The Chronicles of Ethiopia – Part Five

Ok folks this is where the disclaimer comes in :)

Let me first say that jet lag doesn’t help the adoption process and that in hindsight I can honestly say that if I had slept I probably would have been less of an emotional wreck.

With that said here was our experience with Garrett while we were in Ethiopia. Tuesday we took Garrett from Toukoul with the intention of just having him for the day and then taking him back, but those plans were quickly changed! When we got him on Tuesday he was very out of it, his eyes were glazed over, no expression on his face…he was in shut down mode. All of this was actually ok with us…. we had prepared ourselves for him to be like this, but combine that with severe diarrhea and some sort of puss coming from his ear I started to get concerned. As the day wore on it was clear that we needed to keep him with us for the remainder of our time in Ethiopia. I felt terrible for him; he was clearly not feeling well and in complete shock about being with Scott and I. Wednesday quickly brought about huge frustration… as he woke up a child who hated us. He would scream and throw himself on the floor…. and then when we would try and help he would almost turn catatonic and completely shut off from the world around him. He wouldn’t let us touch him or even come near him. This continued for the remainder of our trip progressively getting worse and as he got worse so did I. Thursday I was fully depressed, angry and terribly missing my sweet girl. And to top it off Scott started to break down as well, this was especially not good b/c I was drawing what little strength I could from him. Thursday we talked to Reagan on the phone, when we hung up the phone both of us broke down. I cried to the point of hyperventilating, and Scott just sat there staring unable to move or speak. We were broken. We went to bed trying not to think about how much we missed Reagan and how much we didn’t want to deal with Garrett in the morning. Now I realize this sounds terrible, but it was a strange combination of loving him but not being able to deal with him. By Friday we decided that we needed/wanted to get home so we tried to get on Saturday’s flight, unfortunately it was booked. So we tried other airlines but all flights were completely book…. we were stuck in Ethiopia and I had to continually fight back tears. That night we were finally in a place where we could talk to each other and pray about it so we did. And after a few hours and a few deep breaths we decided that we could handle this, and this to shall pass. God never said that doing what He asked would be easy…. it took us a few days to remember that! But we did and when we surrendered the situation to Him things started to improve (slightly) By Friday night Garrett would come to Scott and let him feed/hold/and change him with out a complete nervous break down. And by Saturday we were ready to enjoy Ethiopia again with our son. We took him out with us in Addis; we went to a museum, a market, and a lookout point. And Garrett did well as long as I didn’t touch him or get to close to him. This defiantly took a toll on Scott as by this point he was the soul caregiver. There were moments when I would have to hold Garrett, so my poor husband could use the restroom or get some blood back in his arms :) In those moments Garrett would scream like I was killing him, and on several occasions Ethiopian women would come up and take him from me…they were sweet and trying to help, but I could tell they were not happy that one of their kids was having a melt down and that I was less than adequate in getting him to calm down. Sunday brought more hope that we were on our way to a happy kid; he even let me hold him a few times! We spent some time at the Hilton on Sunday it was nice to rest and let him play in the grass…being there defiantly lifted our spirits and gave us the boost we needed for our time left in Ethiopia.

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