sleep deprived but doing well

We are back in Moscow and have been since Saturday evening. We have Ella!! She is napping right now after getting up at 3:30 in the morning. The time zones have really messed up our systems. It is useless to get into a routine because we will be in another time zone tomorrow night.


Ella's gotcha day was awesome. We went to the orphanage around noon and spent a little time in the groupa. We got a lot of pictures and video. Sorry, i will have to post pictures when we are home- I forgot the cable to download from my camera.
After the orphanage, we went straight to the airport and were off to Moscow. Ella was great on the plane. She slept about 1 hour of the 8 hour trip but she was content just to lay down on the seat. It was nice because our court was held on Wednesday so Thursday and Friday afternoon we were able to have her in our hotel room. I think this really helped her not be so nervous when it was time to actually take her out for good.

It is really amazing what a transformation in her personality we saw just getting her out of the orphanage. She is like a different child. She is happy and playful, affectionate and engaging. It brings back so many memories of when we adopted Connor - he was the same way.

We have an apartment in Moscow. It is small but modern and nice. We have been cooking in except for 2 meals at McDonalds. the largest McDonalds in the world is here. We are about a 15 minute walk from Red Square. We walked there on Monday and took a bunch of pictures. Yesterday we did an english speaking tour of the Kremlin. It was amazing - there are a lot of beautiful buildings and cathedrals. The cathedrals reminded me of Kiev's Lavra.

It is amazing how big this city is! I didn't imagine it to be as big. Everything is in good repair - the sidewalks, buildings etc.

I will say it has been strange that we have been searching for baby food jars/food all over and have been unsuccessful so far. Don't worry - Ella has been eating well. I think she is heavier now than when we left the orphanage - or it may just be my sleep deprived bodies perception!

We haven't had to do much here adoption related really. We filled out our documents for the US embassy. Ella had her physical (which is required for her US Visa) but the doctor came to our apartment. today we have of visa interview at the embassy. Then we wait in the car while our facilitator registers her at the foreign ministry. That is it and tomorrow we hop on a plane home. We are sooo ready to get home.

Ella just woke up from her nap so I am signing out for now. I'll post pictures soon.

Hi from Moscow

We are here in Moscow at the airport wasting time before our next flight to Magadan. We have a 10 hour layover and have about 3 hours left. We will be heading to the gate soon.

We actually go some sleep on the plane and took some cat naps in the airport. We are more relaxed this trip because we know the lay of the land.

We get into Magaday at 12:35 Monday afternoon and will see Ella. We can't wait. I bet she has changed in the last 10 weeks.

I will post in a few days- probably from Moscow.

The Room is Ready!

I am really happy with how it turned out. Here are the after pictures! If you want to see larger images just double click on them.

COURT DATE!

We got our court date on Wednesday - September 30th!!!!!

It has been a busy week trying to get things ready at work for when I take leave and all the planning and paperwork associated with the trip.

We have our flights. We will leave Saturday September 26th in the morning and get to Magadan on Monday afternoon the 28th. We will be in Magadan until Saturday. Once court is done we have to process Ella's documents (passport, birth certificate etc.) so that takes a couple days.

We arrive in Moscow on Saturday. We will be doing business on Monday and Tuesday. Ella will have to have a physical before the US Embassy will issue her visa. We also have to register her at the Russian Consulate.

There will be some free time this trip unlike our first trip which was mainly travel. We are looking forward to seeing Moscow.

Ella's room is almost done. My mom and I are putting the finishing touches on this weekend. I'll post after pictures soon.

Updates from Russia

We got Ella's new measurements and she has gained 3 pounds in one month! Here head grew 3cm and her height grew 5cm. This is all good news. I told our adoption agency that we need to get back over there before she is all grown up! the notes also said she stands on her own but does not take steps.

We also got word that the official release letter that takes Ella off the databanks in Russia was received. This means that we can file for court on Monday. Hopefully we will get a fast judge who will assign a date quickly.

Ella's room has really just been in the planning stages and I have been gathering things here and there. This is the weekend we paint and put it together. I want to make some curtains too. It is a tall order to get it all done this weekend but I would think it would be feasible in a couple. So, I am posting a before picture and when the room is done I will post an after.

My Amazing Birthday Boy!

You should have heard Connor last night. Darren is putting him to bed and he calls me up there and Connor asks me “How does God hear me? How do I know he hears me when he doesn’t talk back to me and I can’t see him? I ask him to bring my baby sister home but I don’t know if he hears me because she isn’t home.” So I told him that God is everywhere and he hears us and he helps us all the time. I told him how God helped us find him because he knew we were meant to be a family. I said sometimes it takes time for God to make things happen.

So then he said his prayers and at the end he asked God again to bring his baby sister home and he almost started crying. I said “Oh Buddy – God heard you!” I told him that we need to get her room ready first before she gets here. Then he was excited to help paint the room.

Happy Birthday Connor!

Pictures From Trip One

Oh and the name is going to be Ella!

We can't post identifying picture of Ella yet since the adoption is not final. I will say she is a little squirt. Six month clothes fit her perfectly right now. Hopefully she will be into 9 months soon after she is home.

Here she is hugging her dolly.

View of the Magadan and one of the two bays that surround it.

I will post more pictures of Magadan soon.

Back From Trip One Whirl Wind

We just got back home last night at around 11pm. Glad to be home and done with the travel.

It was a successful trip and we have decided to move forward with the adoption. We saw her for about an hour on Thursday afternoon - the day we arrived - and twice on Friday and once on Saturday before we left. On the first day she knew we were strangers but warmed up to me pretty fast - letting me hold her and walk around with her. She was checking out Darren and wasn't too sure about him. The children in the orphanage aren't exposed to men since all their caretakers are women.

We saw her twice on Friday. She did let Darren hold her and was grabbing onto his nose. We were playing a game (saying beep when touching the nose). She was still not quite sure about us but was warming up slowly. Saturday she felt comfortable enough to crawl around the room and play with toys and interact with us. She was smiling and laughing. We brought her a soft doll and she just loves it. She would not let go of it.

Friday she let the caretaker know that she wanted to hold onto the doll so we let her keep it (as we intended to). Saturday, the caretaker pulled out the doll and she giggled and was happy. So hopefully they are letting her play with it. We also left a soft blanket and a disposable camera. Hopefully they will take some pictures while we are gone.

Now, we are ready to get her home. I wish we could have just brought her with us on this trip.

I will post a few picture tomorrow.

Getting Ready to Leave

It has been a hectic preparing for the trip. We have been working on getting all of our paperwork done that is needed for court. We are hoping this may speed up the process a little.

Court is held on the second trip. The second trip is usually around 8 weeks after the first trip. Our particular region (Magadan) waives the 10 day wait period after court. So our second trip will be longer than our first but we won't be gone too long.

So, this weekend will be spent packing and shopping for the trip. We really don't need much but you want to be prepared and have all the OTC medicine available just in case (like pepto, imodium etc...).

Our referral had her 1st birthday on Thursday. It would have been nice to be there. We tried but flights were impossible to get. We were on waiting lists but we finally had to get the tickets.

The countdown has started - 4 days until we hop on an airplane!!

Yes - I am still here - Good News -finally.

I have not posted in sooooo long. I felt like there was nothing positive to post about. I just didn't feel like posting more of the same.

Well...... We have our referral for a 12 month old girl and leave July 21st to meet her! We are really excited and feel there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

We will only be in (or above) Russia for 5 days. It will be a marathon of travel. Magadan is basically like another trans-atlantic flight from Moscow. We leave about 2:00pm on Tuesday and arrive in Moscow about noon on Wednesday. We then have about an 8 hour layover until we hop on the plane to Magadan at around 8:00pm. We arrive in Magadan Thursday around noon. We stay 2 nights in Magadan and leave Saturday at about 4:00 pm and get to Moscow 5:00 pm. We stay over-night in Moscow and leave Sunday to arrive back in St. Louis at 7:00pm. Whew! We are trying to get psyched (mentally prepared) for the long travel. I have a feeling adrenaline will keep us going at least until we meet our referral.

Connor will be staying with the Grandparents and is looking forward to it.

Long Time No Post

It has been a while. I think mainly because there hasn't been any news related to our adoption. We are feeling optimistic that we will be getting a referral soon. We are still registered in Magadan. Our agency has told us that we should have a referral the end of April if all goes well.

Time has really been moving slow. I have been researching Magadan. It has a very interesting history. Below is a link.
http://www.myrussland.ru/regions.php?ocd=view&id=48

I also found out that there is a priest from St. Louis at their Catholic Church. Small world! There is a lot of interesting information about the people of Magadan on the site also.

http://www.magadancatholic.org/Main%20pages/English.html

One more tidbit- In June Magadan experiences white nights - the sun doesn't set. It is really on top of the world!

The Only Thing Certain is Uncertainty

I think this title probably sums up a lot of adoptive parents' journey. Magadan is a small region and very few children become available for adoption. Right not we are very uncertain on what timing we are talking about for a referral.

The path to adopt in Moscow may open up again soon for our agency. This would be great news. We are requesting prayers that this happens and a referral comes our way soon.

I guess for now we are keeping our options open and staying positive. Our daughter is out there somewhere. We just need to get to her and bring her home.

In the meantime we are staying busy with house projects. We are finishing up a bathroom in our basement and I plan on stripping wallpaper in another. Connor is also keeping us busy as always. He is playing indoor soccer which is a lot of fun for him. Before long it will be spring!

New Region

It looks like we are going to try a new region. The region is Magadan and it is in Far East Siberia. Let's make this more of an adventure shall we? We will fly across the Pacific Ocean - maybe up to Alaska and over. I'm not sure. Magadan is a port city along the Sea of Okhotsk.

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/magadan_siberia.htm

No International Travel any time soon

Wow, it has been a while since I have blogged. I was hoping I would have some good news to post but there really isn't any GOOD news regarding the adoption.

We waited through the holidays and were told that our dossier was going to be submitted (again) on January 20th - last Tuesday. Well, instead we got some bad news from our agency. They told us that the Moscow City Department of Adoption (DOE) received a letter from the office of the prime minister asking them to drastically limit Amercan Adoption agencies working in their region. So essentially, our agency has been banned/kicked out of Moscow City.

This is all due to a tragic ending of a recently adopted boy's life. The little boy had been home for around 3 months when the father forgot to drop him off at day care and left him for 9 hours in his SUV in the sweltering heat. He recently went to trial and the Judge aquitted him. Russia saw this as a slap in the face and felt the father should have been punished. There were a lot of opinions expressed on the subject in the chat rooms. Some of those opinions were frowned upon by the Russian authorities.

http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2008/dec/17/father-acquitted-manslaughter-sons-death-car/?local

The past week has been trying. We are trying to decide our next steps. Waiting it out is very hard. We also can clearly know now that our first referral is gone. We hope that she is adopted by a loving family. I took her picture off of our refrigerator this week as it is a constant reminder of our situation.

Please pray that adoptions in Russia continue- for the children and their forever families.