We Finally Met you!

We were asked if we wanted to go to the orphanage the same day we arrived or wait until the morning. We of course wanted to go right away. We realize things won’t settle down until the first few days are out of the way so we wanted to get the process started, not to mention finally meet our daughter!

We were driven to the orphanage at 3 o’clock. We pulled up to the pink babyhouse which we knew from others blogs was the older child babyhouse. We weren’t concerned because Gulnara, our coordinator here in Aktobe, had told us about the baby we were going to meet. She was the only baby girl at the orphanage.

Our interpreter had said that it was standard practice to show us additional children before they showed us the baby. We were okay with that. We walked upstairs and sat outside the orphanage director and doctor’s office. We walked into the Head Doctors office and sat down. He asked us for our passports. We forgot to bring them! Gulnara had a copy and showed him. We then go downstairs into a large bonding room and waited for them to bring us children. Accompanying us was our translator, coordinator and a guy from the Ministry of Education which witnesses the initial meeting. We stand around for a few minutes nervous as can be. We are then told that they won’t show us any children in this orphanage since all they have is boys and we already have a boy. We get in the car and drive to the blue babyhouse. In the car our interpreter says the guy from the ministries said Davis wasn’t dressed warmly enough. He had on a huge ski jacket, gloves, and a hat! I will admit he did have on Keen shoes that aren’t the warmest but his snow boots are in our missing luggage! Gulnara explained to him that our luggage was lost and these are the warmest clothes we have. Nothing like criticizing your parenting skills straight away!

We walked into the bonding room that I so well recognized from others blogs. In a split second a caregiver walks in holding a baby. We had no idea if she was “the one” or not because we were told we would be shown a boy as well. She was dressed in a very old orange outfit with red socks and a yellow hat. She had a few bumps on her forehead and seemed to have a slight cold. They hand her to me, she cries and reaches for her caregiver. I knew from reading books this was a great reaction for a child to have because it shows the ability to bond to their caregivers. She cries and cries and I hand her back so they can calm her down. They hand her back to me and tell Milon to walk on the other side of the room because she is not use to seeing men. I didn’t think this is why she was crying but I am wouldn’t question them. They hand her back to me and she cries some more. I walk around with her trying to distract her. We look out the window, I hand her a toy, we look at some Christmas decorations. She finally stops crying (this seemed like eternity to me but in reality it was about 5 minutes!). For about 2 minutes more I was able to distract her enough that she forgot who was holding her and every now and then would look up at me and cry! After that she was fine! Talk about pressure…I had 4 people watching this! The MOE guy, coordinator, translator and caregiver! What would happen if she didn’t stop crying! I knew it is typical for the babies to cry but didn’t realize I would be on stage trying to get her to stop!

They did bring in another baby boy who appeared to be around 12 months old. They asked Milon if we were interested in meeting him and Milon politely said we were interested in a girl.

Meanwhile, Milon was on the floor playing with Davis. I had wrapped 2 new surprise toys for Davis because I knew he would need to be entertained during this important time. At one point Davis wanted to run over to me to show me the toys and Milon called for Davis to stay with him. They all said no, no that it was fine for him to come see me. The baby was very interested in Davis. I could tell Davis didn’t really get he was looking at his sister.

After she had calmed down I handed her to Milon. She didn’t cry at all and he sat on the floor with her and she was mesmerized watching Davis play with the toys.

I am not going to give out too many details right now until we have all of her medical information and have gotten the okay from the International Doctor. She is almost 8 month old Russian girl. She’s gorgeous and she looks EXACTLY like Milon!! We all laughed so hard when we saw him holding her! I have to say I think she looks more like Milon than Davis! The very serious MOE guy was even laughing and commenting on the similarity! She has brown hair that is very short, and eyelashes to die for! She is small, although it could be that I am use to a big kid now! I would guess she’s in 3-6 month clothes! Our bonding will officially start on Friday since some paperwork needs to be completed in order to start the process. This will probably add 2 extra days onto our trip but that’s okay. It was evident that the caregivers and employees at the orphanage really care for the children. As we were filling our paperwork, several caregivers and 2 medical doctors came in to see if we agreed to bond with her. They all seemed very happy she would have a home and congratulated us. We made the mistake of wearing shoes on the bonding room rug. I remembered reading it in others blogs, but totally forgot once they handed her to me! I totally understand them not wanting babies crawl around on a dirty floor, especially with the dirt that comes in from wet snow.

We both agree it is a very strange feeling and doesn’t quite feel real. It all happened so fast and we were so exhausted, I felt like I was in a dream. We only were with her for about 20 minutes. We are going to have an unofficial bonding day tomorrow where we can see her for 2 hours, but it won’t count as the 15 days. We can’t wait to get to know her and see her again! We were told we could not take pictures until we officially start bonding which will be Friday. We hope to be able to share more and post pictures soon!