Last week we began telling Eden and Andy that they had a surprise coming after church on Sunday.  They were very excited about it all week and kept guessing what it might be.  Their guesses ranged from a twiga to freez-e-pops but they never imagined it would be Deda and Aunt Donna!  When I opened the door and the kids saw them standing there, they were shocked!  Andy recovered quickly and ran for them, but Eden was like a zombie.  She could barely move.  It was so funny!

We had a wonderful time with Deda and Aunt Donna for a couple of days in Eldoret.  We played and ran around town to do some errands.  We celebrated Halloween at the Sally Test Center and went trick-or-treating here in the compound.  Eden was a safari guide and Andy was an elephant.  It was perfect because Elanna was a twiga and Gavin was a lion.  🙂  They all had fun running around and I think liked being together more than they actually liked the trick-or-treating.  They got lots of candy and we took a million pictures.

On Tuesday we drove to Nairobi to meet up with Papa and stayed there for the rest of the week.  We got there in time to settle in and have dinner then the kids went to bed when we got back.  Wednesday morning Deda, Aunt Donna and Andy went to the baby elephant sanctuary with Javan (our friend/driver) while Ben, Eden and I were at the embassy.  We all met back at the hotel for lunch and naps.  Then we spent the rainy afternoon at the mall playing at Beezy Bees, riding the elevators and escalators and then had tea and snacks at Java House before going back to the hotel.

On Thursday we did a safari ride through Nairobi National Park.  It was a great trip!  We saw a bunch of twiga right beside the road as soon as we drove in to the park.  Then we saw a bunch of gazelle, eland, a few monkeys, some cape buffalo, 4 rhinos in a pack, zebras and the best part were the lions.  Total we saw 6 lions!  We first saw 2 females sitting under a tree.  Then we saw a male lion with his kill.  He was a ways off, but we could see him dragging his food.  Then on our way out of the park we saw three lion cubs sitting under a tree.  We also saw a bunch of birds and two crocodiles as well as a group of baboons.  It was really fun and the kids did a great job.  Especially because we didn’t really eat from breakfast until we got back to the hotel at 5.  They napped during the drive and slept pretty well.

Thursday evening we ate “lunch” (at 5:15) poolside and played in the pool.  The pool was warm which was nice because it was a bit chilly outside.  The kids loved swimming and jumping off the side.  Then we had baths and ate a light dinner then visited before bed.

We had a great time with Deda, Aunt Donna and Papa and  were so sad when Deda and Aunt Donna left.  The kids are very excited that Papa is coming tomorrow, and Eden is especially looking forward to their week together.  We’ve posted a few pictures and will post more after we swap pics with Deda, Papa and Aunt Donna.

We’ve reached the end of the road in some ways.  Little Angels (the adoption agency here in Kenya) won’t accept a home study completed here and signed off on by an agency in the U.S.  In order to avoid splitting up the family, we applied for the visitors visa once again.  We had letters from Senator Lugar’s office, Congressman Rokita’s office and a letter from a new friend, Randy Tobias, who is a former Eli Lilly CEO and also headed up PEPFAR and USAID for President Bush.  We took in everything we could think of to support our case, but were denied again.  We haven’t completely given up hope of a visitors visa because we were told part of the reason for the denial was that the US wasn’t comfortable letting us leave Kenya with Eden with the travel order we have.  They say we have to have a travel order from the high courts, which our lawyer is going to get on Monday.  While we’re not giving up on the visitors visa, we also have a time crunch on the adoption because our home study has to be completed and turned in to Little Angels before the first Wednesday in December if we want them to review our case before Christmas.

So, tonight we made a really hard decision.  Ben booked flights for he, Andy and me to fly back to Indy on Tuesday night.  My dad was here in Nairobi this past week for UN meetings and is going to stay with Eden while we’re gone next week.  Ben and I are both very relieved that Eden can stay with him and are thankful that my dad is willing and able to take the time off to hang out in Eldoret with her.  It will be much easier for Eden to have us gone for the week if she’s spending it with Papa.

The hardest part about all of this is that next Sunday, Ben will come back to Kenya, but Andy and I will stay in West Lafayette with my parents.  We have gone round and round and looked at all of our options, but a national doctor’s strike begins December 5 in Kenya and it’s unlikely to be resolved before my due date.  Also, the hospitals here in Eldoret don’t really have NICU capabilities if they were needed.  It seems safest for Grace and me to deliver in the US.  Unfortunately, this means that when I leave on Tuesday, I have no idea when Andy and I will see Eden again.

It’s possible that the adoption will wrap up quickly and that Eden would be granted an I-130 immigration visa before Grace is born.  It’s also possible that we might have to wait 2 years after the adoption is finalized, if the US decides that our 2009 custody order doesn’t count.  It’s possible that Ben will be able to apply for another visitors visa after he gets back and that it would be granted, but it seems unlikely since we’ve been denied twice.

You can’t imagine how horrible it feels to separate Eden and Andy.  I am so afraid of what that will do to them and their relationship.  I can’t describe how terrible I feel about having to leave Eden.  I know that she will be fine with Ben, but I will miss her so much, and I worry that she will feel abandoned.  Also, if she ever finds out that I have been to Deda’s house without her, I don’t know if she will forgive me.  I will probably miss Eden’s birthday and maybe Christmas.  She might not be there when Grace is born, and she is so excited about helping me with the baby.  Not to mention that Ben possibly won’t see Andy until January.  And of course, I will miss Ben, too!  I keep telling myself that 5 or 10 years from now it won’t matter, but right now it feels really, really awful.  We do find comfort in knowing that our decision means that Eden won’t stay in Kenya alone, and we honestly feel like this is the best way we can care for and protect everyone in our family.

Ben and I are tired of fighting the US and we are so sad right now.  That leaves us with prayer.  Please pray for us as we enter a time of separation.  Pray for our relationships and for safe travels and most of all, pray that Eden gets to come home SOON!  This is not what we hoped and planned for, but we KNOW that God is still in control and that He has a purpose in this.  We’ve seen God work plenty of miracles before so we’re anxiously waiting to see what comes next.

Sorry for the delay in updating you all.  We didn’t get back from Nairobi until dinner time on Tuesday and I ended up getting sick Tuesday night and spent all day yesterday in bed while Ben was on duty with the kids.

Here’s a long recap of our trip/embassy visit:

We made it to Nairobi in record time, the kids were great in the car and we had a yummy lunch at Java House (a very American coffee shop chain) that had a play area for the kids.  We made it to our hotel which was very nice and hit the swimming pool.  There was a “Mischief Pool” (kiddie pool) which the kids loved because they could stand up in it.  Then we took late naps, went to dinner at the hotel and then to bed.  We got up and packed early then left the hotel at 8 for our 9:30 appointment anticipating traffic and other delays.  About 4 minutes from the hotel our car died.  We called the hotel and asked them to send us a taxi (which took 45 minutes to arrive) left our car with some random tow truck on the street and took off for the embassy.

We arrived in time and went inside where we waited for 2 hours.  At 11:30 the kids started losing it so I asked if we could leave and have our appointment when we got back.  They said they would go ahead and squeeze us in.  The man asked what we do in Kenya and why we wanted to go to the US.  Then he told us he wanted to confer with the “adoption expert” (who we have spoken with multiple times already).  When we went back to the window he said, “We can’t issue visas to children who have not been adopted, so I can’t issue you a visa at this time.”  It was very annoying because he didn’t even give us a chance to present all of our documentation that we brought along.  He just told us that we had to leave.

We walked to the Java House again and had lunch while the kids played.  Ben called the contact we have at Little Angels and told her that our visa was denied and we needed to push the adoption through ASAP.  She said that on Wednesday the committee was meeting to review adoption cases and if we had all of our stuff in by Wednesday morning she would present our case to the committee.

By the time we finished lunch our car still wasn’t working.  We thought it was a battery issue, but the battery wasn’t charging so they decided it was an alternator issue.  They said the car would be ready by 3 so we packed up the kids and got a taxi to a nearby mall.  We found a nice play area for kids with a bunch of Little Tikes houses and slides.  This entertained the kids well past their nap time until about 2:30 when Andy fell off one of the slides and scraped his face on the rug.  Then the kids started to fall apart and then we found out that the car still wasn’t fixed and wouldn’t be ready until the next morning.

At that point Ben called every hotel he knew of in Nairobi and they were all booked.  Fortunately, we know a great travel agent here in Eldoret and Ben called her and told her what we needed and she called back about 10 minutes later with a room for us.  We took another random cab to the hotel, which was beautiful!  We didn’t have any of our stuff since we had left it all in the van, but we put Eden on the sleeper sofa and Andy in our bed and they napped for 1 1/2 hours while Ben and I scrambled to get things in order with the car and the adoption.

The kids woke up and we rinsed the dirt off of all of us then headed to dinner.  After dinner, the mechanic showed up in a taxi with all of our stuff except for the one bag that had our clean outfits in it.  Fortunately, we had some random pieces of clean clothing in the other bags so we put Eden her pj’s and Andy in a onesie then put them to bed.  At least we had Andy’s pack-n-play and both kids’ Twigas.

The next morning we got up and packed, had breakfast and then rented a cab until noon so that we could leave all of our stuff in it while we wandered around another mall.  We hit the grocery store at the mall first and found Mexican food!  I bought salsa, tortilla chips, tortillas and taco and fajita seasoning!  We also bought some more diapers and some snacks.  Then we went upstairs and found a toy store which the kids loved.  They ran from one toy to another gasping and pulling things off the shelves.  🙂  Andy almost hyperventilated when he found the toy car aisle.  And then he nearly passed out when he found the Cars cars.  Ben almost passed out when he saw that the small Mater (matchbox size) cost $17!  Eden got a pair of dress up shoes and Andy got a regular matchbox car that was a more reasonable price.

We found a place called Beezy Bees which is a craft/play area for kids.  It’s designed as a babysitting place for kids to stay while their parents shop.  They had a movie playing, lots of toys and books and crafts for the kids.  Eden painted and Andy played with the trucks.  We got the call that our car would be ready at noon, so we ordered lunch to go and then piled in the taxi and took off for the car shop.

By that time the kids were hungry and tired so we loaded up our van (which worked!) and then headed back to Eldoret.  Andy ate all of his lunch then fell asleep.  Eden fell asleep holding her hotdog.  The trip home was uneventful and we were all glad to be back in our house with all of our stuff.

Our new plan is to try to push the adoption through before Dec. 1.  Most likely, Andy and I will have to fly home on Dec. 1 and then Ben and Eden will come back after Eden gets an immigration visa.  Hopefully that will be before Grace is born.  The representative from Little Angels went to the committee yesterday to present our case.  They declared Eden free for adoption but said that we have to have an updated home study from the US before they will approve us to adopt her.  You can imagine how frustrating this is since we can’t adopt her until after we get back to the US and the US won’t let us in until after she’s adopted.  Talk about stuck between a rock and a hard place.

We’re hoping we can find an agency in the US that will review and sign off on a home study that is completed by the agency here.  Then we could reapply to the committee in two weeks when they meet again.  This is pretty much our last option.  If that doesn’t work, we don’t have a plan.

Our van broke down on the way to the embassy. Good thing we left early. We’re running a bit late but are in the taxi now. Pray we make it in time and that our attitudes are more pleasant before we get there.

Wow!  How did my baby get so old?!  Andy is talking so much more now and starting to put a few words together to explain himself.  He repeats everything we (or others) say, which can be very funny.  Today he said, “Oh snap!”  Hahaha!  We have no idea where he heard that.  He has started to gallop and can jump off of both feet occasionally without falling down.  He has a couple of songs that he sings and is very concerned about boo boos these days.

Andy’s imagination is starting to kick in and the other day he came up to me patting his Twiga and said, “Baby.”  I said to him, “What is your baby’s name?” And he told me, “Andrew!”  So now half the time Twiga is Twiga and the other half of the time Twiga is Baby Andrew.

Andy’s bed has become a safe zone for him and now anytime he gets in trouble or is upset he asks to go to his bed where he snuggles up with his blankie and Twigas.

A child psychiatrist is here and she described Andy as a Labrador.  He thinks he’s a lap dog and doesn’t realize how big he really is.  As a result of this, Andy is getting very good at saying ‘sorry’ for knocking Gavin and Ellana over or crashing into other people when they aren’t prepared for him diving into their laps.  Most of the time this is done in love and an attempt to snuggle, so at least it’s with good intentions.