He’s a giggly, happy baby with eyes that capture your attention as he plays with toys. You’d never know that just three weeks ago, he was living in a transition house run by an orphanage in Ethiopia.
Seven-month-old Gillis Frosst finally arrived in his Pictou County home last week, marking the end of a two-year journey for his parents Melvin and Maxine Frosst, who have poured blood, sweat and tears into their attempts to adopt him from Ethiopia.
Last July, the couple discovered their adoption plans had been put on hold indefinitely after their adoption company, Imagine Adoptions, went bankrupt. Melvin and Maxine were only a short time away from being matched with a baby boy from Ethiopia, had paid all the costs and done all the paperwork. They were close to the top of a long list of 450 other families and had been waiting since June 2008 to be matched with a child.
But all of those adoption funds were embezzled, leaving the couple back at square one. The company offered families the option of paying an additional cost so the company could keep running, and the Frossts and 200 other couples agreed.
In February, they were officially able to adopt Gillis, then four months, but had to wait for a visa to come through so they could bring him home.
They finally got the call on May 25 that the visa had come through, thanks in part to persistent phone calls daily from Linda at Peter MacKay’s office. Four days later, Melvin and Maxine were in the air, flying 17 hours around the world to Ethiopia to meet their son, becoming the first family from Imagine Adoptions to get their child.
As his caretakers brought Gillis into the room to meet Melvin and Maxine for the first time, the couple couldn’t help but be struck by how tiny he was.
“He was just so tiny,” Maxine said. “It’s really hard to adopt under 12 months of age. And I just thought he was so handsome.”
Gillis was a little nervous for a few moments – he kept looking at his caregiver for reassurance – but within days it was like he’d always been a part of their family.
“It feels like he’s always been with us, and we’ve always been with him,” Maxine said.
Melvin and Maxine spent 17 days in Ethiopia, learning about the culture and meeting the people to one day tell their son about his homeland.
“I was prepared for poverty, but it was way beyond what I expected,” Melvin said. “Most people lived in grass huts. Even the worst house in Pictou County was better than any house we saw in Ethiopia. They say it’s the most primitive place left on earth today.”
The couple visited every spot where their child had been, including meeting the woman who discovered the tiny baby, covered in blood with his umbilical cord still attached, more than 4.5 metres into a wooded area. The woman had heard Gillis’s cries and rescued him from an area where hyenas were known to frequent.
The woman wanted to keep Gillis, she told Maxine, but knew he’d have no future if he remained in Ethiopia. As people from the village crowded around – some of them no doubt members of Gillis’s family – Maxine cried as she heard the story of her son’s discovery.
“The children there have no shoes, most of them have very little to wear, maybe a T-shirt,” Maxine said. “
A police officer had named the child Braatagarda, meaning blessing from God and protection, in recognition of his miraculous discovery.
The couple, who previously adopted Gillis’s big sister, five-year-old Gabrielle, from China, and have two other children, three-year-old Garrison and nine-year-old Genesis, say it’s a relief to finally have him home.
“It was very, very stressful at the end,” Maxine said. “We were getting medical reports that he had pneumonia and thrush in his mouth, there were measles going around the transition house he was in. It’s hard knowing you have no control over the protection of your child.”
The family is adjusting well – his big sisters always want to feed him, and his big brother is quick to get Maxine if Gillis starts to cry.
Gillis already weighs 18 pounds, their biggest baby so far at that age, and his doctor says he’s in a high percentile range for his age. His tummy is distended, as is common in Ethiopian children, but his doctor expects it will go down soon. His eyes follow his parents around the room and he already calls for DaDa.
“It feels like our family is finally complete,” said Melvin. “He’s home where he’s supposed to be.”
