Meeting Noah Manisa

On Monday, January 12th, the day we had been waiting for since our referral (Sept. 17th) had arrived - we got to meet Noah Manisa. We had stared at his picture for months and were so anxious and excited to meet the boy in person.

Noah lived in our agency's Toddler Care Center. It is a bright, cheery converted home with tons of wonderful caretakers hovering around the babies and toddlers. About 3 hours after we landed in Addis Ababa, we were brought to the Care Center by our driver. We sat in the living room of the home and waited for Noah to be brought to us.

As I have mentioned before, it is very difficult to explain the feeling of meeting your child for the first time. Yes, we have adopted before, but we were still as anxious as ever. Our trip had been very long; we were in such a different surrounding from what we have experienced before and Noah was older than Luke, who was only 4 months when we brought him home.

After about 10 minutes, he appeared and was placed in our lap. His primary caretaker (pictured above) brought him to us. She was crying and visibly upset but she whispered "God Bless You" to me. I found out later that the babies call their primary caretaker "Ma" which is probably why Noah can say that word so clearly to me.

As you can see from his pictures, Noah has incredibly large and expressive eyes. He stared up at his and then kind of put his head down (maybe thinking - uh oh! what have I gotten myself into??) We hugged and kissed him and then took him to the car to bring him back to the guest house.

The poor boy is not used to being in cars. He started breathing a bit heavy, but seemed to settle down for the ride.

As an aside, for those who will travel soon - be warned. There are no car seats, barely any seat belts, and guess what? They don't use traffic lights or stop signs. So if you are prone to car sickness, well, I would suggest self-medicating.....

What has been most wonderful about our meeting with Noah is that within a day he seemed very attached to us. In fact, he would let know one hold him besides David or me. Of course, with any adoption, attachment is a concern - babies, particularly those on the older side, need time to learn to attach and sometimes, it can be a struggle. But Noah just really seemed to take to us. In fact, when we brought Noah back to the Care Center for a final farewell, he refused to go into the caretakers arms. With Noah, I really feel like his attitude was almost like - hey, I like these people and I am ready to go!

We did a few things to coax the attachment process along. For example, we called him Manisa, his Ethiopian name, for our entire trip. I also learned later that they had nicknames for him - Mani and Manesha - and so I would use those as well. I also tried to mimic the Amharic accent as best as I could, and used some Amharic (really basic stuff -like NA means Come), just so he would feel comfortable with my voice.

Since you cannot bring the children out in most public places, our agency provides babysitters, who happened to be caretakers from the Gladney Care Center. I noticed that they pinched his cheeks quite a bit, kissed his neck and had this special way of rocking him. I just tried to do as much as possible to make him comfortable with the change. They also carried him everywhere - which was a bit tough for my back, given he is 22 lbs and I am only 5'2" - but I guess that is what chiropractors are for, right?

Interestingly enough, but not surprising, I found he was not as comfortable with men as with women. It definitely makes sense given that 100% of the caretakers are female. Over time, however, he did warm up to David, but it just took a day or so longer.