At 9 months old, baby Getahun was described as happy, active, and laidback. He had been adopted the month before from Ethiopia, by Kyle Wohlers and Matthew Willis, a couple living in western Washington state.
“He enjoys looking at brightly colored objects and just watching what is going on around him,” wrote a caseworker with Bethany Christian Services in an adoption follow-up report in 2010.
Now 13 years old, Getahun, identified here by his middle name to protect his identity, was small. At 16 pounds, he was in the 1st percentile for weight when he arrived in the U.S. His weight fluctuated over the years, but remained low by American standards.
Getahun’s adoptive parents initially attributed his low weight to malnourishment as an infant in Ethiopia. Later, they cited an unspecified eating disorder borne from neglect he’d experienced prior to being adopted.
That explanation didn’t sit right with people in their small community on Lopez Island, who reported noticing that Getahun and his adoptive parents did not connect with each other. Was Getahun's state the result of long-term trauma from being an orphan, they wondered, or was something else going on?
