It’s been a couple of weeks since we have posted anything. We have been busy making the court photo album, registering for our upcoming showers, and finishing up our little girl’s bedroom. We luckily had all of our documents already completed, so I haven’t had to worry about running around collecting documents. My mom and I went to Wisconsin to visit my cousin, who just moved there. We left last Wednesday. On Thursday, Greg called me to let me know that WE HAD OUR COURT DATE! We just couldn’t believe it! It happened so fast, (but really, of course, not fast enough). Since I was in Wisconsin without all of my paperwork in front me, there wasn’t too much I could do there. I got home Sunday night, so here I am Monday morning ready to go!!!!
We leave for Moscow on September 7. Our court date is September 11, which is my grandpa’s birthday! I’ll post later as I find out more information.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Home Safe and Sound
We’re home! We pulled in our driveway at about 11:00 p.m. on Sunday. It felt so good to sleep in our own beds and wake up to taking a shower in our own shower! Our flights were all on time and pretty smooth rides. On the flight from Moscow to Chicago, we did have a group of loud, rowdy, drunk individuals who were causing a bit of raucous for the flight attendants. Once we landed, one of them was personally escorted off by Customs Officials. He didn’t have to wait in the long lines of Passport Control and Customs, but I’m guessing those lines were much more pleasant than where he went! I guess it all just added to the adventure of the flight!
I was not really affected by the time difference or jetlag. I bounced right back into returning everything to order from being away for ten days. Now, Greg is another story. He has really had a difficult time. He has not been feeling well since Saturday, so has not had a chance to recuperate from the lack of sleep. Each day he feels a little better though!
I can’t even explain how much we miss our little girl! There’s not even a moment that she’s not in my thoughts. I wonder what she’s doing, what she’s eating, who’s holding her, who’s playing with her… I made a slide show of all the photos that we took of her and I keep playing it over and over again! It helps, but it’s certainly not the same as being there. Each day that goes by, I just remember that it’s one less day until we can be back in Astrakhan to bring her home forever.
I’m heading off to the store to get some supplies to make our photo album for Court. I’ve never done much scrapbooking, but I think this will be fun!
I was not really affected by the time difference or jetlag. I bounced right back into returning everything to order from being away for ten days. Now, Greg is another story. He has really had a difficult time. He has not been feeling well since Saturday, so has not had a chance to recuperate from the lack of sleep. Each day he feels a little better though!
I can’t even explain how much we miss our little girl! There’s not even a moment that she’s not in my thoughts. I wonder what she’s doing, what she’s eating, who’s holding her, who’s playing with her… I made a slide show of all the photos that we took of her and I keep playing it over and over again! It helps, but it’s certainly not the same as being there. Each day that goes by, I just remember that it’s one less day until we can be back in Astrakhan to bring her home forever.
I’m heading off to the store to get some supplies to make our photo album for Court. I’ve never done much scrapbooking, but I think this will be fun!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Hello from Moscow again!
We made it safely to Moscow this morning. Galina dropped us off at the Astrakhan airport. The flight was good. No problems, except it took forever to get our luggage. Another plane landed after us and they got all their luggage before ours even started to come out. But it finally did. Mia picked us up at the Moscow airport and the driver took us to the Holiday Inn Sokolniki. This is the same hotel we stayed in last weekend when we were in Moscow.
Greg was happy for the change of Moscow climate. It was a beautiful, sunny day with the high of about 80 degrees. Everyday that we were in Astrakhan it was at least 100 degrees or more! He thought this was too hot! I kept wanting to go for a walk, but he didn’t really want to go. So I would just walk down to the courtyard of the hotel and stand in the sun to warm up. 100 degrees is perfect weather for me and we don’t get it too often in Michigan.
After we settled into the hotel, we decided to take the Metro (subway) back to Red Square. We’re getting pretty good at the Metro! By our next trip, we’ll be old pros. We walked to Arbat Street. This is such a neat place. Some great shops, restaurants, street musicians, etc. We stopped at the Hard Rock Café just to get something to drink. We had been walking for a long time and needed to sit down. We did some shopping and then walked back down by the Kremlin to Red Square. We had lunch at one of the outdoor cafes along Red Square. Greg had the beef stroganoff. Finally, a true Russian meal! I had a bite and it was really good. Different from when I’ve made beef stroganoff. Then we walked through the mall that’s next to Red Square. I don’t know what the name of it is, but it has some pricey stores in it. But I still wanted to just window shop. We went in this one store because I saw a t-shirt that said Russia on the front and I liked it. It was 4,650 rubles!!!!! For a t-shirt!!!!! That’s over $200.00!!!!! It was nice, thick t-shirt material, but still!!!!! Needless to say, I didn’t buy it. After that experience, we headed for the Metro to come back to the hotel.
Greg had a funny experience before we left the mall though. I’m going to let him tell it.
Okay, we’re walking through the mall, looking at $200 tee shirts and such, and I said to Kyley, “We should start heading back soon, because after walking all day, I really need to use the facilities”. She said “Well there’s a restroom right over there”. “But they told us to use the facilities in the plane before we landed because the airport ones are not very desirable. What if these were the same?” Oh well, I figured, it’s an upscale mall, they’re bound to have upscale facilities as well, so what the heck. So I followed the arrow that Kyley had so keenly pointed out. Three corridors and three stairways later I was there, and came upon a room with two doors inside, a men’s and a women’s, with a woman sitting at a nearby table. Seemed a little weird, but hey, we’re not Kansas anymore. As I went to go toward the door she says “eight rubles”. I paused. She repeated herself. Seriously? I have to pay eight rubles (about 35 cents) to use the john? So I paid, but that was only the beginning. I went in and saw a row of stalls on one wall. The doors were a little smaller than ours, the tops only coming to about chest height. No big deal. I opened the stall door and looked in. Then I looked around the room a bit, and looked in again. Um, there’s no toilet in here! There was a stainless steel pan built into the floor, with two places to put your feet and, well, a hole in the middle. That’s it! No tissue, no nothing. So I’m thinking that I’ll have to disrobe from the waist down to make this work, and well, I just might need to buy some $600 shoes if I have to leave mine here. Given the risk, I calmly left and we went back to the hotel as planned. I really miss Michigan!
I’m back! That was a story only he could tell! Russ and Monica, we hope you made it safely home! Rai-Lynn, have a safe trip tomorrow! Donnie, enjoy your visit!
By the way, for those of you who are traveling to Astrakhan and staying at the Korvet Hotel, our Internet and telephone bill was only 1250 rubles. I didn’t think this was too bad for a week. I had called my mom once and we talked for about 20 minutes. That was the only phone call. We were careful about the Internet time. We would type everything in Word to have it ready to just cut and paste into our blog or e-mails. We also didn’t put a lot of pictures on our blog for this reason. So if you’re careful, you should be fine!
Mia is picking us up at 10:40 a.m. to take us to the airport. Our flight leaves at 2:40 p.m. We will eventually end up at Detroit Metro at 9:10 p.m. It’s going to be a long day!
I typed this blog in Word and then we headed over to McDonald’s because they supposedly have free Wi-Fi. And the network said it was free when we tried to connect. And we connected, but it wouldn’t give us internet access. So we’re back at the hotel using a ½ hour internet card that we had to purchase from their business center. Our next blog posting will be from home!
Greg was happy for the change of Moscow climate. It was a beautiful, sunny day with the high of about 80 degrees. Everyday that we were in Astrakhan it was at least 100 degrees or more! He thought this was too hot! I kept wanting to go for a walk, but he didn’t really want to go. So I would just walk down to the courtyard of the hotel and stand in the sun to warm up. 100 degrees is perfect weather for me and we don’t get it too often in Michigan.
After we settled into the hotel, we decided to take the Metro (subway) back to Red Square. We’re getting pretty good at the Metro! By our next trip, we’ll be old pros. We walked to Arbat Street. This is such a neat place. Some great shops, restaurants, street musicians, etc. We stopped at the Hard Rock Café just to get something to drink. We had been walking for a long time and needed to sit down. We did some shopping and then walked back down by the Kremlin to Red Square. We had lunch at one of the outdoor cafes along Red Square. Greg had the beef stroganoff. Finally, a true Russian meal! I had a bite and it was really good. Different from when I’ve made beef stroganoff. Then we walked through the mall that’s next to Red Square. I don’t know what the name of it is, but it has some pricey stores in it. But I still wanted to just window shop. We went in this one store because I saw a t-shirt that said Russia on the front and I liked it. It was 4,650 rubles!!!!! For a t-shirt!!!!! That’s over $200.00!!!!! It was nice, thick t-shirt material, but still!!!!! Needless to say, I didn’t buy it. After that experience, we headed for the Metro to come back to the hotel.
Greg had a funny experience before we left the mall though. I’m going to let him tell it.
Okay, we’re walking through the mall, looking at $200 tee shirts and such, and I said to Kyley, “We should start heading back soon, because after walking all day, I really need to use the facilities”. She said “Well there’s a restroom right over there”. “But they told us to use the facilities in the plane before we landed because the airport ones are not very desirable. What if these were the same?” Oh well, I figured, it’s an upscale mall, they’re bound to have upscale facilities as well, so what the heck. So I followed the arrow that Kyley had so keenly pointed out. Three corridors and three stairways later I was there, and came upon a room with two doors inside, a men’s and a women’s, with a woman sitting at a nearby table. Seemed a little weird, but hey, we’re not Kansas anymore. As I went to go toward the door she says “eight rubles”. I paused. She repeated herself. Seriously? I have to pay eight rubles (about 35 cents) to use the john? So I paid, but that was only the beginning. I went in and saw a row of stalls on one wall. The doors were a little smaller than ours, the tops only coming to about chest height. No big deal. I opened the stall door and looked in. Then I looked around the room a bit, and looked in again. Um, there’s no toilet in here! There was a stainless steel pan built into the floor, with two places to put your feet and, well, a hole in the middle. That’s it! No tissue, no nothing. So I’m thinking that I’ll have to disrobe from the waist down to make this work, and well, I just might need to buy some $600 shoes if I have to leave mine here. Given the risk, I calmly left and we went back to the hotel as planned. I really miss Michigan!
I’m back! That was a story only he could tell! Russ and Monica, we hope you made it safely home! Rai-Lynn, have a safe trip tomorrow! Donnie, enjoy your visit!
By the way, for those of you who are traveling to Astrakhan and staying at the Korvet Hotel, our Internet and telephone bill was only 1250 rubles. I didn’t think this was too bad for a week. I had called my mom once and we talked for about 20 minutes. That was the only phone call. We were careful about the Internet time. We would type everything in Word to have it ready to just cut and paste into our blog or e-mails. We also didn’t put a lot of pictures on our blog for this reason. So if you’re careful, you should be fine!
Mia is picking us up at 10:40 a.m. to take us to the airport. Our flight leaves at 2:40 p.m. We will eventually end up at Detroit Metro at 9:10 p.m. It’s going to be a long day!
I typed this blog in Word and then we headed over to McDonald’s because they supposedly have free Wi-Fi. And the network said it was free when we tried to connect. And we connected, but it wouldn’t give us internet access. So we’re back at the hotel using a ½ hour internet card that we had to purchase from their business center. Our next blog posting will be from home!
Friday, July 25, 2008
Our last day in Astrakhan
Well, here we are in our hotel room on Friday, our last night here in Astrakhan. We just got back from dinner with Donnie and Rai-Lynn. We went to San Pizza again tonight. You really can’t go wrong there. The pizza is just like home and it’s pretty inexpensive. It’s about 9:30 PM here, and according to the clock on the computer, which we never changed to “Moscow time”, it’s 1:30 PM back in Michigan. Russ and Monica flew off safely to Moscow this morning. Their plane left very early this morning. Ours is at the same time tomorrow, so we’ll need to be up at about 4:30 to get ready to go to the airport on time. It’s okay, it’s not like we sleep that much anyway here. We’re really looking forward to being home again.
But of course, there’s a problem with that too. We got to see our little girl twice today, for about an hour each time. The second time was very emotional as we knew that we wouldn’t see her again for at least six weeks or so. Will she remember us when we come back to get her? Everyone says yes, but with her being so young, we’re just not sure. She had more mosquito bites today, and her rashes seemed to be acting up more. It appears she has Kyley’s skin, if that’s at all possible. But she seemed very happy anyway, probably the happiest we’ve seen her so far. There was no crying and she had lots of smiles for us as we played with her, more than any other visit. We managed to capture a couple of them with the camera this time, too. We do know that she’ll still be happy while we’re gone because she has an obvious bond with her caregivers there. Her eyes light up when she sees them, so we know she gets lots of attention and is loved. We just can’t wait until that’s our job to do full time. It seems like an eternity right now, but I’m sure time will fly by as we go back to our normal routines and start the task of getting things ready for her arrival in September or October. Let’s just say September. PLEASE!
We’ll be in Moscow again for one night and we now know that we can get free Internet access at McDonalds there. Which is great because the hotel charges extra for it and McD’s is right across the street. We’re a little worried about what the Internet charge will be here at the Korvet Hotel in Astrakhan. They keep track of how many megabytes we send and receive, and charge us by that. It’s 5 rubles (about 22 cents) per megabyte I think. We really have no idea how much we’ve sent and received, but for those of you frustrated by the lack of pictures on our blog and in our emails, that would be the reason. When we get home, we’ll post more, though we are still not allowed to post pictures of her online until the adoption is completely final.
So long from Astrakhan! Honey, we’ll be back just as soon as we can! Next post will be from Moscow again so stay tuned.
Mom and Dad, we’ll try to call you from Moscow, since our calling card should work there.
But of course, there’s a problem with that too. We got to see our little girl twice today, for about an hour each time. The second time was very emotional as we knew that we wouldn’t see her again for at least six weeks or so. Will she remember us when we come back to get her? Everyone says yes, but with her being so young, we’re just not sure. She had more mosquito bites today, and her rashes seemed to be acting up more. It appears she has Kyley’s skin, if that’s at all possible. But she seemed very happy anyway, probably the happiest we’ve seen her so far. There was no crying and she had lots of smiles for us as we played with her, more than any other visit. We managed to capture a couple of them with the camera this time, too. We do know that she’ll still be happy while we’re gone because she has an obvious bond with her caregivers there. Her eyes light up when she sees them, so we know she gets lots of attention and is loved. We just can’t wait until that’s our job to do full time. It seems like an eternity right now, but I’m sure time will fly by as we go back to our normal routines and start the task of getting things ready for her arrival in September or October. Let’s just say September. PLEASE!
We’ll be in Moscow again for one night and we now know that we can get free Internet access at McDonalds there. Which is great because the hotel charges extra for it and McD’s is right across the street. We’re a little worried about what the Internet charge will be here at the Korvet Hotel in Astrakhan. They keep track of how many megabytes we send and receive, and charge us by that. It’s 5 rubles (about 22 cents) per megabyte I think. We really have no idea how much we’ve sent and received, but for those of you frustrated by the lack of pictures on our blog and in our emails, that would be the reason. When we get home, we’ll post more, though we are still not allowed to post pictures of her online until the adoption is completely final.
So long from Astrakhan! Honey, we’ll be back just as soon as we can! Next post will be from Moscow again so stay tuned.
Mom and Dad, we’ll try to call you from Moscow, since our calling card should work there.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
She finally smiled at us!
Congratulations to Donnie and Rai-Lynn! They had their court date today and everything went great! Russ and Monica leave bright and early tomorrow morning. They’ll go back to Moscow and then on home Saturday. We all went out to dinner tonight to the Krem Café to celebrate. Here is a picture of us.
Today we visited the Baby Home two times. And she SMILED at us two times!!!! We were so happy! We have tried so hard to find something that would make her smile. She did great today. We read the photo book that we made for her a couple of times. We are going to leave it with her, so she can have pictures of us while we’re gone. We also gave her a little doll that we are going to be leaving with her. We brought a disposable camera with us and are hoping to leave that as well, so that her caregivers can take pictures of her between now and when we return to take her home. We took a lot of pictures today and Greg took some video also. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the smile part on the video. But there will be lots more smiles to come.
Tomorrow is our last day to visit with her, since we leave first thing Saturday morning. This is going to be so hard, leaving her, but we know she’ll be in good hands and we’ll get back here as soon as we can to bring her home forever.
Today we visited the Baby Home two times. And she SMILED at us two times!!!! We were so happy! We have tried so hard to find something that would make her smile. She did great today. We read the photo book that we made for her a couple of times. We are going to leave it with her, so she can have pictures of us while we’re gone. We also gave her a little doll that we are going to be leaving with her. We brought a disposable camera with us and are hoping to leave that as well, so that her caregivers can take pictures of her between now and when we return to take her home. We took a lot of pictures today and Greg took some video also. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the smile part on the video. But there will be lots more smiles to come.
Tomorrow is our last day to visit with her, since we leave first thing Saturday morning. This is going to be so hard, leaving her, but we know she’ll be in good hands and we’ll get back here as soon as we can to bring her home forever.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Signed the papers!
Today was the day! We signed the documents to officially adopt our daughter. She is a beautiful, nine month old little girl. She has blond hair and big, blue eyes! Now begins the hard part of waiting until we can bring her home. We get to visit her two times tomorrow and we’re hoping we get to see her on Friday, too. This has been such an emotional week, but now we know it was all worth it!
By the way, we received information from our international adoption doctor. She had some concerns as we did too. She had some things for us to try to get more information on. Some of the things we were able to get answers on and some not. While our little girl is very small for her age and behind in her development, she doesn’t seem to have any health issues that can’t be taken care of when we get home.
Today we got to visit with her outside. This was nice to have the fresh air, although it was about 100 degrees today. We stayed in the shade under a gazebo-like covering. We were allowed to take pictures for the first time today, so we took lots of them. We hope to take more tomorrow and some video as well. She did much better today. There were no tears. A couple of sad faces that looked like tears were about to come, but we were able to divert her attention to something else before the tears came out. Greg held her for quite awhile today and she was fine! Everyday that we have been there, she has been very interested in the jewelry that I was wearing. She just loved the necklace today and didn’t want to give it up. I told Greg this is only the beginning. Now he has two females who are “in need” of lots of jewelry. I’m assuming this love of jewelry will extend to other accessories and footwear, of course!
Another couple arrived last night, so now there are three couples here. They are on their second trip and have their court date tomorrow. Good luck! We all went out to dinner and just got back. We went to San Pizza. They have an English-translated menu and some employees who speak English. Although they can give you an English menu, the prices on it are not current ones. They give you their regular menu, so you know what the new prices are. However, the regular menu is in Russian, so you have no idea what Russian items go with the English items. This is the second time we have been there. Prices are also pretty reasonable. We would definitely recommend it!
By the way, we received information from our international adoption doctor. She had some concerns as we did too. She had some things for us to try to get more information on. Some of the things we were able to get answers on and some not. While our little girl is very small for her age and behind in her development, she doesn’t seem to have any health issues that can’t be taken care of when we get home.
Today we got to visit with her outside. This was nice to have the fresh air, although it was about 100 degrees today. We stayed in the shade under a gazebo-like covering. We were allowed to take pictures for the first time today, so we took lots of them. We hope to take more tomorrow and some video as well. She did much better today. There were no tears. A couple of sad faces that looked like tears were about to come, but we were able to divert her attention to something else before the tears came out. Greg held her for quite awhile today and she was fine! Everyday that we have been there, she has been very interested in the jewelry that I was wearing. She just loved the necklace today and didn’t want to give it up. I told Greg this is only the beginning. Now he has two females who are “in need” of lots of jewelry. I’m assuming this love of jewelry will extend to other accessories and footwear, of course!
Another couple arrived last night, so now there are three couples here. They are on their second trip and have their court date tomorrow. Good luck! We all went out to dinner and just got back. We went to San Pizza. They have an English-translated menu and some employees who speak English. Although they can give you an English menu, the prices on it are not current ones. They give you their regular menu, so you know what the new prices are. However, the regular menu is in Russian, so you have no idea what Russian items go with the English items. This is the second time we have been there. Prices are also pretty reasonable. We would definitely recommend it!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Third Day in Astrakhan
It’s Tuesday, our third day in Astrakhan. It seems like much longer. We haven’t spoken much about the city here. It’s very different than what we’re used to. Most of the buildings here seem to be very old, and many have had little updates over the years. There are wood sided structures that look like they have never had paint on them. There are wires and pipes running everywhere on all the buildings, and from building to building. Many roofs are of plain corrugated metal with makeshift downspouts. There are many sheds made of heavy gauge plate steel everywhere that look like they can be lifted into place with a crane. We’re told that these are mostly garages, (they’re about the size of a parking space) but some people use them for storage or even to live in!
There really doesn’t seem to be any concept of landscaping here. The ground is either covered by buildings, paving, or just left to be whatever grows there, so it’s a combination of bare dirt and weeds. There are many trees but they don’t seem to get trimmed, so many buildings have a kind of overgrown look to them. We’ve seen a few places that have flowers planted, but they’re usually just mixed in with all the other vegetation.
They have central heating plants so there are above-ground heating pipes that run everywhere, mostly along roadsides. There are usually at least one pair of roughly 16” diameter pipes, crudely wrapped with insulation, held on with ropes, along every street. And the pipes extend to every building in the city it seems. Not sure why they don’t put these underground.
The main roads are mostly asphalt while the minor roads are just dirt. There are no lines on the roads anywhere. They just use the right half (roughly) to drive on. If there is no oncoming traffic, the street just kind of becomes one-way. Scary. Without lanes, the cars just go kind of go everywhere and are literally inches from each other most of the time. Cars and small vans cut in and out of traffic with no apparent rules at all. Surprisingly though, we haven’t seen many accidents. We both decided that we would never want to attempt driving here. We have a driver that takes us to the orphanage and anywhere else we need to go that is adoption-related. Otherwise, we’re pretty much on our own.
There are LOTS of stray dogs and cats roaming around. Apparently, not many Russians keep pets like we do, so they treat them more like just wildlife, kind of like we would treat squirrels.
We visited with our child twice today, first in the morning for about 40 minutes. It went reasonably well. There was some crying, not at first, but after about 20 minutes. We think it’s just because we’re strangers and she’s not used to us. She especially doesn’t like it when I (Greg) hold her, probably because there is only one male at the orphanage, a doctor who only works the night shift. Kyley has been holding her and I have been holding the toys or books, etc. And most of the time, she seems content with that. After our visit, they took us to a store to buy a few toys for the child and things to keep in our refrigerator for our lunches. It reminded us a little of a Sam’s Club. Except for the restaurant in the hotel (it’s kind of like a restaurant, anyway) there really are none nearby. They’ve told us we probably shouldn’t venture out on foot after dark so we’ve been somewhat confined to the hotel in the evenings.
Our second visit with the child seemed slightly better than the morning visit. It’s hard to tell, but she seems to be warming up to us a little. She seems to really like it when Kyley sings to her. She liked the little musical lion we bought for her at the store. We almost got her to smile today, but it’s not quite there yet. Toward the end of our visit, she seemed very tired (rubbing the eyes) and cried quite a bit. That signaled the caregiver to come take her and end our visit. We only get to see her in a meeting room. They don’t let us see where she sleeps, probably for the privacy of the other kids.
We’re waiting for our pediatrician to email us back her comments from the medical information we sent her yesterday. They tell us that we should make a decision on whether we want to adopt her by tomorrow which includes selecting a name for her. We don’t want to make our decision until we hear from the doctor though. Wow, this is a lot to process all at once.
There really doesn’t seem to be any concept of landscaping here. The ground is either covered by buildings, paving, or just left to be whatever grows there, so it’s a combination of bare dirt and weeds. There are many trees but they don’t seem to get trimmed, so many buildings have a kind of overgrown look to them. We’ve seen a few places that have flowers planted, but they’re usually just mixed in with all the other vegetation.
They have central heating plants so there are above-ground heating pipes that run everywhere, mostly along roadsides. There are usually at least one pair of roughly 16” diameter pipes, crudely wrapped with insulation, held on with ropes, along every street. And the pipes extend to every building in the city it seems. Not sure why they don’t put these underground.
The main roads are mostly asphalt while the minor roads are just dirt. There are no lines on the roads anywhere. They just use the right half (roughly) to drive on. If there is no oncoming traffic, the street just kind of becomes one-way. Scary. Without lanes, the cars just go kind of go everywhere and are literally inches from each other most of the time. Cars and small vans cut in and out of traffic with no apparent rules at all. Surprisingly though, we haven’t seen many accidents. We both decided that we would never want to attempt driving here. We have a driver that takes us to the orphanage and anywhere else we need to go that is adoption-related. Otherwise, we’re pretty much on our own.
There are LOTS of stray dogs and cats roaming around. Apparently, not many Russians keep pets like we do, so they treat them more like just wildlife, kind of like we would treat squirrels.
We visited with our child twice today, first in the morning for about 40 minutes. It went reasonably well. There was some crying, not at first, but after about 20 minutes. We think it’s just because we’re strangers and she’s not used to us. She especially doesn’t like it when I (Greg) hold her, probably because there is only one male at the orphanage, a doctor who only works the night shift. Kyley has been holding her and I have been holding the toys or books, etc. And most of the time, she seems content with that. After our visit, they took us to a store to buy a few toys for the child and things to keep in our refrigerator for our lunches. It reminded us a little of a Sam’s Club. Except for the restaurant in the hotel (it’s kind of like a restaurant, anyway) there really are none nearby. They’ve told us we probably shouldn’t venture out on foot after dark so we’ve been somewhat confined to the hotel in the evenings.
Our second visit with the child seemed slightly better than the morning visit. It’s hard to tell, but she seems to be warming up to us a little. She seems to really like it when Kyley sings to her. She liked the little musical lion we bought for her at the store. We almost got her to smile today, but it’s not quite there yet. Toward the end of our visit, she seemed very tired (rubbing the eyes) and cried quite a bit. That signaled the caregiver to come take her and end our visit. We only get to see her in a meeting room. They don’t let us see where she sleeps, probably for the privacy of the other kids.
We’re waiting for our pediatrician to email us back her comments from the medical information we sent her yesterday. They tell us that we should make a decision on whether we want to adopt her by tomorrow which includes selecting a name for her. We don’t want to make our decision until we hear from the doctor though. Wow, this is a lot to process all at once.
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