5/26/10-5/27/10: So last time I left us sleeping off jetlag at the hotel. I'm really glad we were able to get there without adding an extra night in Moscow but I don't think I've ever been that exhausted in my life, at least up to that point. Add to the almost 2 days worth of travel that we were now 11 time zones ahead of home as we were a little confused as to the current time for almost the first two weeks.
Anyway, our first full day in region was actually quite busy and I forgot to add last time that we were joined in region by another adoptive parent from our agency that shared the same court date as ours so we did all of our traveling and baby visits together from here on. It was nice to have company. Our morning was spent completing the 8 doctor medical panel required by our judge before court. It was interesting, the Russian medical system is a bit different than the system here at home. Where we had only had to see one doctor at home to do the required medical for our home study, here we had to go to the hospital and see 8 different specialists who either asked questions, did medical tests, or in one case drew blood for testing. We spent the morning going from exam room to exam room in the hospital and were just about done by lunchtime.
Since we weren't due to visit the children until later in the afternoon our translator took us out to do a little souvenir and grocery shopping and out to the fort for sightseeing. Erich and I had been to the fort before but it was a rainy day so we stayed long enough to get a couple quick pics and then back to the dry car. This time it was a beautiful sunny day so we took our time walking around and got some nice pictures to show Joshua later.
And these last few are of the cathedral, city, and mill as seen from the fort. It sits on top of a pretty big hill so the view is quite nice on a good day. The translator told us the mill was for some type of metal, probably steel or aluminum but she wasn't sure.
Finally it was time to head to the orphanage and see our children. We were like kids waiting for Christmas, we knew it was coming but we just wanted the time to come already! The other things we did that day were nice (not counting the hospital visit, that was just necessary) but this was the main event. We tried very hard to patiently wait until we could get into the social worker's office to get our blue booties and then to be led up to the playroom where we would have our visit but I don't remember how successful we were. In fact once the kids were brought to us I don't think either family took a single picture. My camera dates all mine from the second visit on. I don't remember much about that first visit except that we were very excited to see Joshua and happy to see that he'd grown and was walking better than our last visit in December. Oh, and that we remembered the hard way that the orphanage starts potty training early and doesn't use diapers anymore after a certain age unless the adoptive parents bring them. Guess what we bought before the next visit.
Our second day in region was slightly less exciting. We walked around and explored on our own for part of the day and goto to visit the children again. This time I took a few pictures.
This was the last time we got to see him before our court session. It was hard to leave him not knowing for sure what would happen in court but we gave him an extra hug and hoped everything would go well and that we'd really be Mama and Papa the next time we saw him.
Originally I was going to talk about court today too but it's getting to be a long post and a certain little boy is very ready for his lunch so I'll leave it here for now and get to the court session next time.
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