American family travel to Ethiopia to bring home their adopted son

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Sometimes when we look at Alexander, we still can’t believe he’s home. He was placed into our arms on March 7 in the courtyard of our adoption agency’s guest home in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. He was 6 months old, cried for hours, refused his bottle, had a scratchy cough and a runny nose.

It didn’t matter though: He was our son and we were in love with every bit of him.

I guess our journey to Alexander began before John and I were married. By our third date in 2004, we pretty much knew where our relationship was headed, and early conversations about our future always included children.

Officially, though, the decision to adopt came on a dreary night a few weeks before Christmas 2007. We were eating at the Woodrow Diner before driving to Brooklyn for Great Aunt Millie’s wake. John’s aunt died at the age of 101. She never had any children.

Somehow, that sparked our desire for children even more. We continued our discussion in the car, and as we neared the Verrazano, John grasped my hand, looked at me and asked a question that seemed more like a statement: “So, we’re adopting?”

That night, we began our research.

Stephanie and John meet Alexander for
the first time in Addis Ababa.

We compared international and domestic adoptions. Adopting within the United States seemed like it took longer and cost more, and we were not comfortable with the idea of open adoptions in which there is ongoing contact with the birth parents.

At the time, all we knew of adopting overseas was China, but that came with a waiting time of four years. We looked into Vietnam, but could see that relations between our government and theirs were fraying. Then, we discovered and quickly fell in love with Ethiopia.

For the next nine months, under the guidance of St. Louis-based Children’s Hope International, we committed ourselves to what is known in adoption lingo as the “paper chase.”

Essentially, we turned over every identifying document we had: Our marriage license and birth certificates, tax returns, employment and medical letters, a letter from the NYPD stating we had no criminal record, three letters of reference and copies of our passport pages. A social worker visited our home twice. There was a parenting class and background checks, and we were fingerprinted so many times, we started to feel like criminals.

Every single document was notarized, certified by the county clerk and authenticated with a shiny, gold seal at the Department of State.

On Oct. 27, 2008, we were placed on the waiting list for a baby boy between the ages of 0 to 3 months.

Our wait was long, and as much as our hearts ached to be with our son, we never saw adoption as a second choice. Health concerns made carrying a baby dangerous. We felt no grief or guilt that our son would not look like us or carry our genes. We would pass on to him things more important than genetics: Our love, our hopes, our dreams.

It wasn’t until Nov. 2, 2009 that we saw his face for the first time in photos e-mailed from Children’s Hope. 

Alexander on his first birthday
outside his Annadale home.

His name was Edelu — now his middle name — which translated into “wide opportunity.” He was 2 months old and just under 6 pounds. He had the biggest, most beautiful brown eyes we’d ever seen.

Finally, on a Friday night in March, we were sitting in JFK International Airport, wearing our Ethiopia T-shirts and waiting to board a flight that would bring us to Alexander.

We arrived that Sunday by way of a 12-hour layover in Dubai. A few hours later, we met our crying baby. By the next morning, Alexander — now 10 pounds heavier and much loved at the House of Hope, our agency’s transition home — was all smiles.

Consider the next seven days parent boot camp in East Africa. It was a mix of power outages, dirty diapers, laughter, silliness, bonding and the sharing of stories with other adoptive families who understood how far we had traveled.

What we saw from the windows of the van that took us shopping and sightseeing was a poverty beyond the scope of imagination — and a people full of beauty, kindness and joy despite their circumstances.

We were glad we were giving Alexander a chance, but sad because we were taking him from his homeland. We promised that he always would know where he came from. And he’s already had his first taste of Ethiopian food — which by the way, is awesome.

And as we sat in the airport for our flight home, following a traditional meal and coffee ceremony at our guest house, the feelings continued to be bittersweet.

Alexander's Ethiopian passport

Alexander was leaving a place where Muslims, Christians and Jews live in relative peace and heading to a country founded on the principles of freedom and equality that was fast becoming a hotbed of religious intolerance.

But when we landed at JFK — Alexander in his New York Mets’ Jose Reyes T-shirt — we pushed those thoughts from our minds as we were greeted by our family: Some were holding balloons in the airport while the rest were back on Staten Island tacking a “Welcome Home, Alexander” sign to the living room wall.

Alexander is now 14 months and 27 pounds of pure energy.

He’s a pro at climbing onto the couch or the kitchen chairs — even if he hasn’t quite mastered the art of getting down. He babbles incessantly. He taps his feet to music and loves toys that sing, though the remote, broom and cardboard box make him just as happy.

Alexander waves bye-bye to everything — people, dogs, the ceiling fan. When we’re outside, he throws his arms in the air as if trying to catch the wind, similar to the way he signals a touchdown while watching the Jets with Daddy. He holds everything to his ear like it’s the phone and giggles all the time — at what, we’re not quite sure.

And sometimes, when we’re lying down with him at bedtime, just when we think he is about to fall asleep, he lifts up his head, looks at us with those big, brown eyes and smiles.