Court Date Scheduled!

Our court date has been scheduled for February 25th. We must arrive in Aktobe on the 22nd to reacquaint ourselves with Leah. This means we need to leave on Feb 20th!

So what have we been up to the last few weeks you might ask....

Eating lots of cake at birthday parties.

Dancing at a wedding!

Having some snowball fights. Yes, we actually got snow in NC! I am still trying to figure out who had more fun....the kids or the fathers!

Playing some hockey with cousins

And just plain chillin'

Wow, we have been busy! Normally, I would complain about it being so far away, but we have done nothing adoption related since we got home! We will have another busy 2 weeks and then I will get it in gear for the trip. We still haven't worked out the details. This is what we do know. Milon will only be coming for a short time and my mom will be coming at some point to meet us. And of course, I will be there the whole time! We have to book airline tickets, so we need to buckle down and make some decision!

There's No Place Like Home

It is true what they say in the Wizard of Oz, there is no place like home! It really does take living somewhere else to truly appreciate the word "Home."


We got home last night after a whirlwind trip. We left Aktobe on Sunday morning and arrived 2.5 hrs later in Almaty. We got a hotel room since our flight didn't leave until 2:30 am. Wow was it warmer in Almaty! We stayed at a hotel that was okay but the location was nice. It was in walking distance to a wonderful grocery store which was like a Fresh Market around here. They had street vendors on the corner which is where we ate dinner....Bad idea. I am not sure what made us think that eating a lot of greasy fried food right before getting on an airplane was a good idea! Needless to say, I was in the bathroom until we got on the flight but was okay after that!


The 7 hr flight to Germany was great! Davis fell asleep shortly after take off. It gave Milon and I an opportunity to watch movies on our individual TVs in the head rests. We both didn't sleep but it was nice knowing Davis was sleeping.


We had a very short 2 hr layover in Germany and then boarded what we thought was a 7 hr flight. Turned out to be a 9 hr! Davis didn't sleep the entire flight but was great and I still have no idea how we killed 9 hrs but we did and had no problems!


We then had a short 2 hr flight from Chicago to RDU which Davis fell asleep for.


We got home and found a baked Ziti my mom had made for us and a tray of Lasagna that my sister in law April made for us in the refrigerator! How nice is that to come home to already made meals! We relaxed for an hour and we were in bed at 8pm. We all slept until 6am which was much different than when we arrived in Kaz! Made coming home even better!


So now we are sitting in the comforts of home. A home that before was filled with anticipation and nervousness and now is filled with excitement and relief. We are grateful that all the pieces fell into place and now can sit back and thank God for answered prayers.


Leah is very much in our thoughts but we are glad to have lots of videos and pictures to look at to help us feel connected. We finally have a fast Internet connection so we are able to post some videos! Hope you enjoy!

Homeward Bound

Ainura's Sister in law generously made Baursak for Davis (the doughnut like bread). I think he devoured 20 of them! This is a kid who has never even liked doughnuts! I asked Ainura to send me the recipe so Davis and I could make them at home since he liked them so much!

Yesterday we notarized a bunch of paperwork. It took about an hour to notarize all of it! We sat in a small office with the 3 of us and Ainura and a notary. In barges an old guy complaining about wanting a new ID card in Russian. He yelled at the notary for what seemed like 10 mins. After he left, Davis looks at us and innocently says "That guy stinks!" Boy was he right. He had the worst B.O. smell ever! But to have a 3 yr old say this was hysterical and we all about fell out of our chairs with laughter! The notary was very nice to Davis and let him use her stamp on some scrap paper. She then let him play with an hour glass she had in a window and even let him keep it!

I have to say the care that Leah has been receiving is far above what we expected from an orphanage. From what we have seen she isn't that delayed. Davis didn't even start crawling until 9 months so she is still on target! I truly believe that the nannies their do the best they can with the resources they have. All of the nannies have been great. This is a picture of one of the nannies that is also a nurse. She is so nice and always spends a lot of time talking with us and giving us information on Leah. They have even requested a family picture of us to remember us by.

This is our driver Ceric with Davis in front of the YMIT babyhouse. The two of them have a special bond together...an orange. Ceric is very fond of Davis and always makes time for him. He jumped at the chance to have a photo with him!

We are very excited to finally sleep in our own bed (even though I complain about it all the time), shower in our bathroom, drive a car again, get back to our usual life! It's funny because I don't dread the airplane ride as much as I did coming. Davis did fine coming but there is always the chance the way home won't be as pleseant! Either way, we have to get home so we will get through it! I am not sure when we will be able to post again. Probably not until we get home. Our court date should be sometime the end of February. In 10 days we should find out the exact date!

Thanks everyone for your comments and well wishes. We enjoyed reading the emails and tips!

Final Day: Bittersweet Goodbye

To our darling Leah,

Today is a day filled with mixed emotions. It marks the end of our official bonding period and you are one step closer to becoming part of our family. For this we celebrate. However, now we must return home to await our court date in approximately 40 days. It is with heavy hearts we must return home without you. Your caregivers have told us that you get excited when being dressed for our bonding visits, and that you have grown accustom to our touch and affection. We hate to imagine what you will think in the coming days when we no longer visit. It is difficult to explain to your brother when he asks every morning if you are coming home with us today. It is simply an unfortunate part of the required process. We have left a camera with your caregivers to take pictures in the weeks we will miss. We have also left a toy we played with as a reminder of us.

Sleep well, eat well and know we are returning for you soon!

Day 15: The End of Bonding....Well Almost!

What we thought would be a sad day turned into a happy day. We are able to see Leah one last time tomorrow morning. Her caregiver (who’s actually a nurse) told us that they want to move Leah into the next age group because she is so active, however, because of her age they cannot. She commented on how both of my kids look so much like Milon! She asked when we would be back, and said how much of a change she has seen in Leah’s vocabulary and physical skills since we have been visiting. We feel very confident in the caregivers that Leah has. Even our interpreter commented on how great this set of caregivers are. There is a nurse and nanny on each shift! There are 9 other babies in her group, so it is a 2 to 9 ratio with round the clock care.

Everyone here has been exceptionally nice. I keep thinking it’s because of Davis. At the babyhouse, all the women grab his head with affection. I think they might think the ball on top of his hat looks funny!

No more Pringles for Davis. We have discovered that since we stopped giving him Pringles we have had no problem putting him to sleep! I don’t know if you remember my blog entry where I kept complaining that he had ants in his pants, but he has been going to be as usually the past 3 days….and he hasn’t had Pringles. Hmmmm, they say they have no preservatives in them but there is definitely a connection!

We had our HIV, syphilis and Chlamydia tests today. Imagine, we have already had these done in the states and we have to do them again! We did bring our own needles as advised by our agency, but they did not fit the syringes. We even brought 2 different types. I really don’t think they reuse needles. I did make sure they opened a new package and saw they had put other needles in a biomed disposal container. Would a clinic that was testing for HIV really reuse needles??? The first clinic that did the chlamydia testing didn't have heat. It was rather cold and VERY crowded! I have no idea what kind of testing they do there, but was glad to get out! We then drove to the HIV clinic. It was very quiet. It is so different from our high tech labs in the US. They even used a seat bealt strap as turnic! They then took the needles and squirted the blood into a test tube that they had written our name on with a sharpie!

We learned that we needed our scrapbooks done today! We got our pictures printed and wrote out what we did each day beside the pictures. I felt like I was in school doing a project! We also needed 3 family pictures for court so we took another family picture today in order to have the 3 required. Here is a picture of the scrapbooks. We did 3 so we could have a copy of one for Leah.

This is the book we have been signing for the last 15 days. It proves that we actually did bond for 2 hours everyday for the last 15 days. Our interpreter showed us others signatures that we know via the blog world and I use to think it would be forever before we would have that many signatures! Now we do!!
Davis has discovered Tom and Jerry come on at 6:00 here! He loves that cartoon at home and it is the perfect cartoon to watch in Russian because there is no language! Here is a picture of him glued to the TV!

Here is Davis' choo choo train he makes with the little chairs everyday. We all have to get on the choo choo, including Leah! It keeps him busy so we are okay with playing along! The nannies think it is quite funny!

Day 14: A Horse of Course

Our morning visit with Leah was as usual. Her chest sounds so much better! You can no longer hear her breathe from across the room. They brought her in a pink 3-6 month snowsuit I had brought. She looked adorable but goodness, a snowsuit inside!! We got yelled at by the nanny for Davis not having his slippers on. We hadn’t gotten around to putting them on him yet since we had just arrived. I am so glad we decided to bring them as I think they have earned us brownie points!!

We learned today that Leah use to be in baby room #2 (yes, Alysa she was cribmates with Brady!). They have closed baby room #2 for awhile so she got moved to baby room #1. They call her Ivanova which is her last name. Some where along the line, her name got switched to Katya which is short for Ekaterina.

We asked the nanny how they feed so many babies. She said they sit on a small child’s chair (See pic below) and lay the babies on their lap and shovel food in. They said they play with them to distract them and feed them fast. They said it takes them 5 mins to feed Leah. It takes us 30 mins! I have to admit that Milon is much better at feeding her than I am. He doesn’t even use a rag to wipe her mouth in between spoonfuls! I make quite a mess and I am not sure how much goes in her mouth versus on the floor! I just don’t remember Davis eating like this! He use to eat like a normal baby! She cries, spits it out, turns her head, doesn’t swallow! One nanny did say she was a poor eater so I know I am not too far off!
I got yelled at this morning for not wearing a hat and gloves by the security guard! I usually wear one but my hair was up in a bun and my hat doesn’t fit very well with a big clip in my hair. We were only walking to the street to get picked up by the driver anyway, but I don’t think she knew that. It was freezing cold today. Negative 13 to be exact! Milon said his nose was running in the grocery store and felt on the walk home it froze solid. I am in trouble because I like to sleep with our window open! It is government regulated heat and is so hot in the apt we usually have a window open. In the middle of the night it gets even hotter but Milon says he freezes all night. Tonight I guess I will have to be hot.

Today we went to a restaurant to try the Beshbarmak. Thanks for the tip on the Restaurant Regina. Ainura, our translator came and ordered for us and then she had to go back to work. Ainura ordered chicken and vegetables for Davis which he liked, Beshbarmak for us and Baursak which were basically fried donughts. They were delicious….almost like a dessert, but they serve them as an appetizer. The Beshbarmak (made with horsemeat, potatoes, onion, noodles) was very good but I am not use to so much fat on meat. What I learned after the fact is that the Beshbarmak was made with horsemeat. It was actually quite good I must say. The joke was on me because no one let on it was horse until later at the bonding session. Ainura was very nice and asked for the bill early because she said they sometimes rip off unsuspecting tourists. No, those were actually my words, but that is why she asked for the bill early!! We plan on having a family party and making a Kazakh/Russian type meal every year on her gotcha day (in adoption, this is the day we gain custody!). We are thinking of making Beshbarmak as the meal. Ainura is getting her mothers recipe for us! She is also getting other traditional recipes for us to have along with it. We figured this was a way to preserve a little bit of her culture.

The Beshbarmak

Baursak

Chicken with Vegetables
Here are some pictures of Aktobe. The first one is a picture of our apartment building.

Front door of our apartment. Security Guard sits in room on right

Small grocery store beneath our apartment

View of the stadium outside our window

Tree decorated for the holiday outside the bank

Mosque Mall

Street we walk on to go to the grocery store and mall

Grocery Store
We have a busy next few days. We still have to get our HIV tests done, print pictures and put together our bonding collage, get some souvenirs, and pack.

Leaving is bittersweet. I am glad to be getting back home, but will miss Leah. I am still not allowing myself to feel like she is ours until we get custody of her. Plus, it is hard to really bond with a child when we always have our interpreter in the room, we can’t play with her on the floor, she can hardly move she has so many clothes on, and we can’t feed her food she likes. Now, they do not want us to rock her to sleep because she keeps the other babies up at naptime. I will miss seeing the big changes in her in just the 4 hours a day we spend with her. Here is a picture of her standing up with a chair. She actually held herself up for a little. To think her legs when we met her were like jello!

I know 5 weeks will go by very quickly and then we will be back to get her. I do have a lot to do between trips. We are leaning towards making one long trip for 6 weeks. Milon can’t stay the entire time so he will just come for 2 weeks. Davis and I will stay for 1 week by ourselves, and then my mom will come for the last 3 weeks once I have custody of Leah. I am not brave enough to take the 2 of them to the grocery store let alone a 15 hour airplane ride! This seems to be what works best for each individual. Davis won’t be without parents for 6 weeks, Leah will have time to readjust to us before being taken away from all she knows, Milon can work, I can limit flying on airplanes since it’s not my favorite thing to do and my mom, well….sorry mom :>!

Day 13: No Meat Pie For You!

Milon has been banned from meat pies for awhile. He stinks of them for days! I am not sure what spices they put in them but it is leaking out of his pores! We didn’t need anything from the grocery store today so he had no need to indulge in his daily habit.

Today is a holiday in Kazakhstan…Russian Christmas. Everyone has the day off. We were able to visit Leah twice today regardless but were not able to do our medical appointment. We are all grasping for straws for entertainment at the babyhouse. Today, we sat on the couch and told each other stories of funny things that have happened in our past. Davis loves to hear these stories, and we are trying to show him how much fun he will have with his sister….although I am not sure he sees it yet. We are beginning to see the first signs of jealousy. For instance, Milon was holding Leah and Davis wanted him to give me Leah so Milon can tell him more stories.

Leah looks like a skin head in this pictue. They shave the kids hair in the orphanage. I am hoping that they don't shave her head again since she is being adopted. She looks funny with a shaved head!! At least it's cold out and I can keep a hat on her until it grows out.
Milon made the grumpy nanny laugh today. She is the only caregiver at the orphanage we have not been that found of. She came in to take Leah back and Milon hands her Davis also. She thought that was very funny and laughed. Maybe she will be a little lighter with her humor from now on.

We also have to get creative for fun things to do at the apartment. Here is a picture of Milon inventing a game for Davis. Milon puts pillows on his lap and Davis runs and jumps over the pillows. Davis thought it was exceptionally funny, when I decided to take a turn! Yes, I think we are going to have a lot of reverse disciplining to do once we get home, but for now we are doing whatever it takes to keep all of us sane!

We picked up 3 drawing pads today for our albums. Thanks for the tip Alysa. We are going to make an extra one so we have it as a keepsake. We also found a flag of Kazakhstan for a dollar that we purchased for Leah’s room.

Here is part of our daily ritual. Davis lines up all the shoes in the hallway and asks us which ones we want to wear. We tell him we want to wear someone else’s shoes, he laughs and tells us which ones we can wear. If our everyday were not the same as it is, this adds to the monotony!

We bought our tickets home today. We arrive on the 12th. We are taking the 2:30am flight our of Almaty which will stink but you can pick between the 2:30 flight or the 4:00am. We couldn’t decide which was worse. Our total layover time will be 5 hours…much better than the 15 hour layover time we had coming over here. Hopefully, that will make a difference.