightseeing during that same week, no matter
how physically great you were feeling. Getting to know Ethiopia is
hugely important, but I think we (as an adoption community) have
unrealistic expectations about combining this with parenting a new
child, especially if it is our first child.

Personally (and this little sidetrack is just my own personal opinion,
I'm sure others will disagree) I think this is part of the reason that
it's too easy to fall into one of two schools of thought on Ethiopia
travelling - a) it was horrible! I couldn't take a proper shower, and
it was impossible to get decent cheese! (or baby bottles, if you're
me, or whatever). Or b) Ethiopia was great! It is a wonderful land,
full of rich culture and beautiful friendly people! I'm exaggerating
a little, but I know that I personally can be prone to this, and I'm
sure I'm not alone. We get this strange, short time here, and all our
experiences are polarised through the lens of this bone-crunchingly
intense experience that is new adoptive parenthood. Like everywhere on
earth, this is an incomprehensible place, especially after a length of
time measured in days, or at best weeks. But things feel awful and
beautiful and it's all too hard to make sense of it. Our
cognitive-dissonance-o-meters are WAY in the red zone, and I think
that in order to get that one part of our brain labelled 'Ethiopia'
back into neutral, it can be easiest to just go with a or b.

I don't think I need to point out the dangers with a, especially since
that's the camp I'm most in danger of falling into right now, with all
my supermarket fantasies. I think option b is a little more subtle.
[ha, yes, 4 hours sleep and I used the word subtle with a straight
face. Don't worry,I think that's ridiculous too.] I started to think a
bit about this when I did the whole 'beautiful country rich culture'
speech to some Ethiopian friends and they basically told me that I had
to be kidding. I've come to think that the main risk with option b is
that it can just be us being wilfully, arrogantly ignorant of some of
the more difficult things that are going on here. As adoptive parents,
we have a vested interest in creating a happy theme-park version of
this place, (whether we give into that desire or not) and I've come to
believe that this is no less arrogant than choosing option a). I
mean, we're only able to adopt in the numbers that we are because of
endemic economic and health problems in this country. I hate that
fact, but we have to face it. I think that pushing option b too hard
sort of says: Hey guys! I have considered your social problems and
your poverty and I have decided that they are A-OK with me! And
really, in the end, I'm not sure that's any more respectful than a).

And no, I have no idea what the answer is, except that I don't really
think there is one. At the moment I'm trying to learn to just feel the
tensions and learn to live with them, which is harder than it sounds,
especially when people ask questions like 'so, how was Ethiopia?' I
think my stock answer is going to have to be 'complicated'. I'd be
very interested in other people's thoughts on this one, whether you're
yet to travel or did it ages ago. Those of you who are
na-blo-po-mo-ing, here's an idea for a post for you! A little gift
from Addis from me.

**************

One last thing, since this post just got totally away from its
original intention (and in the end has taken about four days, see
above re two tiny etc!) . I wasn't kidding when I said I don't know
when we're going home. Having (finally) acquired for the babies their
court papers, translations of same, birth certs and passports, we were
able to apply for their visas yesterday. And, long story short, nobody
will commit to a processing time except to say it could take up to TWO
MONTHS. And of course it probably won't, but I wanted someone to
promise me it wasn;t going to be more than, say, another week and so
I'm just trying to adjust my expectations again and stop fantasising
about my house, my kitchen, and a shiny row of fifteen brand new baby
bottles by the middle of November. Prayers for a speedy process would
be much appreciated.

Surfacing

Here are some photos at last. The last few days have been, frankly,
pretty awful. But fortunately we are now all picking up from our
various ailments - baby boy has stopped vomiting every time we give
him his antibiotics, and we can all eat real food again (well, those
of us who are old enough to). We have been so
incredibly thankful to have my mum here - without her I really don't
know HOW we would have coped with the last few days. She has done our
washing and kept us supplied with enough sprite to keep going when we
couldn't hold down anything else - I don't think these attributes are
specifically mentioned in Proverbs 31 but I rather think they should
be.

But who cares about us? What about the babies??!!!??? Thanks for
asking - they are doing incredibly well. Despite their hatred for my
new most-useful gadget, the infant nasal aspirator, we are definitely
making friends. I'm not making any crazy statements about attachment
yet, but they are very willing to be held and comforted but us and
this is a huge relief, and a great first step. We hardly recognise
them even from the babies they were a few days ago. They are eating
(and eating and eating) and we can see them gaining strength right
before our eyes. They are really delightful and we are so thankful
that they are finally with us.

Of course, if I'm to be honest, the first few days I was thinking
pretty much nothing but 'oh I cannot BELIEVE what I have done' but
already the person having those thoughts feels like someone other than
me. Thinking about how little sleep I will get tonight (and probably
forever) still makes me feel really fearful - HOW am I going to cope
with this? How am I going to cope with a flight? How will we get them
to the passport office? But I knew it wouldn't be easy. And it's not.
And that's normal. And today it feels just about, almost, nearly, the
right side of impossible. Ask me again after this night!

And they are pretty cute, huh??

There is only one word to describe the first two nights with sick, grieving, confused twins

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

We Passed!

We have good news! This morning we attended the First Instance
District court and were officially declared to be parents.

We are thrilled and very thankful. We will be picking up the babies
later this afternoon, and will post pictures as soon as we get a
chance. Just wanted to pass on the good news now!

Right, off to Kaldi's for one last lunch...

The view from my window right now

I see a young man washing a 4X4
I see a bike leaning against a barbed wire fence
I see people working
I see people torpid
I see women walking down the street in long traditional dresses and
scarves, talking on mobile phones.
I see shacks made from corrugated iron and plastic.
In the distance I see skyscrapers.
I see the sun shining
I see planes taking off
I see the hills
I see a tiny child running in circles at breakneck toddler speed
I see donkeys and goats
I see the domes of Bole Mehdanealem church
I see bird after bird after bird after bird

I can't believe how good it is to be back. I had a cancelled flight
and a horrible journey but arriving felt like a strange kind of
homecoming.

And tomorrow's view will be even better. Tomorrow I see ...the babies!

Got it.

Got snowsuits

Got bearsuits *

Got stripes Got wipesGot clothes for him **
Got clothes for his twin
Got books and toys***Got wishes for joy****Got homemade owls

Got baby towels*****Got suitcases packed
(Got help from the cat)


Got nappies******

Got happy

And so.

Let's go!!*******




* is this child cruelty? I sure hope not.
** check out the tacky but fabulous superman outfit!!
*** the cot is in our room, before you think we've forgotten something major here...
**** sorry about that rhyme.
***** and yes, the towel ALSO has an owl! I didn't make that one though.
****** if you were writing this in the states, what would you rhyme with 'diaper??'
******* 9.30 tonight! And yes, I'm ready! For the flight at least, if not for parenthood. Will post again from Addis as soon as I can.