Tuesday, February 6, 2006

It was a very short night as the alarm goes off at 6:30am so we can get ready. We are going to the Ministry of Education today in order to get approval to visit the baby homes/orphanages.

Everyone is down in the lobby and we are taken to breakfast to basically get briefed on what is going to happen for the day, what the Ministry is going to ask us, etc. Our breakfast consited of eggs, ham, bread, cheese and tea. NO coffee. More adapting on my part. I later bought a diet coke in the lobby for the caffeine. What can I say?

Again, our 4 cars meet us at the hotel and take us to the Ministry. I am getting nervous. It didn't help either that we were the last ones to go. We got our piece of paper that stated we could go and meet our possible future children.


The plan is that we will go to the Orenburg baby home today to visit the girl and then travel to Orsk tomorrow to see the boy. Now I am just nervous about the health of the children. What a worry wart I am! I am settling in though to the adventure part. I don't really feel like I am as far away from home as I really am. The other couples traveling in our group are all going to Orsk for the day. Poor things. By the time we get out of the Ministry and back to the cars, it's after 12noon. The trip to Orsk is a 3 hour drive ONE WAY! We are wisked off to a building across the street and told we are going to have to talk to the "specialist." Have no clue who that is and we are just going with the flow. When we get there, she tells our translator to come back at 2:30 and then we can go to the baby home. We get some lunch and arrive back at 2:20. I am really nervous now. My stomach is in knots and I feel like I want to barf! Needless to say, I ran back to the Ministry to use the bathroom. Typical European bathroom. No toilet seat and it hasn't been cleaned in 20 years!

We finally head off to the baby home. We walk in and are taken to a room where the director of the home, the doctor at the home, our translator and this "specialist." We were told that she wanted to observe us with the child. Nungessor, this is when we gave your frame to the director. She seemed VERY pleased. In all of the excitement, I forgot to take a picture. I did however take this photo of Steve holding it in the hallway while we were waiting.

The specialist decides she needs to ask us the exact same questions as the MoE. Good god! When do we get to pass the test? While she is asking all sorts of questions, the door opens up and there is a girl in the workers arms. Steve goes nuts. The tell her not yet. Steve just looks at me. At this point, the doctor is now telling us what is in the medical report. About 5 minutes later, they bring her back in and hand her to the director. I am trying to take notes and write as fast as possible. Steve at this point is GONE! He can't stop looking at the girl. The director comes over and places her in his lap. I am still trying to get as much as possible about her medical history to make sure she is healthy. It's just too difficult. They let us take her down the hall to another room to play with her. There is another woman in the room who doesn't speak to us but it just sitting there at a desk. no biggie! Sergei our translator is there with us. We tell him we still have more questions for the doctor. In the meantime, we are playing with our daughter. She is a fireball! Spunky as the day is long. Steve has her up on the coach and she is into everything and wants to touch everything. She finds my coke bottle in my backpack and thinks that it's a bottle and trys to shove it in her mouth. Good that she does this because it's one of the questions on the Denver Developmental test we have to got through with her. Bad thing is, it's not food and this makes her angry. She starts to cry and there is nothing either one of us can do to calm her down. We feel bad because she is crying because she wants food and we can't give her anything. A worker comes in to get her. It's nap time anyway. We decide to stay and talk to the doctor and also wait out naptime so we can visit again. We talk to the doctor and are satisfied that all is well with our new little girl Brooke. After awhile, they bring her back in and I am holding her. She again starts to cry but Sergei tells me they are going to bring her a bottle and I get to feed her. I would love to post pictures of that we we are not allowed to do that at this time. She is not officially ours. This calms her down. She chugs down that bottle like it was a fraternity party beer chugging contest. Not that I know anything about that. She is done in like 2 minutes and wants more. I try to take the bottle but she just grabs it back and shoves it in. Ater awhile, she lets me take it out and she is in a better mood. We undress her to make sure she is OK in that department. We also find out that she is tickleish. We get her to giggle and laugh. She has NOT cracked a smile yet. This makes me feel better that she is giggling. By around 7pm, the workers come to take her back. We tell Sergei that we would like to sign the papers to proceed with the adoption. Andrei makes a brief appearance and gives us the thumbs up. We tell him yes. We sign the papers and are off. It was hard to leave. We knew we wouldn't be back for another month or so.

We head back to the hotel where Andrei meets up with us and Sergei. He tells us to meet him on the 8th floor for dinner. We are exhausted physically, mentally and most of all, emotionally. We got to dinner and it's nice. Of course we get into politics with all of this adoption stuff going on over there. I finally told Steve I was going to hit the plate with my head I was so tired. We left and came back to the room. We called our parents to let them know they had a granddaugthter and that we were off tomorrow to see the boy. What a day. It will be another early morning. We are told to be in the lobby by 6:30am so we can make the drive to Orsk. Again, it's 3 hours one way. Oh boy. Another long day ahead of us.