He's All That....And More!!

We met the sweetest little guy today! Our day began by ordering breakfast at the hotel restaurant, which opened at 7:30, and wasn’t put on our table until 8:00, which is when our facilitator was arriving. We didn’t think it would take very long for breakfast since we were the only ones in the restaurant. So, the day began with us being a little nervous about being late. We left the hotel at 8:05 and headed to the Ministry of Education to get the official referral. We ended up waiting in the hallway for the director to show up, so it didn’t matter if we had been late. Our translator warned us that we’d be asked some personal questions and to be prepared. She asked us about three questions total. I think we were in there about 5 minutes, if even that. Then we were off on an hour and a half ride to the baby home. The ride was great and Mike and I were surprisingly calm. Then we pulled into the orphanage parking lot and saw some little ones playing outside. Our translator walked us through the hallways (that were all being redone) and upstairs to the director’s office. The social worker, director, caretaker, translator, facilitator, Mike and I were all in a room that was about 6X8. Things moved very quickly at this point. Everyone was talking Russian and the translator said to get out our notebook and take notes. The Social Worker started rattling off information and I couldn’t find my pen!! Panic!! Soon enough I had the pen in my hand and was trying frantically to take notes on the birth mother’s history. Meanwhile, people were walking in and out. I guess the translator told us that they were going to go get our little guy and bring him in. Luckily Mike knows me and knew that I didn’t hear her, so he told me what they said. So, the social worker is still talking and I’m still writing…panicked that I’m going to miss the little guys entrance. All of a sudden our Russian-speaking facilitator yells “Look! Look!” and little guy was walking in the room towards us with the help of his caretaker. Love at first sight. He seemed rather confident and proud walking into a tiny room filled with lots of people. The caretaker walked him over to us and I think I said “Privyet” (hi) several times. I held out my hands and next thing I know he is in my arms. The translator had to remind us to give him some toys to play with as Mike and I were just sitting there in awe staring at him. Mike grabbed the stuffed Sabaka (dog) and he got very excited and started making “ba” noises. Next thing I know everyone is leaving the room. We were told to go into another room that they were remodeling and to bring chairs. I had little guy in my arms and that was all I was thinking about. (I think all of the above transpired in about 3 minutes, not sure, it was all such a blur.) The translator, Mike, and I were all alone in the room with little guy and he went readily to Mike, while I got out his other toys. He was very interested in the stacking cups and liked banging them and then discovered that these crazy Americans would pick them up if he threw them on the floor. He seemed a little timid, but didn’t cry once. He didn’t like that I kept trying to take pictures of him. We kept calling his name to look at the camera, but he wasn’t that interested. He just sat on Dad’s lap and was rather comfortable playing with the toys. He even tried kissing Sabaka, which was very cute. We think he wanted to get on the floor, but when I tried to put him down, the translator said the floor was cold and the caretakers would not be happy to see him on the floor (even though he was really warm and we were sweating in the hot room). Of course, we did not want to press our luck so we kept him from getting on the floor, even though he kept making head dives for the floor. We spent a good time playing with him and he even gave his Dad a little snuggle. He was very interested in my lips and kept staring at them and trying to grab them. Not sure if it was my lips or my teeth. It was so precious to see his little hands, which are not so little…actually, rather chunky. He did have several “mosquito” bites on his face and they put the purple paste on them, but he appeared perfect to us. I actually wondered if he had chicken pox, because he looked like he wasn’t feeling well. He seems really strong, too. Next thing we know, the caretaker came and told us that it was time for his nap, so we had to say paka (bye bye). We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes with him. As he was walking away from us he looked back and gave a little tiny smirk of a smile. Then the doctor came and gave us his medical history. It seems like he has some very minor things that he will get checked out, but we don’t have any concerns at all. He’s even grown from the measurements that we were given from before. Once we got in the car, the facilitator asked if we had any questions…our only one was “when can we take him home?” We made it back to our hotel and are looking forward to our visit with him tomorrow…we are thinking we will get about 2 hours with him. Now, we are resting from our emotionally exciting day.

From Russia with Love

We arrived in Vlad safe and sound! The flight was very uneventful, and we were able to get one last “Western” style meal in at Subway before we left. Vladivostok is very pretty. We had a half hour ride to get to our hotel, and we were amazed at how wooded it is. We can actually see the ocean from the hotel grounds, and we are hoping to walk down there tomorrow night. We just got back from dinner, and are planning on getting to bed early tonight, as we are getting picked up at 8am. Our coordinator informed us that we will be going to see the Ministry of Education in the morning, and they we are off to the orphanage to see our baby. We absolutely can not wait.

Seoul Continued...

We enjoyed ourselves in Seoul, everyone was very nice to us. We did find some things rather humorous though. In our hotel, all of the electricity was done by the remote control to the t.v. So, Mike thought it was rather funny to turn the lights off while I was going to the bathroom. Speaking of the bathroom, there was a sign on the door that said not to put toilet paper in the toilet….mmm….so, maybe that is why there was a bidet system installed on the toilet. I have no qualms trying out a bidet, however, all 10 buttons on the toilet were written in Korean. Needless to say, we weren’t about to try that. The shower was interesting as well. The shower and separate bathtub were in a room together. As we were getting ready to shower we discovered that there was a shampoo and soap dispenser on the wall – OUTSIDE of the shower. Then we saw the flip flops and then we noticed that there wasn’t a drain in the shower part at all, but outside of the shower. After adding all this together, we realized that the entire room was the shower basin!! So, you get yourself wet, walk out of the shower area to get soap, then walk back to rinse off. If you know me at all, you know this was a disaster waiting to happen. But unbelievably I did not fall once!! We ended up getting a great nights rest, and were up at the crack of down ready for another flight.

Half Way Around the World

We are sitting in our hotel room in Seoul, South Korea struggling with jet lag. It is 6:15pm Sunday Korea time, but 3:15am Saturday Salt Lake time! We arrived in Seoul this morning at 5:00am safe and sound. We were able to check into our hotel room early and took a power nap and shower. Our flight from SLC to Vegas was short and sweet, and our excitement and adrenaline were on hyper-drive. Had a 3 hour layover and then headed off to Korea on Korean Air. Awesome airline!! Even though we were in coach seating, it felt like first class...plenty of leg room, movies, etc. Thanks to Ambien we were able to sleep a solid 6 hours on the flight and the remaning 6 hours were spent being excited about where we were headed. When we landed in Korea, we must have looked VERY lost and out of place, because a very nice Korean family offered to help us call for our hotel shuttle. (I'm not sure why we looked lost...it couldn't have been the fact that we were taking pictures in an airport and staring at a phone booth). We spent the day in downtown Seoul in the shopping district. We didn't buy anything, except for a Starbucks...yes, we were not very adventurous, we had latte's and then TGIFriday's for lunch. We figured we should play it safe in our eating choices, so we weren't sick for our Baby Home visit. So far, so good. We'll upload pictures when we get to Russia...our cable is in our checked luggage. This day feels like it has been the longest day of our lives, we can't wait to go to bed and we are so excited about landing in Russia tomorrow! The adventure continues...

Counting Down...

Yes, we are counting down the days, hours, and minutes until we get to see our little guy. We have our airline tickets, the hotel rooms are reserved, passports and visas are in hand. It was a bit of a close call with the visas though. We received a confirmation page via email for our visas, however it wasn't in English, it was all in Cyrillian. For some reason, I thought we should translate just to make sure everything looked good. So, we copied and pasted it into a translation program and discovered that our visas had us arriving the 16th, but departing on the 15th...of the SAME month!! So, we were leaving before we even got there! I'm so glad we double checked that and we were able to get them to change it before we travel. (So...for our fellow PAP's out there, please make sure your dates on your visas are accurate.)

As for everything else, we have started the packing process...well, the beginning of the packing process. We have almost everything that we are taking sprawled all over little Russki's room. We've been collecting things over the last 11 months, but now that the time is here, we are trying to get it all organized. Even though we collected a lot of things, we still ended up going out and buying more things...like dual time zone watches, new clothing, and other things we probably won't need...but it has been fun shopping for things we MAY need!

Even though we are super excited about going, I've been a little stressed out about all I need to get done for my classroom. Since we are at a year round school, we are still in session. The week we get back, will be the last week of school...so, that means report cards need to be done, and we will be busy with all of our end of the year activities. Thankfully, my Mom and Dad came down this weekend, and my Mom helped save the day by grading papers, filing, sorting, and helping prepare things for my substitute....Thanks Mom!

Mike is his usual calm self, methodically getting things done. His main concern right now is whether or not he will be able to eat anything while we are over there....if you know Mike at all, you know he is a picky eater. So, we spent a good portion of our day buying some snack foods that he can get by on-just in case.

One final note...while we were laying everything out on the floor to pack...our dogs insisted on laying in the middle of all of it. Obviously they know something is going on. They won't be happy that we are leaving them for a week, but I know they will be thrilled someday to get a little boy to play with.

Father's Day Surprise!

We received our travel dates!!! We are leaving Father's Day weekend to meet our little guy!! We can hardly contain the excitement! We will spend an entire week there and look forward to every moment that we will get to be with him! There is so much to do before we leave and we are frantically trying to remember all that we need to do! Plane tickets are bought, hotel is reserved, visa applications are submitted, the list goes on... in just a short time we will get to see that beautiful face in person.

The Room

We've had the baby's room ready for quite sometime, but we were missing a dresser. We searched for many months, but couldn't find exactly what we wanted. So, my dad came to the rescue and made the perfect dresser! Thanks Dad!! Now, we are completely ready for our little guy.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

The frenzy of paperwork is completed! We mailed our little package today! Pray that we don't have to make anymore changes to our documents. Now, we wait for travel dates. We can hardly contain ourselves, as we have already fallen in love with our little guy. Hopefully we will be traveling soon! We wanted to say a big thanks to everyone for being so supportive!! We appreciate all your comments and caring wishes!!

Too Good to be True?

We got a referral!! Yes...I said, we got a referral. I have to repeat myself because it is too good to be true!! We keep pinching ourselves to make sure it is real. We ended up signing with Life Adoption Services instead of WCS, and they had a referral for a little guy for us!! We have been busy updating paperwork and will find out more next week. In the mean time, we can't stop smiling!

Ch..ch..ch..ch..Changes!

After 15 months with our agency, we made the decision to part our ways. We loved our consultant, but felt that things were taking way too long. We are well aware that the world of international adoption requires patience, patience, and more patience but it seemed as though we were slowly going nowhere. Our dossier has expired and so it seemed like the perfect time to make a change. So, we decided to apply to another agency that works with a fewer number of families.

We actually feel excited and hopeful again! We look forward to hearing that we are accepted with the new agency. Then it is back to the paperwork!

Tagged!

Looks like I have been tagged...

Rules
Link to the person who tagged you: Nancy
Post the rules (see below)
Share 6 unimportant habits/quirks about yourself: see below
Tag three other people - Shannon Joy Stephanie
Make sure the people you tagged know you've tagged them

Hmmm...quirky things about me?
1. I eat everything with chopsticks, everything! If I use a fork, I will inevitably spill food on myself or chase food all over my plate with that weird metal thing. So, chopsticks for me, please!

2. I must have lotion on my hands at all times! When I wash my hands, I must immediately put lotion on.

3. My closet has to have everything sorted by sleeve length, then color. My sister claims that I used to measure the width between my hangers so everything was spaced the same distance. (I adamantly deny this...but it is a good idea, maybe I'll try it!)

4. I am a klutz...if I don't trip while walking, then I will inevitably drop or break something. Usually it will be my car keys- every single time I go to unlock my car door.

5. I have a very interesting memory...I can't tell you how much I get paid or how many years I've been teaching, but I can tell you exactly where some random item is or what someone wore 3 weeks ago.

and

6. I love t.v. so much, that sometimes I blur the lines of reality. Yes...talking about Michael Scott as though he were not a character on The Office, but a family member of mine.

Yikes...I guess I am pretty quirky!!

FAQ's

Nothing new to report, so instead we'll answer some of those burning Frequently Asked Questions you may have:

When will you get your baby?
First we have to get a referral from our agency. Once we accept the referral, we will travel 2-4 weeks after that call. We meet the baby, then come home. Then we wait for a court date. Waiting for a court date could be anywhere from 2-6 months. After we receive a court date, we travel back to Russia, go to court...if the court allows, then the baby is ours.

What is a referral?
Russia identifies a child that is ready for adoption and notifies our agency. Our agency looks at their "list" of people that are ready to adopt and matches the child with the first person on their list. If it matches that person's request...then that person gets a phone call about the child (aka referral).

What happens when you get a referral?
We will get some basic medical information that the Baby Home has written about the child and a couple of pictures. We send that information to our IA doctor and they give us their analysis. If we agree with the doctor that it is a healthy referral, we call our agency and let them know we accept.

What is an IA doctor?
International Adoption Doctor...they specialize in children that are adopted internationally. International adoption specialists are aware of medical concerns and diagnoses that children in Baby Homes (orphanages) may have, that pediatricians aren't used to seeing. Not only do they provide support prior to, and during the adoption, but support post adoption, as well. Our doctor is Dr. Bledsoe in Washington.

How old will your baby be?
Russia does not allow any children under 6 months to be adopted. So, we requested a child between 6-18 months. However, if we received a referral for a baby that is 18 months old...he would be older than that by the time he comes home because of the time that lapses while waiting for a court date.

Why Russia?
Many reasons, but one of the main reasons is that we really want a boy and Russia has more boys available for adoption than girls.

How long will you be in Russia?
The first trip will be approximately 5-8 days. The second trip will be longer, as we are required to stay in Russia for 10 days after we have our court date. Once the 10 day wait is done, we have to travel to Moscow to take care of paperwork at the Embassy. So, considering we will need to arrive before the court date, and then traveling to Moscow afterwards it could be about 3 weeks.

Why the wait?
In a nut shell...Russia allows children to be adopted by Russians and then the remaining children are available to be adopted by agencies worldwide. Each agency gets referrals, and there are many people wanting referrals. Add in the paperwork process, as well as the court proceedings, and you have a considerable wait.

Feel free to ask us questions, if there is something we didn't address.