May 18, 2010 - Birth family day

This day was by far the most emotional day on our trip. This was the day that we met our new sons' first family. (I won't be putting any pictures of them on here.) Honestly, as I type this the blood kind of drains out of me as I realize that it's been a year since the boys have seen their mom. It's a very emotional, deep, complex situation, and out of respect for everyone involved I'm not going to go into much depth about it.

Here is some of my vocal journal from the day: (Lincoln's words are in the blue)

"Today is Tuesday and we started the day (it was a long freakin' day) we got up, ate breakfast at Ritmo . It was a ricey oatmeal...like a dry Smacks (the cereal). It wasn't very good. It wasn't bad! The boys ate two bowls each, but what's new? So we had breakfast, our goal was to be at Layla by 9:00, and we didn't get there until like 10:30 or something (it wasn't our fault). We got to Layla at 10:30, and took the boys to their class. Our plan was to go to the Adams Pavilion, use the internet, because power has been down here since Sunday night. I was going to go to the Salon and get my hair washed to get the soap out of it*, and Joanna was going to get a massage.

So we get to Layla, we drop the boys off in their class, we go to Wanna to drop the babies off (Mintesinote, and Tizita) and an AAI social worker comes walking toward us and she says "are you ready to go" or something "ready to go meet the family". We were like "what are you talking about?" and she said that the family was here at SeleEnat (that they got in last night) and that the driver was on his way to pick us up. She said she would call us when he got here. I said " call us where?" (We asked "how long?" and she said "15 minutes?") like "is that okay", uhhh...sure. "We'll just stay here. So just find us here". So then I had a small break down**. But I think it was a blessing that we didn't know days in advance, because I wouldn't have slept forever. Everybody totally dropped their plans for us. It was really nice. The whole group was like, what do you need, what can we do for you? So, about 15 minutes she came walking back, the car was here. We went and go the boys, got ready to load up in the car and I asked her if there was going to be a translator. She said, yes, she was going to be doing it. I asked her if there was going to be someone to film and she said no, so I asked her if we could have a friend come along. Joanna had offered earlier to come and video and take pictures, or whatever we may need if we wanted her to. She's a freakin' Saint. She is amazing. So, I went back to Wanna, found her and asked her to come. She said "yeah!", just threw on her backpack and came."

After we got back to the Ritmo from that meeting we took a little bit of quiet time to regroup. The boys were not visibly upset at all, but Lincoln and I were pretty shaken. Eventually we gathered ourselves and headed out with the group to do some shopping.

This was one of the nicer markets. Most did not have booths numbered like this.

There are always people on the streets...everywhere! All of the men standing around literally waiting for work to appear is a sure sign of a bad economy.

Getting ready for bed...

I sent this email home.