Trip 1 - Day 3

This was a great day - nothing planned but just being at Hannah's Hope with R. After we picked up R from her Special mother, we took her into the clinic to weigh her. She is growing! She is about 4 months old (we think...it is hard to know for sure because birthdays are not something that is very important in Ethiopian cultural and are often wrong), but she seems by her size and development to be closer to 3 months. She weighed 10 lbs., was 22 in. long, and head circumference of 38 cm. I loved checking her all out - counting her toes and looking over all her fingers.

We got Wass to translate so we could ask the special mothers some questions about her. She eats about every 2 hours - they really do give them a bottle every time they cry. If she just ate an hour ago but didn't finish all her bottle, the next time she cries, they give her the rest. When she wakes up at night she might drink an ounce of milk and then go right back to bed, so she is really used to just sort of snacking anytime she wants to! She seems like a pretty easy going baby.

After lunch we went back to Hannah's Hope - R had just gotten out of the bath. We spent some time talking to Almaz and she gave us a CD of pictures of R birth mom. When her birth mom came to Addis for her court date, she came to Hannah's Hope to see R. The staff talked to her for a while and asked her questions that they will give to us when we go back and they took pictures of her with R. It was much harder to see these pictures than I thought it would be. She is a beautiful woman and her love for R was obvious. I love this woman dearly and my heart hurts for her.

Matthew got really sick today. Running a pretty high fever, chills, and having a hard time staying awake and being upright - a little scary when you are in a 3rd world country and have no idea what to do if he needs medical help. Thankfully I had brought a prescription of antibiotics so he started those and within about 24 hours was feeling better. We had court the next day so staying in bed was not an option!