Still feeling effects of jet-lag

Wow, 4 days later Steve & I both can't seem to get our sleeping schedules quite right. Our agency director suggested melatonin to help with the jet-lag so I think I'm going to give it a try. For the second trip, I need to feel better than this, and have more energy as I'll hopefully be caring for a toddler.

My son got a pretty good injury yesterday. He was fighting was an imaginary oppenent and told me he was diving after his "sidekick". I'm guess he was trying to dive between the dining room table and chair.....well, he hit smack into the table with his front teeth! He left two pretty deep marks into the table from his teeth, as well as a gouge across where they must have scraped across the side of the table after the initial bite. OUCH! I'm sooooo thankful his teeth seem to be OK, although I keep checking because they could still be damaged, but he has a major fat upper lip as well as a slight black eye as the side of his eye caught the table as well. I'll admit he has a funky monkey look about him right now and I'm glad Kindergarden starts a week from Monday and not this Monday like my step-daughter's school.

I'll admit as I mail off the final agency pymt and country fees that panic is rising in me that this adoption will fall apart and the precious little girl who has my heart will be whisked away from me by a Russian family. And I know we could not go thru this again. After our first trip and meeting Miss A, I know all our chips are in and either this dream happens or its the end. Please hope I find the strength to stay positive and strong.

So, I plug away with paperwork and take little steps towards cleaning out what will be her room (the closet is going to be a challege.....not sure exactly where to find new homes for the accumilated "stuff") Our local Moms Club is having a yard sale tomorrow and I made a pretty good contribution. Do I dare start buying furniture? Maybe I'll start with the curtains.

We got home last night

If it wasn't for the turbulance it would have been a good trip home. Korean Air has good entertainment....I was able to sleep a lot and watched 2 movies, but that free-falling feeling during the turbulance just killed me. And, of course it started just a few hours into the flight, knowing I had 10 more hours to go was hard.

But, before we left we had a good final visit, just short. It was very nice weather there so they brought her to me outside. This was nice, but since she doesn't walk yet and we didn't have a big blanket or anything it was a bit harder to play with her. The visit seemed short, just over an hour, but I could tell she was sleepy and it was her lunch time so we needed to let her go. Of course it was hard leaving her, but I'm trying to focus on the big picture and truly the orphanage was nicer and cleaner than I thought it would be and the caregivers really seemed to care and do their best with what they have. It was really cute how they dressed her in what looked like a brand new cute pink and white outfit for the first visit, all in pink with even a Baby Gap t-shirt on the second visit, and then had her in one of the outfits we donated for the third visit with an added cute white sweater and bonnet. And it didn't seem like they had more than about 6-7 children per caregiver. Would our house better?? NO DOUBT!! but it wasn't horrible there either.

I have made doctor's appts, psychiatric appt, and will get fingerprints off to the FBI this week. I'll go tomorrow to get the deed to our house, and will get a letter from a our CPA (my aunt) to verify our finances and to verify that we own our home. I really hope I can get thru all this paperwork quickly so we can get a court date soon. I'm guessing it will take approx. 3 months before we get a court date, maybe more, maybe less.

Now, I have to get to mountains of paperwork for our business as well as household stuff to get caught up on.

Second visit was amazing!!

When they brought her in, she had just gotten done having either shots or blood work or something and had been crying and was still sniffling.....while I felt terrible for her, it was rather cute to see. She cried for just a few more minutes, then quickly warmed up and started playing and interacting well. I felt like we really got to see lots of sides to her today....crying, playing, smiling, belly laughs, crawling, walking while I held her hands, snuggling.....wish I could see her eating and sleeping. I did try to give her some teething-like crackers but she wasn't interested at all. I'm guessing she's never been given anything like that, which reminds I'd like to ask exactly what kinds of foods she is eating...?? I'm thinking nothing with much texture...pureed veggies, yogurt, kefer??

Today we also got to see another slightly older group of children playing in the room with us while we had our visit. What great, well-behaved kids. I'm so glad we got to see them and see how the caregiver played with them. It really seems like a good orphange. It is going to be so incredibly hard to leave her there for several months, but I feel better knowing it is a nice place......but still nothing like a loving home.

I was happy to see under the layers of clothing she was wearing, she had nice chubby legs. She is still very small, wearing a size 6 months at one year old, but she is gaining weight and seems healthy. She LOVED being lifted up in the air over my head. I got lots of laughs doing that, as well as big belly laughs tickling her legs. The visit was close to 2 hrs, and then she started getting a bit hungry and tired, and it was time to hand her back over. Now, we have the weekend to ourselves as we can't visit on weekends, then only one final visit on Monday before heading to the airport.

After the visit, we headed to the notary back the opposite direction in dowtown to sign our acceptance of her, then we took our facilitator, translator, and driver all out to a wonderful dinner in a pub-looking/1920's gangster/jazz themed restaurant...food was great. Unfortunately, this put us right in the middle of Friday evening traffic heading back to our hotel so that trip took awhile.

It really feels like this trip is going fast and before we know it we'll be heading back home. Dylan is just going to have to give mommy lots of extra hugs and kisses (not that he doesn't give me tons already!) to help me get thru the wait until trip#2.

Wish us luck braving the train alone tomorrow as we do some sight-seeing and shopping.

We just got back from meeting her

I will just say so far everything has exceeded my expectations! She is adorable, seems very developmentally on target, just small, stared right into my eyes for the longest time when they first placed her in my arms. I have no idea how you do not get attached....totally and completely. The baby home seemed very clean, cute rooms, we were put in a very nice playroom with very fun equipment for the kids. I hope they actually get to use it often. She loved playing with the stacking cups, warmed right up to Steve.....then it seemed like in a blink they whisked her off for feeding time and we left.

The only real glitch so far is that I misplaced the power cord to our laptop when packing.....so no Skype access. Thankfully they have a computer I can use to email and text, so I'm just texting my mom to call our room using Skype from home, seems to work good so far. Our agency is going to see if they can locate a power cord for us which would be nice, but if not, we can make do.

I also wanted to add that Dylan is feeling better.....he has a throat infection, I got him antibiotics before leaving, gramma is taking excellent care of him, and he can't wait to be able to eat McDonalds again :o)

Tomorrow the plan is to make 2 visits to the baby home. We will bring diapers that we stopped on the way back to our hotel today and purchased, as this is what the baby home said they needed. We also got to buy drinks, bread, noodles, and snacks. We're looking forward to having dinner with a couple that is also here on their first trip.

Dylan is sick

Please keep us in your thoughts. Dylan has a fever....the night before we leave. As if leaving him isn't already hard enough! I know he will be in good hands with gramma but I will worry. I can tell he really does not feel good and his fever is over 101. Poor baby. I will be hoping a good nights rest will work wonders and I will make sure we have Motrin and Tylenol in the house and of course gramma can take him to the doctor's if needed. Many healthy vibes for my son!!

Happy 1st Birthday!!

Happy first birthday little Miss A! You are in my thoughts and my heart and I hope it was a good day. I wish you were here with us and we could have celebrated, but I will keep trusting that the time will come for that soon enough. 4 more days until we meet. I will keep the faith and you take care little one.

They're not exactly birthday presents, but here are toys I plan on bringing when we get to visit......stacking cups, mega blocks, plastic keys, electronic story book, bubbles, and the small photo album I made with our family pictures, including Oliver the cat!

2 more days

I think I will start packing today. I've been mentally packing for awhile, but I'll actually start getting the suitcases together. I'm not as nervous, or as excited as I thought I would be. Somehow this trip just feels very business-like at the moment. I'm sure that will change the minute they bring out little Miss A, but I somehow need to steel myself for leaving her in a baby home for several more months after we leave. Knowing how I felt about Dylan the second he was in my arms after he was born this just seems impossible, but I remind myself that thousands of parents do this year after year and need to think I'll get thru it one way or another. We have our visas and passports back. Our camera and camcorder batteries are all charged up. These are obviously the most important things we'll be bringing with us. And I bought some disposable cameras yesterday and will be hoping the caretakers are willing to take some photos of her while we're away. I was told the orphanage is requesting diapers from us, which mostly we will purchase in Russia. I may try to fit a few packages in our luggage. My goal for today is just to get some Intl Calling Cards to give to our employees so they can call our hotel if needed. I think I need to look in like small liquor stores for these.

Checking things off my list

Lets see, today I called our credit card company and our bank to make sure they knew we would be in Russia and not cancel our cards for suspected fraud. I made sure we would be able to access cash from Russia if we need it (although I'm hoping the $3000 cash we'll be bringing will more than cover it. I went to Radio Shack and the helpful man explained to me to look on our electronic devices and see if they say "100-240v", meaning they'll work both here and in Russia. And YES, the laptop, camera battery chargers, camcorder charger allsay they'll work over there so all I needed to purchase was a simple converter plug. I plan on bringing a power strip too. And I even scheduled to have a quick hair trim before I go.

Still to do, purchase some calling cards for our worker and my mom to call us at the hotel if there is an emergency, complete the little photo album to leave for Miss "A" and buy a few small toys for her to play with on our visits, clear out my cameras of old pictures, make sure they are freshly charged and ready to go, and something I have been putting off and should have done YEARS ago.....make our wills. I know it sounds awful, but I want to make sure everything is in order, a custodian and guardian are named for Dylan & Madison, and I mailed off Steve's life insurance check to ensure his new additional policy is in effect before we leave. I'm just nervous about Steve & I flying on a flight together without our kids.

6 more days!!!

Flights are booked

We leave Tues morning at midnught July 21st, arrive in Russia July 22nd at 4pm (with a 7 hr lay over in Korea....no fun) then return Monday July 27th. I'm actually excited that we get all day on Sunday to ourselves without anything to do so we can explore for a day. I just can't believe this is all falling into place. It sent off our passports today to get our visas......kinda scary putting your actual passports in a mail box! 18 days......I know it will go fast. 4th of July is this weekend and next weekend we are doing a long river weekend so it will be time before I know it. Better make sure I have everything together and ready.