Day 12: Glorious Day!

We have a return date! We leave Aktobe on the 11th to arrive in Almaty. The flight from Almaty leaves at 4 in the morning so we will need to spend a night (or half night :>) in Almaty. We leave for home on the 12th and arrive home on the 12th. Seems strange since it took us 3 days to get here but I am not complaining.

We woke up to more snow. It has been snowing all day. The temperature is actually warm today 24 degrees! Tomorrow will be a high of 4 degrees and a low of Negative 13!

Leah is getting prepped for adoption. She had her HIV blood draw today. We go tomorrow for ours. Our interpreter says that they do not reuse needles, but we have been told to bring our own so that is what we plan on doing. I think Davis gets spared of this.


She was in a good mood despite her war bandage. She fell asleep on me again. She loves to be sung to. Here is a picture of her (and our) favorite caregiver. She came in the bonding room as soon as her shift started to see her. She held her and kissed her and said how much she missed her in the few days she was off. We asked her a million questions to get more information about Leah. She said she was a good sleeper and eater. They have to talk and play with her to get her to eat. She said she was very active…even more so than the rest of the babies (oh no, another Greta).

In the afternoon we spoke with our coordinator Gulnara. She informed us that they have already done the birthmother check. She even started the search before we arrived just so there were no surprises. They can’t find her in Aktobe. They are not required to search anymore. They think she might have given a phony name when leaving Leah at the hospital.

We are in search of 2 photo albums that our coordinator wants us to put together. I can’t remember who they are being sent to but they will display a picture of each day of bonding with a caption of the event. We need to complete this before we leave. Friday is the last day of bonding so that will leave us Saturday to finish it up.

We are finally in a grove as far as meals. We have been eating the same 3 meals since we arrived. They are all things Davis will eat so it makes it easy. Chicken fried rice (made with chicken, carrots, green onion, eggs, rice and what we think is soy sauce), chicken noodle soup, Chicken with pasta and red sauce and French toast. I will be glad for something different! Our knife at the apt is so bad that the carrots are in big chunks. We did bring a better knife but it was cheap and not that sharp either. Next time I will bring one of our good ones.

Everything is a little different here. Milon bought a can of "Tuna fish" at the grocery store. It turns out that in Kaz, Tuna fish comes complete with bones and skin. Needless to say Milon ate something else for lunch.



Here is a picture of bread that Milon and I will polish off once it comes in the house! It is delicious and the grocery store doesn’t even bother to put it on the shelves it goes so fast. They leave it in a shopping cart in the aisle. They have only had it 1 other time since we have been here.



Here are some Tips for parents bringing children with them. We are still learning!
1. Bring lots of DVDs
2. To entertain at the baby house, the balloon and a blow up ball has been his entertainment. We also rotate bringing the computer for movies
3. We wish we had brought another computer or DVD player. When he watches a movie we are left with nothing to do!
4. I have a lazy child so the stroller was a necessity
5. Prepare yourself for no car seats!
6. We have found food for him easy. Plenty of pasta, cheese, bread, fruit, ramen noodles.
7. The caregivers are very nice to him and play with him. They all have commented on how they like to see parents with their children because they like to see us play
8. The time difference has much harder than anticipated! Prepare yourself for an exhausting 7 days. It took him about 7 days to fully adjust.
9. The plane ride was better than expected. Next time, we would recommend spending the night in Almaty to avoid the 7 hour layover until the flight for Aktobe leaves. We brought legos, playdough, coloring books, hungry hippo traveling toy, traveling pinball game, lots of new movies.
10. We brought DVDs of his favorite TV shows. Most of the time we didn’t have enough time to watch a full movie and the 30 minute TV shows worked great.
11. If you are coming in winter, bring a scarf, gloves, thermals and snow boots! We got so many looks and comments about Davis not having a scarf! I have been letting him use mine. Truly it is too cold for kids to be outside in January!