Goodbye....for now....

Last night Val and Olga met with us in our hotel lounge for us to sign a declaration that yes, we officially want to adopt the child we have met with this week.  We also had to write out a one page letter (Olga had the template and we just had to fill in our information) and sign it for Olga to take to a notary with the interpretor in order for it to be notarized.  Once that was complete, we called Liz (the other woman from our agency) and met her and her friend (because Liz is single, her friend traveled with her to give her moral support during court - her friend has adopted 2 children with her husband  so she understand the process very well) in our hotel lounge.  We talked with them for over an hour and 1/2 before making plans to meet them for dinner tonight. 

Val picked us up today at 10:00 and we went straight to the orphanage (Olga was busy today so she was not with us).  One of the main caretakers greeted us today and we gave her the blanket we brought for the baby to keep there.  She explained that we might not get it back because sometimes things get lost in the laundry.  They told us that with Andrew's blanket too but it's on his bed at home, so we are hopeful that we will get hers back too.  The caretaker also asked what name we have given the baby.  We told her and she promised that from now on that is what they are going to call her so she can get used to it.  The baby seemed really happy to see us today and we had yet another great visit.  She showed off her crawling and pulling herself up skills some more and thoroughly enjoyed playing with our toys again.  We noticed that every day she has taken great interest in Laurie's bracelet so John might be in trouble with now 2 jewelry loving ladies in his house :) 

We made another observation this week that could possibly be the timing of our visits, but we are hoping it's really her personality - - she's very calm!  She very much loves to be held and is content to sit on your lap and play.  This is something that we observed (from when we first met Andrew) was not the case with her big brother and still describes his personality today - "busy"!  We would be overjoyed if her personality offsets his some because the thought of 2 "Andrews" running around is definitely overwhelming - haha :)

Val offerred to take some pictures today of the 3 of us because he pointed out that we will need many pictures of us with her for when we return to go to court.  We thanked him and also assurred him that we have plenty of pictures to choose from :)   After about an hour, it was time to say goodbye.  We gave her hugs and kisses and promised we would be back to see her (hopefully) soon.

Once we left the orphanage, Val took us to "center market" to take a look around.  It is a huge area in the center of Perm that has many outside vendors selling everything from hats, to clothes, to underwear, to shoes and then also has an inside area with many fresh foods to buy.  We didn't spend much time in the outside area because it was raining.  He did, however, give us a tour of the inside area.  On the main (middle) level is the meat section.  Val explained that everything is fresh daily - they kill the animals at night so that everything in the morning is fresh meat and everything that is there gets sold that day.  The upstairs level had dairy products and the downstairs level had produce, again everything being very fresh.  He said that these markets are quite popular and the food is much healthier/better quality than what you would find in a supermarket. 

Val dropped us off at our hotel and let us know he would return at 4:50 am tomorrow to take us to the airport.  Our flight leaves Perm at 6:25am, we fly to Moscow, have a 4 hour lay-over there, fly 10+ hours to JFK, have a 2 1/2 hour lay-over there and return to Pittsburgh at 4:30pm - - whew!  that's one long day!  We are sad to leave our baby girl here but we are excited to get home to see Andrew.

We just got finished Skyping with Andrew and Laurie's parents before he had to go to school and it was a 25 minute conversation about the train they took him on yesterday.  He told us it was just like the Polar Express and they said he was in heaven!  He now has an engineer hat and a wooden train whistle (he is beyond obsessed with trains, so we can just imagine how thrilled he was by the experience).  Tonight Laurie's aunt and uncle are taking him to Fun Fore All and Laurie's parents are taking him to the airport tomorrow to welcome us home.  He is going to be quite disappointed to return to reality next week but we are so happy he had such a great week!

4th visit and some Perm history

First things first....the name has been decided!!!  That's all we have to say on that subject until she's home - haha!!

Val picked us up this morning at 8:30 and on our way to the orphanage we picked Olga up.  We arrived around 9:15 and once they brought her to us, we were able to spend over 2 hours together!  It was another great visit.  She definitely seems to be getting more comfortable with us and just wanted to be held most of the time.  She loves playing with the toys/books we brought with us from home (the same toys we brought with us for Andrew to play with) and also continues to love chewing on them as well - we know that will be ongoing for quite some time as she is just starting to get her teeth.  It was quite apparent that we were there during her morning nap time (not sure her caregiver was all too happy about that but she agreed to the long visit).  She often gave us huge yawns and even almost fell asleep a couple of times.  We were happy with all of the extra snuggle time :)  She did some more crawling for us and even took some more (heavily assisted) steps.  As much as we are looking foward to returning home (to our "baby" there) we are not looking forward to saying goodbye to our baby here for the next couple of months :(

Once we left the orphanage, Val & Olga took us to another restaurant for lunch.  They told us it is a commonly visited place by tourists to get some "authentic" food.  They specialize in what could best be compared to a type of calzone/stromboli but with odd fillings.  John ordered one with meat filling (when he asked what kind of meat it is, the response was "I don't know but its really good" - awesome!) with a garlic sauce and Laurie ordered one filled with a potato/sour cream mixture.  Although they sound strange and possibly not appetizing, we were both pleasantly surprised and enjoyed our meal.

After lunch, they took us to a historical museum.  We spent about an hour and 1/2 looking at various pieces of Perm's history while learning more about the city and Russia itself.  Val joked that a very early version of a telephone was the "iPhone 1" - yes, they have iPhones in Russia and he has one :)

After leaving the museum, Val and Olga told us that they would return later today to meet with us and have us sign necessary paperwork to be notarized stating yes, we officially want to adopt the child we have met this week.

When we returned to our hotel, Val said we might run into the other woman from our agency, Elizabeth, as he would now be taking her to see her little girl.  We did in fact meet her and she was very friendly.  She said that she would love to sit down and talk to us later so we exchanged room numbers to possibly get in touch later. 

3rd visit and a little bit of Perm

We were quite tired at the end of our day yesterday so we took advantage of the ability to go to bed at 9:30pm.  That is until we were awakened by our phone ringing at 10:20.  It was our driver, Val, saying he was in the lobby and needed someone to come downstairs to talk to him.  We instantly thought something bad happened (why else would he show up at almost 10:30pm at our hotel and not be able to tell us over the phone).  John went downstairs to talk to him while Laurie paced up in the room imagining the posibilities.  When John returned he said that both Val and Olga were down there to tell us that our appointment was going to be in the morning on Wednesday instead of the afternoon.  They felt horrible at having to change our schedule again and wanted to see our reaction in person.  Thinking of all the possible reasons they could have been there, a schedule change was a huge sigh of relief! 

So, Val and Olga returned to pick us up at 9:20am today.  We went straight to the orphanage to see "Baby Girl".  She was brought to us and (finally) had on a different outfit, although it was definitely not a stylish one - haha! 

We had almost an hour and 1/2 to play with her today and it went very well.  She seems to be getting more and more used to us and laughed a lot today.  She crawled between the two of us and even pulled herself up to be standing several times!  Laurie felt in her mouth and she has her first tooth!  It's one of the bottom front teeth - the orphanage needs to update their records :)  For all of those reading who are anticipating another body part, we thought we would indulge you with a foot this time :)

Once we left the orphanage, Val told us they were taking us to the military museum, a souvenir shop and to a Ukrainian restaurant for lunch.  The military museum was outside and quite fascinating.  We were able to see various weapons and machines that were used in the past - a very scary thing to imagine them actually in use.  Val told us to climb on one of the tanks and he would take our picture.  As we were climbing up, Laurie said "Yeah, until the police come and arrest us" to which Val replied "POLICE, POLICE - hahahaha!!" 

After the museum, we were able to do a little Perm souvenir shopping.  Laurie was more than a little weary about the lunch that followed at the Ukrainian restaurant, but she was up for the challenge of finding something on the menu she would actually eat.  The restaurant had a very nice atmosphere and an extremely large menu.  John decided on a cup of Borsch and meat filled raviolis while Laurie decided on chicken filled raviolis.  They use the term ravioli but it is not the ravioli we know in the United States.  They could be compared to large gnocchi with your choice of filling and instead of a tomato based sauce that we tradionally put on a pasta dish, they put sour cream on everything.  As an appetizer, we had rolls and what Val informed us was liver spread - John tried it but (surprise surprise) Laurie passed on the spread.  Our food turned out to be quite good and very filling.  We had great conversation with Val and Olga as well.  We learned some about Perm and the judge we will probably have for court (our next trip) while they asked us questions regarding Andrew and our families.

Val told us at lunch that whenever we are ready to make our official decision (yes or no to "Baby Girl"), to let them know and they will need a day to complete paperwork.  We vaguely remember needing to visit a notary on our last day of our first trip in Andrew's process, so we assume that will need to take place this time too.  There wasn't any hesitation with our decision, but one hold-up remains with the completion of paperwork - - her name.  We thought before we arrived that as soon as we met her it would be clear but we are still struggling between our 2 favorites.  We will make a final decision by the end of today  :)

Visit #2

Almost immediately after we published our entry yesterday, our hotel phone rang.  It was our driver, Val, calling to explain that our visit tomorrow had to be moved to the morning.  He said that instead of 3:30pm, they would be picking us up at 10:20am.  Apparently the judge had called Olga (regarding the other client who is here this week) stating that their court appointment had been changed to the afternoon, which meant our visit had to take place in the morning so they were free in the afternoon.  Due to the baby's nap (yes she reportedly naps - yippee!!) and feeding schedule, we couldn't really arrive there for a visit until late morning.

Last night after our dinner and brief walk, we were able to Skype with Andrew and Laurie's parents for over 30 mintues (he is doing just fine so far and they are all keeping each other busy) and then John's parents for about the same amount of time.  We both had a restless night of sleep (probably due to our long afternoon naps yesterday) so we weren't ready for the alarm to go off this morning but we got up with the excitement of going to the orphanage again. 

We arrived at the orphanage a little after 11:00 and were taken to the same room as yesterday.  They brought her in soon after we arrived (in the same clothes she had on yesterday).  She seemed excited to see us again, or maybe it was just the toys she knew we had that she could try to chew on :)  When we went through this process with Andrew, we brought a book with us that was padded and he loved to chew on.  It was later ripped from the binding from him enthusiasically looking through it but we still have it on his book shelf at home as a souvenir of our time with him in Russia because you can see his teeth marks around the edges.  Well, we brought the same book on this trip (a new one of course) for her to play with.  As soon as Laurie took it out of the bag, it instantly went into the baby's mouth and we had to chuckle at the similarity between she and Andrew.  We got out a ball we brought with us and once she figured out it couldn't very easily go into her mouth, she sort of threw it back and forth with John.  Again, her biggest interest was having something to put into her mouth and being held.  About 30 minutes into our visit, Val came in and said it was time to go.  The baby had to eat lunch soon and they needed to get back for the other client to go to court.

We were able to find out the missing weight measurement.  She went from 16.2 lbs at 6 months to 18.5 pounds at 9 months.  She is just 2 pounds less than what Andrew was when we brought him home (at 16 months)!  Although, she isn't really moving yet so once she starts crawling that will probably affect her growth some. 

When Val and Olga dropped us off today, they apologized for our short visit and promised us a much longer one tomorrow and also the chance to see some of the sights their city has to offer.  We passed a military museum on our way to the hotel today and Val said that he would take us there for a visit this week.  They plan to pick us up at 3:30 tomorrow afternoon. 

We just finished Skyping with our little guy at home.  Today is his first day of Preschool for this school year.  Laurie is a little sad knowing that she isn't the one taking him there and getting his first day of school picture, but we know that he is very excited to show Grammy and BupBup his school.  He looked very handsome and although he was tired at the beginning of the call, he seemed ready to go when we finished :) 

We met our daughter!

After a restful but not quite long enough night of sleep, we woke up bright and early this morning for our appointments.  We had our appointment with the Ministry of Education office first at 8:30.  Since we've already been through this process, we really weren't nervous for this as we knew what to expect.  Val drove us to the appointment and then he stayed in the car while we followed Olga into the building.  This made us a little wary because she speaks no English.  Once we were inside, we met Lena who served as our interpreter for the day.  She was very friendly and helpful.  She told us that she has been interpreting adoption information for families for over 13 years.  The meeting went well. We saw a picture of her when she was a newborn and  Olga was given a form to be completed at the end of the week with either a "yes" we choose to offically adopt this child or "no" we don't.

From there we left to go to the baby home but stopped at the notary on the way for Olga and Lena to take care of something for another client having court tomorrow.  Once we arrived at the baby home we had to stay in the car for a little bit while Olga when in to talk with the director/head doctor.  She came out to tell us that we would need to wait a little longer because the director was still in another meeting but she shouldn't be much longer.  During this wait we were able to speak with Lena who asked us a lot of questions about Pittsburgh and gave us some information about Perm.   Once the director was ready to meet with us, we had a very informative meeting.  She shared with us a lot of information regarding the baby and we were able to ask all of the questions we had.  We left the meeting feeling very informed (not how our meeting with the director of Andrew's orphanage went) and they promised to make us a copy of her daily schedule including what/how much she eats for tomorrow's visit.

 

After we met with the director, we actually had to drive to a separate building to visit the baby.  This orphanage is quite large and is made up of 3 buildings.  Once inside, we were led to a "visitation area" with 2 rooms that are used for prospective parents to visit with the children.  While we waited for them to bring her to us, we saw another family leaving the other room.  We learned that their child (a boy) had just turned 1 and he looked quite healthy (chubby in another word) which was comforting to see. 

They brought the baby to us (around 11:30am) and we had a great visit.  She didn't cry when she was brought to us but seemed a bit skeptical at first.  The doctor we have spoken with at home (who watched her video) said we want her to be that way as it is a good sign if a child of her age isn't overly welcoming of strangers.  After a few minutes she warmed up and let us hold her.  She seemed to take quickly to John (we might have a daddy's girl on our hands like our mama's boy at home).  We placed her belly down on a blanket on the floor with a toy across the blanket.  She lifted herself up and 1/2 crawled, 1/2 scooted herself to get the toy.  She can sit up by herself and when we tried to stand her up she put weight on her feet but needed held onto or she would fall over (all good developmental signs according to our doctor).  We brought some stacking blocks with us and after showing her how they work, she picked up the blocks and tried to stack them herself.  They eventually went into her mouth, as did almost everything else she could get her hands on.  She currently has no teeth, so we took that as a sign that she is possibly working on her first tooth or she was ready for lunch...or most likely both :)  Oh, she is starting to get some hair now but of course that's just a teaser because we aren't sharing the color :)

We were only able to visit with her for about 30 minutes due to us arriving so close to lunch time.  They are pretty strict about keeping the children on schedule.  Her caretaker said that due to her meal/nap schedule, it would probably be best for us to visit her in late afternoon every day.  Once we returned to our hotel (around 1:00pm), we reviewed our notes from meeting with the director and realized that we wrote down her 9 month weight incorrectly (they use grams and we didn't notice our mistake at the meeting).  She weighed a little over 16lbs at 6 months and according to our notes, she is only 9 lbs now - definitely not right!  She is a pretty solid, health looking little girl :)  We will have to get the correct weight tomorrow.

We took advantage of having a free afternoon (without a 3 year old to keep us busy) and took a nap!  Tomorrow Val and Olga aren't picking us up until 3:30 due to their busy day (taking another client to court), so we will be able to sleep a little later than we did today.  We are now off to the mall that is only 200 yards from our hotel to check out the grocery store (to buy some water) and the food court to get some dinner before Skyping with our "baby" at home. 

On Russian soil again...

Well, after a VERY long 2 days of travel, we made it successfully to Perm.  Saturday began at 3:15am when we awoke from our very comfortable bed (after about 3-4 hours of sleep).  We went to the Pittsburgh airport where we then traveled the quite easy 1 hour (6:00-7:10) flight to New York’s JFK airport.  Once at JFK, we got our bearings and found the food court in the international terminal.  We had 1 choice at 7:45 in the morning for breakfast so McDonalds it was.  We were then in touch with Laurie’s parents who reported that Andrew slept until after 8:00 (of course he would sleep in on a Saturday morning for them). 

We ended up hanging out in the food court for the majority of our 7 hour New York layover (“playing” on the computer and/or phones) so that we could eat lunch there as well before our long flight to Moscow.  We timed things so that once we went through security again (because we had to exit the airport to enter a different terminal) and charged our electronics for a few minutes,  it was time to get in line to board our long flight (left at 2:30pm).

We spoke to Andrew before our flight took off .  He was, however, quite pre-occuppied with all of the "new" toys at Grammy and BupBup's to play with and the thoughts of going to the playground and Chuck 'E' Cheese later so we didn't get much more than a "love you".  He did take the time to record a video saying "Hi Baby Sister, I love you!" for us to show her during the week :)

For the next 9 hours we were aboard an Aeroflot (Russian airline) airplane.  Our plane was quite large and was equipped with individual TV sceens with a large choice of movies and games.   Laurie watched 3 movies during the flight but John managed to "break" his TV trying to play poker so he listened to music.  Neither one of us are big plane sleepers, but we were able to each get about 2 hours of sleep during the course of the flight.  We landed in Moscow at 7:30am (11:30pm home time) and by the time we went through customs, collected our checked bags and rechecked them for our domestic flight to Perm, we had used up 1 1/2 hours of our 8 hour lay-over at that airport.  We went through security and found our way to our own row of 4 seats by a window.  The seats were quite possibly the most uncomfortable seats in the world but we were so tired that we both fell asleep slouched over using both our neck pillows and carryon bookbags as pillows.  We are pretty sure that our necks and backs will never be the same but we were able to get 3 more hours of sleep and use up more of the time until our next flight.  After grabbing a quick bite to eat at an Irish Pub in the aiport we headed to our gate for our last flight of the weekend. 

After a fairly short (2 hour) flight to Perm, we arrived at 8:00pm (10:00am home time).  The Perm airport is like nothing we have ever seen - to say it's the size of a Giant Eagle would possibly be a stretch.  It looks like one of the first airports in the world that was never expanded or had any updates done.  We were greeted there by our agency's Perm coordintor, Olga, and our Perm driver, Val.  We were suprised to learn that Olga speaks no English so Val had to interpret everything to us (he on the other hand, speaks English very well).  On the drive to our hotel, they told us that they would be back to pick us up at 8:30am for our appointment at the Ministry of Education (where we will get our official referral) and then it's off to the orphanage!  Val told us that we will visit the orphanage once a day and that the time will vary from day to day based on their (Val & Olga's) schedule.

Well, we are off to get some sleep since we have an early and exciting morning ahead of us!

Exciting News!!!

Well, after a VERY LONG wait we finally have big news to share....we have a referral!!  We actually received the video on Monday June 18.  Upon receiving it, we sent it to Dr. Melissa Goldstein (in New York City) who came highly reccommended to us.  She watched the video, sent us a written report that Friday and followed up with a conference call with us the next Tuesday.  She advised us to request some additional information from Russia and that's where yet another delay occurred.  It took 3 1/2 weeks to get the information we requested in order to make our official decision (all is fine!).  In the meantime, the agency contacted us with the travel dates of our first trip!!  So, here is the information everyone has been waiting for:

Baby Girl was born on November 20, 2011.  She lives in Perm, Russia.  At the time of our video she was 6 months old and weighed 16 lbs, 2 oz and was 26 inches long. 

The dates of our first trip are August 25 - September 1 (flights are already booked).  So, that means we will FINALLY get to meet our baby girl on Monday August 27!!!

Update on Adoption #2....

This update is long overdue and we have had many people asking us the status of our second adoption. First let us say, NO – we haven’t heard anything/received a video yet! :) Everything went fairly smoothly this time but was a little more frustrating. There were additional requirements to complete this time around making the dossier list as follows:

State criminal clearances
FBI criminal clearances
State child abuse clearances
Employment letters
Homeownership letter
Copy of Deed to home
Letter from mortgage company
Guardianship letters
Copies of passport photo pages
Photo sheets
Copies of Marriage license
Reference letters
Analysis of Monthly Income & Expenditures
Physicals

Physician's License

Letter from State Medical Board
MMPI-2
Psychologist License
Letter from Veterinarian
1040 Tax forms (last 3 years)
USCIS Approval

Even though we had done almost all of these 2 years ago, we had to start all over again and complete everything again. In addition to completing the requirements we were also responsible for getting several of the documents notarized and then apostilled (which means we sent the documents to Harrisburg and basically got the notary’s signature notarized). The agency took care of getting these documents notarized and apostilled for Andrew’s process and this was a large part of our frustration because we felt things weren’t explained very well in the beginning. We began gathering most of these items in July and had everything (including our 2 home study visits with our social worker, Rita, and our fingerprints at the Dept of Homeland Security) done by late September. We received our USCIS (United States Citizenship & Immigration Services) approval on September 29 which was the final piece of our dossier.

Laurie was in touch with our case/social worker at the agency, Sarah, last week and she said that we are currently first in line for HER clients waiting for girls. There are 2 other case/social workers who have clients that have been waiting longer than us for girls though. That doesn't necessarily mean that we still have a long road ahead of waiting but it could. Laurie asked Sarah why the process is taking longer for girls than boys, she said that right now almost all of their clients are requesting girls to adopt and that the Russians adopt more girls than boys so there are less girls available in the orphanages.

We are hoping to hear something this month or next, but we really have no idea. Once we hear from them and accept a referral, it will be approx 8-10 weeks until we travel there to meet her (although it could be shorter or longer) and then another 8-10 weeks until court. As we know from Andrew's process, it's all very unpredictable and there are always "things" that can happen!

We very much appreciate everyone's prayers as we wait. Andrew is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his little sister (as are we). If you ask him where his sister is, he says "in Russia" and he claims that he is going to carry her around & change her diaper when she comes home :)

Spring & Summer 2011

The month of March was fairly low-key, spending time waiting for the lovely winter to end. We did get together with Laurie's mom's family for a going away party held for Laurie's cousin Jesse (he moved to California for a new job). It was nice to see everyone as they had never met Andrew yet! We also attended a birthday party for Laurie's cousins Ben & Sara. Andrew had lots of fun running around playing for everyone and we were even able to bribe him with M&M's to perform "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and his "ABCs" :)

April brought more parties and lots of rain. We had Nini's (Laurie's grandmother) surprise 80th birthday party. We rented out a room at Springfield Grille and surprised her with a big family dinner (that was her requested birthday activity). It was really nice and as a gift to her, a photographer came to take family photos.

April ended with Andrew's first Gotcha Day (the anniversary of when we took him out of the orphanage) on April 27. John took the day off work and we surprised Andrew by giving him a Mickey Mouse "doll" and a battery operated Jeep for him to drive. We took him to a special breakfast, gymnastics class and then closed the day with a pizza party for friends and family - it was a truly special day!

In May we celebrated Mother's Day, took Andrew to the zoo for our adoption agency's 18th annual reunion, had Andrew's first gymnastics show and took a road trip to Chicago to celebrate John's birthday with his family. It was a really fun and busy month! Andrew had an awesome time showing off his gymnastics skills at his show and earning his first medal. He had a great time in Chicago too and loved playing with his cousins! :)

June started off with the 6th Annual Wil Morrow Memorial Bowling event and Andrew had a blast. Maybe he will grow up to be an awesome bowler like his uncle :) We had our first traumatic injury on June 5 playing outside. Andrew was wearing his Mickey Mouse sunglasses when he tripped running out of the garage. The sunglasses slammed up into his forehead requiring 7 stitches in the ER. The doctor numbed his forehead, they strapped him down in a papoose restraint, Laurie layed over top of him while he screamed & cried and John sat in the waiting room (didn't think he could handle watching his baby get fixed up). Laurie took Andrew to a plastic surgeon the following day who said the stitches looked great and to come back in 5 days for them to be taken out. Andrew now has his first scars (that are fading nicely thanks to Mederma cream) and mommy & daddy are only still slightly scarred by the experience :)

July began with a weekend of birthday parties - a surprise 50th for Laurie's Aunt Deb and first birthday parties for Andrew's friends Carson, Nick & Ben. Andrew had his 2 1/2 year check-up at the pediatrician's office where we found out he grew 6 inches since his last visit in December! We attended the Relay for Life in honor of our family members who died of cancer and for Laurie's uncle who is currently battling it. We also hosted our 4th annual summer picnic with the Maschak family - it was fun as usual! John's sisters Jen & Chris made a couple of visits to our house before and after their vacation to New Jersey. It was so great to see them and for Andrew to spend time playing with his cousins!

Our summer ended with a fun filled month of August. We had Laurie's cousin Courtney's birthday party and then we went on our first family vacation (just the 3 of us)! Our vacation took us to Duck, North Carolina and Andrew loved the beach. He was quite afraid of the ocean at first (which we were thankful for since he is usually fearless) but got a little bit more used to it as the week went on. Even though he was afraid of the ocean, he LOVED the pool at our condo (we had a pool pass for the community pool over the summer which he and Laurie went to every chance they had - so he became quite the little fish). We were having a really great trip until good ol' hurricane Irene got us kicked out 2 days earlier (at least we bought trip insurance).

So, since we were home Thursday night instead of Saturday night we made the most of it and planned some fun activities. Friday we took Andrew to Living Treasures - an animal petting zoo near our house which he LOVED! Saturday we went to Idlewild park with Laurie's parents. We all had a really fun day and Andrew was a champ riding all the rides! We were guided into September with the start of another year of gymnastics. It's the same "mommy & me" class that Laurie & Andrew did last year (same teacher too) so Andrew is a "master" of all the stunts :)

The ball is rolling....

Well, we did it - we started the process again! This time for a little Russian girl! :) Our application was mailed and received late last week and we already received a call from the agency's new coordinator, Sarah, (the one we worked with on Andrew's adoption, Amy, is no longer there - much to our delight as we didn't care for her at all) that she is looking forward to working with us!

The process starts again with all of the paperwork, background checks, physicals, fingerprints - EVERYTHING all over again! We are very excited to get underway with expanding our family and making Andrew a big brother - with a little sister :)

January & February 2011

Well, 2011 began with a fun surprise party on January 1st for Laurie's Uncle Tom's 50th birthday. Andrew came decked out in his personalized Pens hockey jersey (in honor of the Winter Classic game that evening) and everybody had a really fun time at the festivities. The next weekend we had our last family Christmas gathering. Andrew had a great holiday season and had so much fun at all the parties!


Andrew FINALLY had his MRI done on Monday January 10. It was kind of a rough morning - starting with us being up at 4:30 and in the waiting room at Childrens Hospital at 5:50am. We were both with Andrew while he got his IV put in and Laurie was able to stay with him through the whole experience. They were almost done with the scan (they were just starting the last 10 minute scan) when he woke up in the MRI machine. Laurie was told that they were just doing the last of a couple of additional scans that the radiologist wanted when Andrew woke up - they said hopefully they got what they needed or else we would have to come back!

Laurie carried Andrew to recovery while someone went and got John in the waiting room. They warned us in the pre-op room that some kids have an opposite reaction to the sedative meaning they get aggressive and agitated when they wake up....well, that happened to Andrew on the way back to recovery and in the recovery room. They ended up calling a doctor and anesthesiologist to come in and give him more sedative in recovery...he fell asleep on Laurie for about 40 minutes until they made us wake him up...he was barely awake enough to drink some juice so we could go home. He kept the juice down so we left the hospital, dropped John off at work and then Laurie took Andrew home. He slept the entire way home and was pretty loopy/high from the medicine (couldn't even walk) when we got home....Laurie gave him something to eat and then he fell asleep for over 2 1/2 hours....when he woke up he was totally fine :)

We were told that the doctor (pediatric ophthalmologist) would have the results on Wednesday. Laurie called his office Wednesday morning and they said that they would see if they had the results and get back to her. A nurse called back early Thursday afternoon and said that the MRI was fine and that we could just follow-up with the doctor in August (for Andrew's yearly appointment). We decided that we weren't satisfied with that response (because the problem is still going on and we want to know how to correct it now that we know the optic nerve is fine) so Laurie called back and they took a message for the doctor to call her back.

The doctor called Laurie and said that everything with the scan was great – completely normal. He said that the radiologist called him and said “what’s up, why are we scanning this kid – we don’t see anything wrong”…so, that’s why they were taking the additional scans because they didn’t see anything wrong.

He said that because everything with the nerves is fine and anatomically nothing at all is wrong, it means that the problem is weak eye muscles. We are to start patching again but he said that unless we notice a severe increase in the crossing, we don’t have to be crazy about it if Andrew doesn’t co-operate….he said that if it does happen to get worse then we might want to look into a cheap pair of glasses (with the prescription he gave us in May) but because he thinks Andrew is only slightly far-sighted and the glasses would really only be used for the crossing issue, there is a good chance Andrew won’t wear them.

Laurie told him that it seems to be better (and we even have other people commenting on how it looks better) but we do still notice it happening – especially when he’s tired….he said that’s great and not a surprise because Andrew is now getting good nutrition which is a huge help as well as increased stimulation since being home with us….he said it makes sense that we notice it when he’s tired because the muscles are going to be weaker when he’s tired. He said to just do what we can with the patching and come back in August…..he said that it may be something that Andrew just grows out of eventually.

Other than playing in the snow lots - helping daddy & mommy shovel and sled riding with daddy, the rest of January was pretty uneventful which was quite nice after such a busy busy December!


February started off with Andrew's first Super Bowl. How exciting for us that our team, Pittsburgh Steelers, made it to that game again. We went over to our neighbor's (Andrew's buddy Lucas) house for the game. Even though our team lost we had lots of fun - every single one of Lucas' toys were played with by the kids...what a mess by the end of the night! :)




The following weekend we were supposed to go to a birthday party at Jumpin Castle for our friend Ava, but unfortunately there was a head lice incident at the babysitter's house (nobody other than her daughter ended up with it thank goodness) so we didn't want to take our chances of spreading it until we were sure that we didn't have any. We did, however, take him there to play the next weekend with his friends Ty, Reed & Lucas. Everybody had a good time so we will definitely go back there to play sometime. Andrew also celebrated his first Valentine's day with us during that time and received lots of hugs & kisses from mommy and daddy :)




We had our second post adoption visit with our social worker, Rita, on the morning of Saturday the 26th. She said she is always amazed at the changes from the 6 month visit to the 1 year visit and Andrew was no exception. His language has exploded and as anyone who spends a day with him knows, he rarely stops talking :) After chatting with us about a few updates since the last visit, Rita followed Andrew into the playroom where she sat at his kitchen while he made her some coffee and eggs. She said that he seems to be adjusting wonderfully and was very impressed that he can spell his name, say his full name, count to 10, say most of the alphabet and knows his colors. She will send us her report soon and it will be sent to Russia for our 1 year anniversary of the adoption (April 27). She won't have another report due for us until April 2012!

Andrew's friends Ty & Reed had their 3rd Birthday party on February 27. It was a Toy Story themed party and there were lots of kids there to celebrate. The weather was beautiful and we had a very hard time keeping Andrew inside with the party as he just wanted to be walking around outside. It was a great way to end a fun month!

October, November & December 2010

The month of October was quite busy. It brought Andrew's first trip to Florida! Andrew got to meet John's sister Kim and her family. He LOVED getting to meet more cousins (he had already meet Catherine when she came to our house for his baptism) as well as his Aunt Kim & Uncle John. We took Andrew to the beach (he got to swim in the Bay) and to hit golf balls for the first time. It was nice spending time at John's parent's house and we got our last fill of sunshine for the year 2010.

We also took Andrew to a pumpkin patch near our house. He got to pick out pumpkins, play on a wooden tractor, pet some animals and go on a hay ride - he loved it! His friends Ty & Reed were there too and he really had a lot of fun playing with them.

There were 2 trips to McConnells Mills State Park in October. A friend of Laurie's from high school is a photographer and we set it up for her to take family pictures outside with the beautiful leaves. The first day we were supposed to meet, it was raining so we rescheduled for later in the month. We had the opportunity to go there (the weekend before our rescheduled appointment) with Laurie's parents to get some pictures with them. This turned out to be a very good thing because the following weekend when we were meeting Laurie's friend, Andrew was sick. We still had her take our pictures, but because he wasn't feeling well Andrew didn't really cooperate and we didn't get many good ones that day.

Andrew's MRI (to check out his optic nerve) was scheduled for Monday October 25 but because he was sick the weekend prior (with a fever that reached 104 degrees), we had to reschedule. The new date was set for Wednesday December 1.

The month of October ended with...yep, Halloween!! Andrew dressed up as a tiger. We didn't think that he would enjoy being in his costume, but he actually didn't seem to mind it. Laurie's parents came over to our house and her dad stayed at our house to pass out candy while we went around the neighborhood to Trick or Treat. We walked around with Andrew's friends Ty, Reed and Lucas - what a crew of boys! We think they had a good time and while Andrew didn't really "get it", he was a trooper :)

November was a fairly uneventful month. It was around the second full week that Andrew's hands and feet started peeling...this led to two things: 1. We diagnosed what was most likely the cause of the mysterious fever/sickness during a weekend in late October - hand foot and mouth disease and 2. he stopped sucking his thumbs!! It took us about a week to realize that he wasn't doing it anymore! We figured it was going to be a habit that we struggled to get him to stop some day but he stopped all on his own at 22 1/2 months old!!

Andrew and Laurie continue going to gymnastics every Thursday morning. Although he has his moments, he is definitely doing a lot better. He enjoys climbing over things and swinging from the bars.

We took Andrew to our local holiday "light-up night". He got to help daddy make a gingerbread house and decorate a cookie inside. Then we went outside and Santa rode in on a firetruck! Laurie & Andrew got their picture taken with Santa and John took Andrew up in the firetruck :)

The month ended with a huge Thanksgiving dinner at Laurie's Aunt Deb & Uncle Tom's house. Andrew seemed to enjoy all of the food (although that should come as no surprise) and have a really good time.

December was in one word - BUSY! December 1 was the rescheduled date of Andrew's MRI. BUT, he had a runny nose (with colored mucous) so Laurie called to find out if that was something that we should reschedule for again. The answer was yes...and, the first available date was January 10 - fingers crossed that there is no illness then and that the 3rd time is a charm!

John had 3 1/2 vacation days left for the year so he took a day off on December 8 & we went out to cut down our Christmas tree! There was a lot of snow on the ground where we went and Andrew insisted on being carried - it was Laurie's workout for the week considering it was mostly up hill to look at the trees and he weighed an extra 5 pounds with his snow gear on :) Later that day we took him to get his Christmas/2nd Birthday pictures taken and he did really well even though the studio was a zoo!

The next big event was Andrew's 2nd birthday party on Saturday December 18th. John's parents flew in for the event on Friday. The party turned out great and thank goodness we borrowed the Maschak family's bouncy house for the 24 kids that were there! It was a very special day for Andrew and we know he felt the love of all the friends and family that were there to celebrate his 2nd birthday.

Sunday the 19th Andrew's sitter, Becky, and her family hosted a holiday party for the families of the children she watches. Becky had a play planned for the children to perform which didn't exactly happen, but they all put on their costumes for a couple of photos.

John took Monday the 20th off so that he could spend some more time with his parents. They were able to visit until Tuesday morning when they flew to Chicago for Christmas. John also took a 1/2 vacation day that Thursday and went to gymnastics with Andrew & Laurie. Andrew loved having daddy there to show all of his tricks to.

The next big day was Christmas and Andrew's second birthday - all wrapped up in one day! We went to Laurie's church in Butler for the 10:30pm Christmas Eve service. Andrew stayed awake the entire service and we were able to wish him Happy Birthday after midnight. He slept in until about 9am and we were able to distract him with breakfast until Laurie's parents arrived around 9:30. We gave him his stockings (he got one from Grammy & BupBup too) and gifts from us before we took him into the playroom to see his kitchen from Santa. It was a huge hit and he LOVES playing with it! We hosted Christmas with Laurie's family and everyone came over around 11:00. It was a really great day - Andrew got so many fun toys and lots of love :)

On Monday December 27, Laurie took Andrew to his 2 year appointment with the pediatrician. He weighed in at 27 pounds and measured 32.5 inches tall. He has gained 7 pounds since we brought him home (an average of 1 pound a month) and has grown 1.5 inches! The doctor said he seems to be doing great and there were (finally) no shots needed!

The month ended with a couple of play dates with his friend Addie (a neighbor down the street) and his friends Ty, Reed & Julia. Laurie was off work for the last two weeks of the year and John took Thursday December 30th off as his last vacation day. We went out to dinner with our friends Andrea & Jon on New Years Eve while Laurie's cousin, Courtney, babysat the 3 (2 year old) boys - Andrew, Ty & Reed. She survived, the kids had a great time playing with Andrew's kitchen and it was a nice adult evening out to end the wonderful year that was 2010!!