The Rest of Her Story

{March 21, 2011}

We don’t know what happened in Kate’s specific case and won’t ever know.  But we gathered many bits to try to piece together the most likely scenario of her early beginnings:

Most likely an impoverished and young pregnant woman who lived in an outlying village and could remain anonymous walked a long way to get to the hospital in Bahir Dar.  Entrance to the hospital is anonymous, but it is not free.  Delivering a baby costs about 30Birr, which is no small price for the penniless ( = about $20.00 USD).  Mothers typically stay 3 days before they are checked out, which is why they deemed Kate to be 3 days old when she was found.  I never could gather if Kate was clothed or wrapped in a blanket, but I imagine she was bundled in hospital gear which gave them another clue on her age.

As with so many others just like her, this mother left the hospital, deposited her baby on the ground, yards from the entrance to the hospital and slipped away into anonymity, without looking back, but forever changed.  No paperwork is done and no records are kept at the hospital so it is impossible to match a mother to a found child.  Abandoning a baby is a serious crime in Ethiopia and carries a penalty of 10 years in prison.  Even if she could muster the courage, no mother would ever dare come forward.  Her rights to that baby are vanquished in that solitary action.

Mothers typically abandon out of desperation.  Impoverished or sick, they have no means to care for this child.  And with all the sacrificial love they can muster, they give their child to someone else, so that they might live.  It’s reminiscent of Jochebed sending her son, Moses, down the Nile in the hopes that he might escape the sure death he would face if he were to stay in their home.  Kate’s birth mother made a similar sacrifice of energy, potential outcast or prison, and of that precious Birr to see that Kate was delivered safely in a hospital and had the best chance of being found on that street corner, by the rock pile, outside the shop. 

It is not clear to us if she was found by someone who called the police, or if she was found by the police.  But either way, a policeman gathered her up from that roadside spot, assigned her name, determined her age of 3 days old and filled out his paperwork, taking her immediately to the SOS EE Orphanage on the next block.  She was taken in by Nebretu and his staff, cared for, tested for HIV and other diseases and catalogued with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (this agency is similar to our CPS and oversees adoptions in Ethiopia).  After 2 months, she became eligible for adoption (legally they must make a 2-month cursory attempt to find any family member willing to take in an abandoned child) and was shortly thereafter transported to Addis.  When they make a transfer, they take several babies at a time, sometimes up to 10.  Nebretu rents a large van and does the driving.  Each baby has a nanny to hold them on their lap as they make the 10 hour drive to Addis Ababa (there is no such thing as car seats there).  Kate made this trek last September.  We were matched with her in November (we were actually matched when she arrived in Addis in September, but a paperwork glitch made this unknown to us until after Thanksgiving).  Our longing for her to be with us has grown each day, but exponentially so now that we’ve met her and held her and kissed her.

We hope that our return trip will be no later than June, but have no control over the dates.  It’s now in the hands of MOWA, our attorney on the ground in Addis, and the US State Department.  She’ll turn 1 on June 9^th and I’m hopeful that we’ll get to celebrate her first birthday with all of us together!