Ethiopian baby adoption drama ends

A Calgary family has finally brought home an adopted child from Ethiopia, a dream that was in doubt when an Ontario adoption agency filed for bankruptcy last month.

Joel and Jodi Thurmeier returned from Addis Ababa with their new four-month-old son, Ellis, on Sunday.

"It moved very fast, from being a completely lost kind of feeling and out of control and hopeless for two weeks or so when it first happened," Jodi Thurmeier said. "By the end of July ... we were getting more and more updates and information, the paperwork was getting processed fast."

The Thurmeiers credit the Canadian government for keeping the process moving and ensuring parents who were close to completing their adoptions continued with the process.

"It worked really well for us and I am positive the process should continue [for others]. It was just a fairly major hiccup that happened," she said.

Children receiving good care

Thurmeier said she and her husband were pleasantly surprised by the care Ellis and the other children up for adoption were getting in the Addis Ababa transition home, despite the uncertain future of the agency.

"There was two nurses on staff, two drivers [and] a ton of support staff," she said.

Now it's just a matter of adjusting to their new life together in Calgary, ensuring Ellis and his new siblings, Reese, 6, and Jacob, 4, get to know one another.

"The kids love him," Thurmeier said. "They are young. My daughter just wants to feed and change and bathe [him]. And my son just thinks he is a shiny new toy."

The Thurmeiers became one of as many as 400 Canadian families left in limbo when Kids Link International Adoption Agency, which runs Imagine Adoption, based in Cambridge, Ont., posted a bankruptcy notice on its website in July.

For the last two years, the agency had helped Canadians adopt children from Ethiopia, Ghana and Ecuador. Some families had already paid out as much as $15,000 for the adoptions.