11:00 p.m. Thursday night. Jeeva and I stood outside the baggage claim customs area, waiting for three other families to join us for the ride back to the guest house. The first family approaches us, and this is our first conversation in Ethiopia.
“So, how old is your child?”
“Five months. “
“So,is ours.”
“Is it a boy or girl?”
“Girl.”
“So, is ours.”
“When was your baby born?”
“November 3rd.”
“Same with ours”
“What is her name?”
“Dinkinesh.
Silent look. Absolute terror comes over all four of our faces. All I can think is – we are here for the same baby! Did I really just fly on the airplane for 24 hours, and wait all this time for the same baby? Did they really screw up this badly? Is this a joke?
“What is her last name?”
“Dinkenesh Segabo”
Sigh of relief. “Ours is Dinkensh Seleke”
Immediately, we took out the picture of our babies and they look different enough to realize we do indeed have two different babies.
A very fun and easing way to kick off our adoption week in Ethiopia!
Turns out that these two little girls have been together for the past five months, since they entered - playing, keeping each other company, and are bonded. Their nanny spoke of the two Dinknesh’s fondly, and she told us they had been together with her the whole time. We have gotten to know the other Dinkenesh’s parents, so it has been fun to compare our parallel adoption stories. They turned in their adoption dossier documents and went on the waiting list December 27th. We went on December 28th. Turns out they were also waiting.. prepared and anxious for much longer than we all anticipated! They, too, thought they would get a baby girl last year at this time! Turns out that they got their referral December 15th. We got our referral December 16th.
Dinkinesh Segabo is our baby girl. It was meant to be that way all along. I love that there is already a plan and this week we got a glimpse of the journey we couldn’t see...
When everything is unknown to them, there was one thing that was familiar. They touched each other and smiled.
Will they remember?
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