Court Day

What a day!  We woke up after about 5 hours of sleep (we think nerves definitely got the best of us).  We eventually got ready for the day and went to breakfast.  After breakfast we got ready for court and went downstairs to meet the 2 Olgas. 

On the way to court, Olga put relaxing music on the radio for us and we were definitely TRYING to relax.  We arrived at the court about 30 minutes early and just tried to review our speeches while we waited.  Roman, our interpreter, arrived about 15 minutes later and asked if we had any questions for him about the court process before we went in. 

Once we entered the court, the baby home's social worker followed, then the prosecutor and the secretary.  The judge came in just a little after 10:00.  He has a very structured court and began by introducing the members of the court and reading our petition.  Then John got up and delivered his speech.  He spoke about more factual things.  Once his speech was over the judge then asked him several questions.  The social work and prosecutor had no questions for John.  It was then Laurie's turn to deliver her speech.  Her speech was to talk about more emotional things although she was not sure what to do because in John's questioning he was asked to explain or address many of the things that were in her speech.  She gave an abbreviated version of her speech, trying not to repeat too many things.  The judge then asked her several questions as did the social worker.  The prosecutor did not ask any questions.  The judge then continued with his court process and eventually left for the break where he made his decision.  After about 15 minutes he returned and gave us his response - YES! 
We were very relieved to have the experience over with and with a positive result.

We had remembered our translator in St. Petersburg telling us how much she wished she had Crest toothpaste (they can't buy it in Russia).  During a conversation with Val on our first trip, toothpaste actually came up and he too said that he wished he could buy it in Russia.  So, during our break from trips 1 to 2 we made a special trip to Costco to buy some toothpaste.  Once we returned to our hotel,  we gifted Olga and Val with 10 tubes of Crest toothpaste each as a thank you from us.  They seemed so surprised and truly grateful.  Olga said "like Christmas". 

We then returned to our room, we did some things on our computers and fell asleep.  As much as we did our best to avoid naps the previous 2 days, we were unable to do it today.  We decided to go to the Ukrainian restaurant that we discovered on our first trip for dinner and invited Christine & Todd (the other couple here from Pgh) to join us.  We had a great time with them at dinner and really enjoyed sharing our stories and hearing theirs. 

We just finished Skyping with Andrew & Laurie's parents and we are now off to bed.  Val will be picking us up at 4:30am to take us to the airport for our 6:25 flight out of Perm.  It will be a long day, but we are excited to come home on Thanksgiving as we have so much to be thankful for this year!

Baby's First Birthday!

We were picked up today at 9:50 by (driver) Olga.  Again, it was still dark out so it made us feel like it was much earlier than it actually was.  We have discovered that she never takes the same route twice so each time we are in the car with her we are getting to see something new in Perm.

When we arrived at the baby home, they brought our birthday girl to us.  We were warned, however, that she didn't have a diaper on!  We are not quite sure why that is, if their supply was low and figured a 1 year old would be ok for a couple of hours without one but regardless of the reason, we were a little cautious given that information :)

She warmed up to us much more quickly today than yesterday and really loved the musical toy that we brought for her to play with.  For most of our visit today, she either played with that toy or we threw a ball back and forth (she's getting quite good at it).  We sang her "Happy Birthday" several times and she seemed to love it - rocking side to side with the tune.  We also played for her a video (several times) of Andrew singing "Happy Birthday" to her (since he doesn't know her name, his version said "dear baby sister") and she kept reaching out as if to try and touch him :)

Our visit today lasted for an hour and 1/2 but it was a little easier to say goodbye knowing that we will be back in a month and we will be taking her home with us!  We found out that she is currently 18.5 pounds and 28 inches long - - so she is the same exact weight as she was at 9 months and she has grown an inch since we first saw her.

The majority of our afternoon today was spent preparing for court.  We found out that we both need to deliver speeches to present in addition to fielding any questions asked by the judge.  Our court hearing will start at 10am and will last approximately 2 hours - - so, anyone at home who is awake at 11pm Tuesday night please say a prayer for us.

Seeing "Baby Girl" again

Well, so much for getting caught up on some sleep.  We both fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows but only slept until about 5:30am.  On a normal day, 7 hours of sleep would be great but when you are missing an entire night of sleep it isn't quite enough.  Anyways, we decided to take advantage of being up early and went to the hotel gym for a work-out before breakfast. 

After breakfast we ran into Christine and Todd (the couple we were on the plane with last night) and chatted with them for awhile.  Before we knew it, it was 9:20 and time to meet (driver) Olga to visit Baby Girl.  We were a little surprised to discover that it didn't get light out until almost 10:00am but then remembered very little daylight during our first visit to St. Petersburg in Feb of '10.

We were so excited to see her after 3 months...wondering how much she's changed and if she has anymore hair :)  When they brought her to us we were kind of surprised to see that she pretty much looked exactly the same!  She does have a little bit more hair, emphasis on little, and seems to be a bit taller and heavier.  Olga (coordinator) is finding out for us her current height and weight so we can see officialy how much that has changed.  

The visit was great.  She seemed a little skeptical of us at first (which is actually a good thing for a child her age since she really doesn't know us yet) but she let Laurie hold her and eventually started playing with the toys we brought.  We noticed that she has 3 teeth now - front bottom 2 and 1 front top.  She is crawling very well, pulling herself up, standing in place and walking while holding onto our hands or a table.  They had her extremely bundled up (especially for being in a warm building) with a long sleeved top, footed zip up jammies, thick socks over her feet and a silly hat on her head.  We told her that her brother would love the hat and would call her Santa :)

She tried to play catch for a little with a ball and then she moved onto chewing on the blocks and book that we brought.  We discovered today that she puts her thumb in her mouth just like her big brother used to.  She ended up not taking long to warm back up to us and let John hold her a lot too.  While we were there (coordinator) Olga showed up with yet another couple from our agency whose baby girl is at the same orphanage.  They were meeting their child for the first time today and it was really neat to see their reaction.  Our visit today ended up lasting about an hour and 1/2 and we found out that we will be picked up tomorrow at 9:50 for another morning visit.

We made it!

Well, we are back in Perm and we were greeted with SNOW!  On the ground and currently still falling - - definitely a pretty sight!

We had very good flights aside from the techinical difficulties with the entertainment system on our plane from JFK to Moscow so we weren't able to watch any movies!  It actually went fairly quickly though without any movies to pass the time.  It's amazing how much nicer it is to travel when you don't have 15 hours in layovers! 

We even had a lovely surprise on our flight from Moscow to Perm.  There was a couple that we met at our agency's last zoo reunion in May that is in the process of also adopting a little girl from Perm.  As we were walking down the aisle of the plane to find our seats, we hear "John!"....guess who was not only on our plane but in our row!  It was such a nice surprise!  We were able to reconnect and share some stories during the 2 hour flight.  They are here on their first trip and get to meet their little girl for the first time tomorrow.  We are in the same hotel and our rooms are actually just down the hall from each other!

When we arrived at the Perm airport, we were met by Olga and another Olga (we did not meet this other Olga on our first trip).  Apparently Val was busy so (driver) Olga came to help out since there were 2 couples being picked up at the same time.  Val was waiting for us at the hotel though when we arrived.  We learned that (driver) Olga will be picking us up at 9:20am tomorrow to visit Baby Girl. 

We were able to Skype with Andrew & Laurie's parents once we got to our room so we could say hello before they were off to church and we go to bed.  Speaking of, since we've been awake for pretty much 27+ hours we are excited to get some sleep!

Finally a Court date!

After a VERY long 11 weeks since our first trip, we are excited to say that we have a court date!!  We leave this Saturday (11/17) for Russia and we will have court on Wednesday 11/21. 

It’s been a longer than expected period of time between trips filled with a lot of stress and anxiety.  The judge requested more information from us over that time including things such as:

•  a survey of our house including the square footage of each room, totaled for each level and then whole house
• copies of our vehicle purchase receipts & registrations
• updated background checks (June 2012 wasn’t recent enough)
• a letter explaining our stance on corporal punishment

There were a total of 16 additional things that we had to provide to the judge since we returned from our first trip.  Then it was a matter of waiting….and waiting….and waiting! 

Last week we finally found out (on Friday) that the judge had set us a date of November 21 but until he issued an official invitation, it could change - meaning that we shouldn’t book our airfare and hotel until we know for sure.  The judge did officially issue the invitation today for the 21st!  We took a chance and booked our airfare Sunday night and it worked out - had we waited until today, it would have been an extra $399/person! 

The best part about this trip is that we will get to see Baby Girl on her first birthday (Tuesday November 20)!  That is very exciting and special for us (especially having missed that milestone with Andrew).  It means that we will be traveling home on Thanksgiving but we are set to land in Pittsburgh at 5pm so we won’t completely miss out on dinner (which happens to be Laurie’s absolute favorite).