A Bunch of Firsts

Sorry it's been so long since I posted! Here are a few of Dasha's firsts from the past six weeks:


Here's Dasha feeding the giraffes on her first visit to the zoo.


Dasha attended her god-sister's birthday party. Hmm, whose legs are those in the background? That's right, they're Elmo's!
Here is Dasha with Mama at her first visit to the Children's Museum. We met her friend from the orphanage who now lives in Hawaii (they were in town for a wedding) at the museum and they had a ball playing together.

Dasha took her first trip to the ocean this past weekend. She loved it!!! She has not stopped saying "Dasha swimming ocean!" since we got home.

First Sick Visit to the Doctor

We had our first sick visit to the doctor on Monday afternoon. Dasha has an ear infection, and she was running a really high fever. Poor baby! She seems to be feeling better some, but still not herself. Pray that she'll feel better soon! Thanks!

I hope to post some pics from our first zoo trip soon. I can never seem to find enough time to upload the photos (imagine that!).

Funny Walmart Story

On our last visit to Walmart, we had just run out of Cheerios to snack on so I knew I didn't have much time left. I was hurrying through the produce section trying to pick up our last few items. I put a bag of onions into the cart and for some reason Dasha decided that she had to have them. But I didn't want to give them to her because I was pretty sure they were going to get thrown across the store since that's usually what happens when we are out of Cheerios and patience. So she starts screaming at the top of her lungs "die, die, die," which any good Russian adoptive parent knows is just "gimme, gimme, gimme". Unfortunately, the shoppers at Walmart didn't know that and I found quite a few people staring at us probably thinking that I had a demon-possessed two year old telling me to die! Hmm, maybe throwing onions wouldn't have been so bad!

Home Three Weeks, Settling In

Dasha loves to clean, I have never seen a two year old who loved to clean so much and is actually good at it! Here she is with my Swiffer mop, wearing her favorite purple hat (I had to wait until nap time to take the hat off, she cried everytime I tried to take it off!). Her great-grandma has since made her a tiny Swiffer of her own so we can clean together! This past weekend we took Dasha to the mall for her 1st American haircut. She did so well, sitting still for the stylist to cut her hair! Another cool thing, the stylist is an adoptive parent himself!
Dasha loves her "fluffy" outfit, I think it makes her look like a little Easter "chick".
The teacher in me is proud to say that Dasha loves to read books. Here she is sitting in her book basket before bedtime.
We're settling into a routine now and I can honestly say that I can't imagine not having her here with us. What in the world did we do with all that free time we used to have! It's going to be so hard to go to work and take her to the babysitter! I feel like we are just getting started on all that we need to do together to bond and grow as a family. At least summer is not too far off, two sweet months at home with our baby!

My, How Time Flies!

I can't believe we've been home for two weeks already (only two more weeks til I have to go back to work, awww...I really don't want to go back so soon). Dasha's sleeping a little better now (and therefore so are we), we've put an inflatable mattress in her room and we take turns sleeping in there at night. She still wakes up but not as often and she doesn't scream anymore. I wonder if she's just afraid of being alone at night, she's been sleeping with lots of people in the room for the last two years. I guess it would be really scary to suddenly be all by yourself in the dark in a strange place.

I'm posting a few more pictures now that we've set up our new computer. Am hoping to get some new ones from since we got home downloaded soon, so these are still pictures from while we were in Russia.

Here's one of Dasha and Papa playing on the little ice slide.

This one is of Dasha in the closet in our room at the Renaissance in Moscow. She loved to drag all of her toys and the hotel magazines in there and just sit and play.

Home Sweet Home

We've been home for nine days and it feels so good to be in our own surroundings again! Dasha is very busy learning about her "dom" (home) and she is learning English quicker than I expected. She says no (big surprise, huh?), shoes (her first English word!), puppy, yum, Noel (our cat), more, apple, please, banana, hello, bye-bye, turtle, fish, night-night, potty, here you go, bunny, mama, papa (guess technically those last two are also Russian but I think they count too), cookie, twinkle twinkle little star (she sings this, it's very cute), and I'm sure there are others that I'm just not remembering right now.
She's adjusting pretty well, still having trouble sleeping though, she screams when we leave the room if she is still awake and then also if she wakes up during the night (last night at 10:30, 1:00, and 4:30, ugh...). She gets pretty overstimulated by too many toys or going out for too long. We are trying to get her on a good schedule. We find that she doesn't nap as long as the orphanage said, though two hours seemed a little long anyway. She eats almost anything that we give her, but she doesn't like many veggies, peanut butter, or jello. She loves pancakes, chinese food rice, chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken noodle soup, spaghettios, water and apple juice!
We are working on helping her with frustration at us not understanding what she needs and when we don't give her what she wants. She can be quite aggressive when she gets mad (bites, scratches, kicks, etc.), Chris and I both have some battle scars from the airports (the 3 hours at JFK seemed like 3 days!). The doctor at the orphanage said that they usually just gave Dasha what she wanted because she threw such a fit when she didn't get her way. Boy, are we reaping the consequences of that now. (Oh, just an aside, if you are at the US Embassy in Moscow, there is a playroom downstairs just past the bathrooms. It was very crowded in the waiting room when we were there and we were there for about an hour.)
Overall, we are doing well. Dasha seems happy in her new home, she loves to dance and sing, and she loves baths! I'll try to update the blog as often as I can now that we're home, but needless to say there's not much free time anymore to get on the computer:0) (Oh, yeah, sorry there won't be any more pictures for a little while. When we got home, we found that the mother board in our computer had gone bad so we just had to get another computer today. So it might be a while before we get it set up and download our pics from the camera to the new computer. Am typing on a laptop that we were given right now, and don't have the right program to download the pics to the laptop.)

Back in Moscow

We are back in Moscow at the Marriot Renaissance, so much better (and closer to home)! Dasha had her medical exam in the hotel Thursday right after we checked in, then we went to have visa photos done, then to the Embassy to drop off paperwork and pay. Yesterday we went to have our visa interview and pick up her visa packet to give to immigration in the US when we land. Today we are being lazy in our pjs, having room service breakfast and might venture out for a walk and then maybe a trip to Red Square for pictures. Monday we'll drop off paperwork to the Russian Consulate and then Tuesday pick up her registration. Then Wednesday it's back HOME! Hurray!

Here she is!

Here she is, our beautiful baby girl! We picked her up Saturday morning and she has kept us on our toes since then! Can't wait to get her home!

Last visit

We had our last visit today at the orphanage. Dasha played outside in the snow. She loves to go down the slide and play on the seesaw with her Papa! She looks like a little penguin the way she walks all bundled up in her snowsuit. So cute! We get to pick her up on Saturday morning at 10:00am (so it will be 10:00pm Friday night at home when we go). I can't wait! I'll try to post some photos (of her adorable little face!) Saturday or Sunday. Only thirteen more days til we are home forever!

Court is finished

We had our court appointment on Tuesday and everything went well. There were a few surprises but everyone's prayers availed and we were granted permission to adopt Dasha. Yay! We are getting to visit her everyday except weekends and she seems to be growing more attached to us with each visit. We should be able to pick her up on Feb.8th or 9th. Though I'm not sure where we'll put her in our tiny Hotel Krasnoyarsk room with our two twin beds:0) I'll post some pics after we get her. Not sure about the rules on posting photos before the 10 day wait is up and don't want anything to go wrong at this point. Thanks for your prayers! Keep praying for our bonding process to continue to go well and for us to not miss home too much!

Moscow

We are in Moscow right now, we leave tomorrow night for Krasnoyarsk. We did our 8-doctor medicals last night. Strangely, we saw seven doctors, but there were 8 signatures and stamps. Hmm... They weren't too bad, but we were at the clinic for five hours! A lot of sitting around waiting. Imagine the amount of time you'd spend in waiting rooms if you had 8 doctor's appoinments in one day and I guess five hours is about right. We went to KFC on Tverskaya Street for dinner to celebrate finishing the dreaded medicals. Today we ventured out to find a McDonald's and found one a couple blocks away. We stopped at a Russian grocery store to get bottled water and some noodles to make for dinner. It's really snowing here and the wind makes the snow a little sharp when it hits your face. We'll try to update the blog again once we get to Krasnoyarsk. Can't wait to see Dasha on Monday! Yay!

We got the call!!!!

We finally got the call this afternoon that we have a court date. Hurray!!

We leave the U.S. on January 22nd, spend a couple days in Moscow getting our medical exams done, then travel on to Krasnoyarsk. We have court January 29th, then we should get to pick up Dasha on February 13th and travel to Moscow on Feb.14th. We arrive back home February 20th.

We have been busy tonight booking flights and filling out visa applications and trying to figure out what to pack (the temperature was -33 degrees today, yikes).

Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and start this new part of our lives!

Merry Christmas!

Yes, I know that we celebrated Christmas two weeks ago. But January 7th (which it is Jan.7 right now in Krasnoyarsk because of the 12 hour time difference) is Russian Orthodox Christmas, so today is Christmas in our baby's homeland. So Merry Christmas Dasha!

We are hoping to hear about a court date soon. Over the holiday break, we received an email that one of our documents had a mistake and needed to be redone immediately and sent directly to our facilitator in Krasnoyarsk. Sounds like good news to me, it means they are looking at our paperwork and need it to be in order. We checked with Fed-Ex and Krasnoyarsk is so far away that it is not even in their delivery area! We also checked with DHL and they could do it pretty fast but their only international shipping office is at the airport and would be over $100 to ship the document. Luckily, there is a woman we know from our Yahoo group who kindly agreed to take it with her this weekend and deliver it for us, since she is picking up her daughter this week. Thank you Lord for your perfect provision! Please keep this woman in your prayers as she brings her little girl home.

We are hoping for a court date the beginning of February (the 5th is my birthday, so that would be really cool!). If not, we will continue to rest in God's arms as He prepares our hearts to be Dasha's Mama and Papa. He has done such amazing things so far, and He will finish what He has started!

Praises

Praise the Lord! We received a donation this week for $150, which means we have officially raised the entire amount needed for the orphanage donation! Thank you to all of our friends and family who have helped out. (Now, we move on to getting together the amount needed for the 8-doctor medicals in Moscow.)

We are also thankful that our CPS letter finally arrived last week and should be on it's way to Russia now! This was the last document (for now at least) that we were waiting for.

Here's a photo of Dasha's amazing athletic ability. She's throwing the ball to me! Can't wait to show a pic of her cute little face (hopefully it won't be much longer!)

Court Dates (Not Ours)

Praise God that several families in Chelyabinsk (a particularly tough region), who have been waiting a very LONG time, have had successful court dates recently and will be bringing their children home soon. Praise God also for a family from our agency who received the first court date in Krasnoyarsk (our region), scheduled for Dec. 18th, and another family who received a court date in Tula, scheduled for Jan.15th. Please pray for these families as they prepare for court and to bring their babies home. I also thank God that He has provided $850 of the $1000 that we need for the orphanage donation.
Tomorrow (Dec.10th) is a Prayer Day devoted to praying for Russia families from our agency. Please pray for the children, families, judges and staff in Russia, and for our agency.
I pray that God would let us know when our court date will be, even if it is not until January or later. I think I could be more at peace during this Christmas season if I knew when I'd be able to see Dasha again.

Happy Birthday Dasha

Today our little girl is two years old. I pray that she has had a wonderful birthday with her nannies and that she is happy. I miss her terribly and wish I could be there with her today. I rest in the knowledge that, God-willing, this will be her last birthday without us as a family. Chris and I are going out tonight to celebrate with friends(one of whom incidentally has the same birthday as Dasha!).
Thank you to everyone who have been praying for our documents to arrive. We got our I-171H back in two days!! We are now just waiting on the CPS letter and then we're all done.
Keep praying!

The Last Few Documents (I hope...)

We got our court petition and police clearances on Tuesday and our homestudy update on Friday. Praise God! They are now on their way to the Secretary of the Commonwealth for apostilles. Now that we have the homestudy update, we have also filed for our I-171H extension. The last two documents we need are the new I-171H and the letter from CPS. Please pray for these to arrive as quickly as possible (the I-171H usually takes several weeks, I'm hoping for a miracle...to have them within a week or two). If we get all of our documents within the next week or two, we will probably have a court date in mid to late January.

Dasha's 2nd birthday is in less than two weeks (Dec.5). I wish we could be with her to celebrate. I wonder if the orphanage will recognize her birthday or if she won't even know that she is turning two years old.

Please pray for Dasha and her birthmother on her birthday. Also, please continue to pray for financial matters relating to the adoption and that God would continue to provide what we need to finish the adoption and for me to be able to take off a couple weeks when we get home from Russia (my job only allows 4 weeks of sick leave to be taken for an adoption, then it's unpaid leave...at this point we can only afford for me to take off while we are in Russia. Please pray that God would provide for more time for us to bond as a family before I have to return to work.)

The Latest News

Well, the latest news is that our region in Russia has decided to require the 8-doctor medical exam in Moscow. This means that we wasted our time and $ getting our medicals and psych evals done here, since we'll have to be examined by 8 different doctors now in Russia including a Russian psychiatrist (VERY EXPENSIVE!). It will also add a day or two to our trip. We had to have new bloodwork done to take the lab reports with us and a chest x-ray to test for TB so hopefully we won't have to have the bloodwork done in Russia.

We are still waiting for our homestudy update to be completed. We are also waiting for our police clearance letters, letters from Child Protective services, and our court petition. These are the last four documents we need before we can get a court date.

Thank you to our family and friends who have donated towards the orphanage donation fee, we have raised $700 of the $1000 that we needed for the donation. God is good! We are now trying to raise money for the last $300 and the cost of the medicals (about $1500) in Russia.

I had a wonderful adoption shower yesterday with my girlfriends! Chris was so excited to look at all of the toys and cute clothes when he got home from work. I can't wait for Dasha to come home so she can see how loved she already is not just by us by by all her "aunties".

Paperwork almost done

Well, I took yesterday afternoon off to go to our Psychiatrist Evaluation appointment and get our papers notarized. The appointment went okay, and the Dr. said he'd try to have our report done by Monday, so that's good. We had our medicals redone on Wednesday and Thursday and the Dr. said my blood pressure was a little high (hmm...I'm not under any stress or anything so I don't know why it would be high! Haha!). He messed up my forms, which I knew he would, so Chris took it back with him to his appointment and had it fixed. We are still waiting on my employment letter, our police clearances, our homestudy update, and new immigration approval (which I need the homestudy update to be able to apply). Maybe we'll have it done in time for a mid December court date, who knows?

On a happier note, Chris and I registered at Target for baby things. I kind of felt like an imposter though since I obviously wasn't pregnant. We put Dec. 25, 2007 as our arrival date, wishful thinking of course. The registry will be a good shopping list for us once we find out when we're traveling. We won't have to try to think so hard about what she'll need when we get her home.

I want to thank a couple of our friends, you know who you are, who have kindly donated $ towards the orphanage donation fee. We still have a long way to go, but your thoughtfulness and love for us is renewing my hope that God will provide what we need.

Here's another "non-identifying" photo for you to enjoy. She's checking out the toy cabinet. Oh, I miss her!!

Trip One News and Where We Are Now

I am so sorry it has taken me so long to update the blog since we received our referral! We left for Russia on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 22 and flew to Chicago, then to Frankfurt, Germany, then to Moscow, then finally arrived in Krasnoyarsk on Monday morning, Sept. 24. We had breakfast at the hotel and then changed into our clothes to go to the Ministry of Education (the officials that are in charge of adoptions). We were there about 20 minutes while the official, Galena, asked us questions about our occupations, why we wanted to adopt from Russia, etc. From there, we went back to the hotel to drop off the couple that we traveled with. Then we went to meet the orphanage director, and she asked the same questions and told us all about our daughter's medical history and what they knew of her background (which was not much). After that we drove to the orphanage and met with her doctor, and were able to ask her questions. After about 15 minutes with the doctor, they brought Dasha in to meet us. She is so adorable. We played ball, read books, played with dolls...she is very energetic and lively! She was calling Chris "Papa" on the very first day. We were able to stay with her for about three hours, then we went back to the hotel to sleep. We slept a few hours then got up for dinner at the Cafe at the hotel.
The next day, we went to have some papers notarized at the notary's office, then off to the orphanage for another visit of about three hours. Leaving that afternoon was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. We had dinner that night at a russian restaurant with Yelena (our facilitator) and Serge(our driver).
The next morning we left for the airport around 4:00am, and arrived in Moscow around lunchtime. We toured Red Square and had dinner with our guide, Ana, at TGIFridays. Then back to the hotel to sleep a couple hours before leaving for the airport at 2:00am.
We left Moscow and flew to Munich, Germany, then to Chicago, and then we got home to Richmond at 9:30 Thursday (Sept.27) night.
What a whirlwind of a trip! We're not allowed to share photos of her face until after the adoption is final so here is a picture of her I can share :0)

We are now doing paperwork that is required to get a courtdate (about 20-30 documents), having an evaluation by a psychiatrist, having our medical exams redone again, and having our homestudy updated again. Once that's all completed, we send it in and the judge assigns a courtdate for at least thirty days after receiving all the paperwork. So we're probably at least looking at December, maybe late January if not in December (since Russia shuts down for two weeks for Christmas in early January).

Please pray that we would get all of our documents in very quickly, that they would be completed correctly, and that we would have a court date before Christmas. Please also pray that we would be able to come up with an extra $1000 dollars that they have just added to our fees as an orphanage donation for our 2nd trip that was not previously required. (We took some donations on the first trip, but these do not count towards the $1000 that they are requiring.) We are already way over the amount that we had originally thought we'd need and since it has to be cash, I don't know where this is going to come from. Pray that God would continue to provide as He has been. Thanks!