Anna's Story Part V

Anna had a rough time flying home, she screamed every 15 minutes on both big flights from Monrovia to Brussels and then from Brussels to Washington, D.C. We found out she had an ear infection too. Daddy and Deborah had flown to meet us at D.C. so we had some family time together before we flew the rest of the way home. Here is a picture of Anna and Daddy meeting.

The girls really seemed to connect right from the beginning and were a joy to watch together. And then my Mom, brother, sister and several of my sister's children stayed up very late to welcome us back to our home airport. Both of my girls slept through the whole thing and didn't wake up until the next morning! They were both exhausted! Here they are giving a kiss and then pretending to sleep in the Washington D.C. airport.

Anna's Story Part IV

Anna's caregiver (not the same woman who had taken care of her first) brought her to me and we chatted for about 30 minutes while Anna sat on her lap staring at me. I tried to interact with Anna but she was not impressed with me. At that point the caregiver said that she would let us get to know each other and she just walked out of the room! For some strange reason I thought we would have a nice slow transition but it was not to be.

Anna immediately started screaming at the top of her lungs and so I started to walk towards her. Anna turned around and started running away from me screaming. I had no idea what to do and I had an audience. There were about 5 other people present all watching to see what I would do and of course I didn't know. I finally just ran after her and scooped her up in my arms and tried to comfort her. I knew she was scared but there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it at that time. Finally she calmed down enough but then she seemed to transfer the anxious attachment she had with the caregiver to me. After that she would scream if anyone tried to take her away from me. This went on for a good 7 months after we got home too. We worked very hard on getting a healthy attachment with Anna and it has paid off!

Anna's adoption was tricky because her adoption wasn't actually done yet when I went to Liberia. I had appointments at the US embassy, a paper that needed to be signed by the Ministry of Health, an interview by someone sent from the embassy to see me and then another appointment at the embassy. It took an entire week but the adoption was complete in time for me to fly home one week after I had gotten there.

Both of these pictures were taken the day we left Liberia, we were all dressed up ready to go to church.

Anna's Story Part III

So in October of 2005 I got back on an airplane, left Deborah for the first time ever but in the capable hands of Daddy and two beloved cousins Caitlin and Cai. I met my friend in Washington D.C. where we flew the rest of the way together to Liberia.

We had some interesting experiences in that the person who was supposed to meet us at the airport thought we were coming in on a flight arriving two days later! My friend's daughter's aunt was there instead and took us to her relative's house. Liberia had just come out of the war so there was still no electricity infrastructure but if you had a generator you had power. The house we went to had a generator but they couldn't get it going except for about one minute.
The bathroom looked really nice but there was no plumbing hooked up to the sink or shower but there was a barrel of water in the bathroom to flush the toilet with. That was fine, we were good. The cockroach crawling up my leg gave me pause but I was still okay. But then we were half asleep on the best bed in the house and I felt something in the pitch black crawl along the pillow. I just said something just crawled on my pillow when my friend let out this scream!!!! The cockroach had decided to crawl over her face. Can I just say I was glad that wasn't me?

But this story is about Anna so let's get back to it! The next morning my agency sent a driver to take me to another place I could stay at and where Anna already was. And there she was! She was sleeping out on the porch so I went inside and waited for her to wake up.

Anna's Story Part II

Then came the loooooooooooooooooooooooong wait. It seemed everything went wrong from day one. Everything that could go wrong did. Paperwork was done incorrectly, birth certificates were done with the foster parents listed as the parents! That makes it difficult to get your child status as an orphan with the US government which would make it impossible to get a US visa back to the states. There were inconsistencies in the paperwork and since our baby was 4 hours inland, every time something needed to be fixed someone had to take the 4 hour drive back into Ganta to get the paperwork redone and then travel back.

So this was a very frustrating 10 months for me from the time of referral to the time I actually was able to get my baby and it was 19 months from the time we had started the adoption. By then we had to be refingerprinted for what seemed like the zillionth time. Not only had our fingerprints run out with the US government, our homestudy had run out too and we had to get it updated with more fingerprints at our local police station. I think by the time we were done getting our two girls we had had our fingerprints done 11 times!

Now I really didn't want to go through what I went through before with the whole getting my baby home thing so we had requested Anna (Baby Walakehwon) to be escorted home. But by September of 2005 I was really starting to get upset about the adoption taking so long while I knew others who had started after us had already had their babies come home.

A good friend of mine who I had met through the adoption of Deborah and their two girls from Liberia was traveling to Liberia to do an independent adoption of two more children. Our husbands agreed that we could go to Liberia together to complete our adoptions.

Anna's Story

I told Anna I would tell her story after I finished sending out all of our support letters even though her Adoption Day isn't until October.

Anna's story basically started where Deborah's ended. The day after we completed Deborah's readoption (legally changing her name) we started our next adoption in March of 2004.

We went back to the same agency because we really wanted our children from the same area and this particular agency was the only one we knew of who was getting their children from Ganta, Liberia. We received a referral in June 2004 of a two week old baby boy whose mother had died in childbirth. But two weeks later got another phone call saying the little boy's aunt came and got him. So that wasn't our baby.

But then our agency got sort of stuck. Laws in Liberia were changing since the year before and more paperwork was required. The agency had no more foster homes to take in any other children so we had to wait until some of the kids were adopted before they would take any new referrals.

I was patient up to a point but was losing hope we would ever have a referral when we finally got a phone call in December 2004 saying we had a 3.5 month old baby girl. She had been in custody since she was 2 weeks old but she was an abandonment case and they could not find any relatives to sign the papers. They had had a police investigation looking for this baby's birth mother and no one could find her (or at least no one was talking about it). They met with the Tribal Chief and he gave his permission for this little one to be adopted. So the first pictures we got were of Baby Walakehwon with her caregiver Yah, Baby Walakehwon with the Tribal Chief and another picture of Baby Walakehwon sucking her thumb. The really funny thing was that the baby boy we had been referred in June just 6 months earlier was also named Walakehwon, a common name given to orphans.

Deborah's Story Part IV

So here I am with Deborah's caregiver and our adoption worker in front of the hotel in Accra, Ghana just a few hours before we left to come back home.

Deborah never cried until she woke up on the plane after napping. We found out after getting home she had a double ear infection so she must have been in a bit of pain.

Ray met Deborah and me at JFK and I was never so happy to see him there! I was so exhausted and just glad to be home with my baby and husband.


Deborah adored Daddy right from the beginning and she is still very much a Daddy's girl.

Then Ray, Deborah and I flew the rest of the way home together where my Mom, sister, brother-in-law and their family met us at our home airport.

July 16th, 2003, one of the happiest days of my life!

Deborah's Story Part III

In June of 2003 as war started to break out again in Liberia the US consular started granting visas. At this point the airport was closing and opening in Monrovia as war took over the country. Our agency couldn't get an escort in place as quickly as we needed that to happen so they asked me if I would fly to Ghana to wait for Deborah to be flown to me. After my past experience waiting in a hotel in a different country than my child(ren) while war was going on I refused. We had no idea if the war would escalate at this point and there was no guarantee they could get my baby out of Liberia while the airport was closing every other day or so.

Much to my surprise I got a phone call in early July of 2003 saying my baby was in Ghana and come and get her!!!!! Strangely enough my agency didn't think I needed a yellow fever shot to get into Ghana and I didn't have it yet! I managed to get it before leaving for Ghana but was very nervous since I was supposed to have it for 10 days before I left and it had only been 4 days. The customs inspector studied my yellow immunization certificate for several minutes before letting me through! I don't think I had full immunity until I arrived back in the US.

I was only in Ghana for 24 hours, a true pick-up trip since all of the paperwork was already done. I flew in at 10pm on a Monday night and was leaving on the same plane the following night at 10pm. Deborah was brought to me around noon the day I was leaving so I had a short while to spend with Deborah's caregiver (pictured with Deborah up above) who was absolutely wonderful and then we left to come back home.

Deborah's Story Part II

We had all of Deborah's paperwork done within two months! But we were waiting for her US visa to be administered and the US consular would not grant ANY visas during a period lasting over 7 months. We tried to have Deborah escorted home during this time and sent paperwork and baby clothes over to Liberia with the gentleman who was trying to get her visa.

We found out that Baby Yei had grown quite a bit and none of the clothing we had sent over fit her!


Here she is at 14 months old taking her first steps at Equip in Ganta, Liberia.

Deborah's Story

In honor of Deborah's six year anniversary yesterday I am going to share her adoption story.

Our journey to adopt started back in 1995 after we had been married 3 years. First (1996-1998) we tried to adopt by going through classes to adopt through our county. Secondly (1998) we attempted to start working on an independent domestic adoption and thirdly (1999-2001) had a failed adoption of twin girls from Sierra Leone which involved a 10 day trip to Senegal where we ended up coming home empty-handed.

Finally in 2002 we attempted yet another adoption but this time from Liberia. We were presented with Baby Yei (Deborah) whose mother had been struck and killed by lightning while Baby Yei was on her back at only 4 months of age. Baby Yei had a burn scar on her chest from the lightning.

Packing

These are three of the paintings I bought in Liberia when I went to get Anna back in October 2005. We had them framed and hung them in the girls' room.

I realized after taking down all of the pictures and emptying all of our shelves in our front room downstairs that maybe I should have taken a picture of what the room looked like before I packed it up. So I have started to take pictures of other rooms BEFORE I pack up.

It seems so strange to pack up our house after living here for 11 years. So many memories, bringing both girls home to this house. And somehow packing up our lives into six duffel bags..... I'm still not sure how that is going to happen.

I promised......

Last year our friends helped (actually did most of the work since we are clueless) gut our bathroom and put in a new floor, walls, ceiling, fixtures, you get the idea. I promised the girls they could paint our bathroom cabinet after we finished painting it! So the cabinet sat for over a year in our bathroom with only primer on it. Finally it gets the finishing coat of paint last week and I let the girls decorate it afterwards.

The girls' paint is water based and easily washes off but doesn't it look fun? And don't you think it will help sell our house?

Before and After

Oh look, now you can see his eyes!

BillyBob got groomed today and looks magnificent.