Hello from Angelina

Hi new friends and family. Mommy is super tired, so I thought that I'd give this blogging thing a try.

Things here in Moscow are going good. My new mama and papa seem to be nice. I like papa the best, he has these cool glasses and a scratchy face. He can also lift me up and schoop me down in all sorts of ways. Here are a few pictures of him and I blowing kisses.



Mama is ok, I guess. She gives me good food, and feeds it to me herself. Doesn't she know that I was already feeding myself at the orphanage? She just mutters on about some "a" word I hear a lot...um...attachment, that's it. Who knows...I just open up and enjoy the new yummy foods. She does let me use the sippy cup (I really love that thing!) and eat toast on my own.


I really do like playing with these two people, but sometimes I like to see how much I can get away with. When I do this, I usually hear "nyet", which makes me cry and throw things. But mama and papa are there to hug me and make me feel better.

I passed the American Embassy doctor's exam today. The nice doctor came really early, 6:30 am! Mama had to wake me up! He said that I was healthy, he picked me up and called me a "tank"! What does that mean?! Tomorrow mama and papa have to take me to the Embassy and have an interview, then on Saturday, they say we can go home.

Mama and Papa took me for a walk this morning. I rode in the stroller, then walked for a little bit, then wanted to be carried. I chased a pigeon, I loved that! We took a break at Starbucks. Mama said that the coffee is overpriced, especially in Moscow, but it feels like home.

Paka Paka from Angelina!

Pictures...Finally!

Introducing Angelina Carmella

She does, indeed, cry!

Ken, Angelina and I had another great day in Bryansk. First, she slept like a log all night long. We put her to bed at 8:00, and she woke up at 7:00! I could not believe it! I woke up at 4:30, because I wanted to be awake when Angelina got up, and Ken was awake various hours through the night making sure she was ok, and breathing normally. Nervous parents, much?!

Our morning was good, we played in the hotel room and went for another stroller ride around town. Angelina then took a three hour nap! (so did mommy) Olga picked us up around 4:00, we had to get some photos done for Angelina's visa application. We did that, then we took her to the nice Italian restaurant in town. After dinner, we had another successful bath time, and another great and easy falling asleep!

I was commenting to Ken yesterday that we have never seen or heard Angelina cry. We know that she is a very happy-go-lucky baby. Still, I was uneasy about this. I was thinking that her lack of crying was an effect of living in orphanage care. Today, however, I took out this cute ladybug brush, I wanted to make what little hair she does have cute for her visa picture. Well, when I was done, she took a death grip on the brush. I took the brush from Angelina to put her coat on, and on came the tears!!! I was so happy! I quickly gave back the brush and all was right with the world once again.

Tomorrow morning, we are driving back to Moscow with Olga and her husband. I am so excited that she offered to drive us instead of having to wake up at midnight tonight to get the train. We pick up Angelina's paperwork at 9:00, then drive the 4 hours to the city and our apartment! I can't wait to get back to an apartment with a full kitchen, wi-fi, and lots of extra space. (A hotel rug can get boring even for a toddler!)

Got Her!

It's official, Ken and I are new parents!

We arrived in Bryansk around midnight last night, and because Olga had a lot of paperwork to process and because she wanted to let us rest, our plan was to head to the Karachev Baby Home around noon.

So, we left the hotel, but had to make a few stops to the people who process visas and passports. We finally made it to the baby home around 1:30, just to find that Angelina was sleeping, and not ready! This was ok though, as we had to complete some more paperwork in the town of Karachev, so off we went to get some more signatures, etc... Finally, we went back to the orphanage, we were brought into Angelina's eating room. We saw her and the other babies in her group sitting around 4 tables all eating, feeding themselves with tablespoons that are far too big for me even...Angelina had a face full of yogurt! It was very cute. When she was done eating, she was brought into us. She ran right to me and gave me a big hug, and wanted to dance! We were pressed for time, so the orphanage doctor helped me change her and just like that, Ken and I were parents!

Angelina seemed to enjoy the 40 minute car ride, she lauged and smiled all the way home. We discovered that she blows kisses very well, and we did that for a while in the backseat. Around 5:30, we finally got back to Bryansk. Ken, Angelina and I had some fun play time in our hotel room. We feed her some dinner, which she ate like a champ! After every few bites, she would open her mouth and say "ahhhh" to show us she was all done and ready for more. She also mastered a sippy cup today. She is a fast learner!

After dinner, Ken and I took Angelina on her first stroller ride. We think that she liked it, she held on tight to a toy in one hand, and my finger in the other hand while Ken pushed the stroller. When we got back, I wanted to give Angelina a bath, but was worried after reading so many other's experiences with the first bath. Angelina loved her bath! She had some squeezy bath toys that she played with and let me clean her all up! It was such a joy. It took Ken and I about 15 minutes of rubbing her back before she was out for the night. Now, she is in her make-shift crib put together by two arm chairs and lots of sheets for padding, with two fingers in her mouth.

Adorable.

Ken and I could not have asked for a better first day with our daughter! She is just perfect, and we love her so very much! We feel so blessed to have been given the privilege to raise Angelina, and we are on cloud nine tonight!

My computer is dead, I'm not sure how this has happened, but it won't even turn on. Unfortunately, the computers at the Bryansk, Russia post office (where I am currently sitting) do not have camera-to-computer capabilities. So, no pictures. You will have to wait for Wednesday when we get back to Moscow.

This Is It...

Well, we leave tomorrow for our 3rd, last, and most important trip to Bryansk, Russia.

Its hard to imagine that Ken and I will leave this country familiar with our life and its routine, only to return as completely changed people. After 24 long months of consecutive "no's" to our dream of parenthood, on Monday, we will finally hear "yes". Nothing could make us more overjoyed.

So, we leave our house in the most pristine condition. Angelina's room is set and ready to go. Our cabinets are packed with sippy cups, mini plates, and toddler silver wear. We have fun toys scattered around the house. Car seats and safety gates in place. I do know as well as anyone that the peacefulness of the house will be fast outlived once we arrive home, but I welcome the chaos that will soon be upon us!


Stay tuned for gotcha day...

A Super Surprise

Ken and I were treated to another wonderful baby shower for Angelina yesterday. Last Thursday, I was called by one of the owners of Ken's company saying that Ken is getting an award, and they wanted me to be there when he received it. They told me it was a surprise for him and not to say anything. That was very very hard for me, but I kept it secret. So, when I arrived at Ken's office yesterday afternoon, we both walked into the conference room that was transformed into a wonderful baby shower.

We received many great gifts! Included is this great sun cabana for the beach or camping. Also, we got this very cute ride-on zebra. It spins, bounces, and makes lots of loud music! We got bath and safety products, and these super toddler crayons.

Ken and I are just so thankful for all of the support that we have received over the past year from both our families and our places of work. We have been blown away with the interest people have had with our adoption and all of the kind words of inspiration. This shower was just another example of people going above and beyond for us and Angelina, and words can't express how thankful we are!

A Great Battle

A great war has commenced in our home.

It started innocently enough by Ken and I wanting to make our house safe for Angelina. I walked around the house putting outlet covers over all visible outlets. Ken worked on putting safety latches on the bathroom and kitchen cabinets. This is where the battles have begun. Now both being college graduates and educated people, you would think that we could live easily with child-safe cabinets, but this is certainly not the case. One of us will go to open a cabinet and will forget there is a lock on it, this is when the other one of us will hear the resistance of the door followed by a frustrated expletive.

Currently, the tally stands at:
Safety latches - 2,395
Adrian & Ken - 0

11 Days Until Gotcha Day!

Ken and I got home Tuesday night, and had an uneventful trip, thankfully. Jet lag is wearing off, and we have started to regroup and reorganize for our third and last trip to Bryansk!

We leave a week from Saturday, and we booked everything for this third trip when we did our second trip, so we are under no pressure to do anything besides pack! Today, I'm going to start picking out clothes for Angelina. I planned on looking at the tag on her clothes when we saw her on Monday to get an idea of what sizes we should be bringing, but her outfit did not have a size. Great. Olga and I both think that she is wearing 24-month clothes, though. We will go with it! Also, while we were visiting with her, I took off her shoe and traced it so that we have an idea of her shoe size. We need to get her some shoes! We also need to shop for her food, and maybe some easily-packable toys. Other than that, we are pretty well stocked.

We had a wonderful second trip to Russia. Aside from the stressful court hearing, we kept it pretty low-key, but still saw amazing things. We know that in 11 days, we will take Angelina in our arms forever, but it is not something that we really can believe yet. This adoption process for Ken and I has seemed too good to be true, and it will have the best happily-ever-after in 11 days, and we just can't wait. Now, on the flip side, we also know that for Angelina, this is going to be a time of great confusion and loss, and I just hope that we can make her feel as loved and cared for as she needs to be.

The Verdict is In

We had a very exciting day here in Bryansk. We left Moscow by train and arrived here around 1:00am. Neither of us slept on the train, we were far too excited about the day ahead! We checked into our hotel room, and met Olga at 7:30 to go to Karachev to visit Angelina.

Angelina is just as wonderful and happy as we remember her, maybe a bit bigger! We danced, played, and she even followed the directive from the orphanage care giver to give me a kiss! She babbled a lot more than last time, and she seems to be much sturdier on her feet. We only got to see Angelina for about an hour before we had to leave to get to court on time.

Olga prepared us for court on Thursday by telling us that there will be a different judge hearing our case, and that she is very strict. This put us on edge for the whole weekend. Then, on Sunday, Olga told us the news about a Russian-adopted child’s death in the USA over the past few days. She said that this may give us some trouble in court as well. So, I was pretty nervous and worried about our hearing.

So, our hearing lasted 2 hours, in a hot, stuffy room with no air conditioning. I looked up at Ken once and he had beads of sweat running from his forehead. The judge questioned us for about an hour, some simple questions, like about our employment and housing situations. Then, some tougher questions: She asked us about our feelings towards the latest death of a Russian-adopted child. We were asked about our motivations for adopting and why from Russia. She also asked us how we plan to care for our child, and if our families approved of this adoption. She asked us to describe our meetings with Angelina, and what our feelings were towards her. This is when I proceeded to cry, Ken…just sweated. She also asked Ken if he was upset that we were not referred a boy, and then said to him, "maybe next time."

The judge grilled me on how name changes work, and how I got my married name on all of my documents. She thoroughly went through our and Angelina’s paperwork. There were representatives from the orphanage present. They needed to testify to the judge that Angelina was available for adoption and that she was not approached by any Russian couples first. They also were there to support us in our desire to adopt her.

So, after two long hours of court, we are proud to say that the judge approved our petition, and we are officially the parents of Angelina! We are going to celebrate at the nice Italian restaurant in town!

This will be our last post from Russia. Tonight, we hit the midnight train to Moscow, then our flight takes off at 12:30! We can’t wait to come home and get ready for GOTCHA DAY!

Summer in the City

I was excited to head north to Moscow to get out of the New England heat and humidity. I was thinking wrong, though. It was a very hot day outside in Moscow today, just like a typical New Hampshire July afternoon. Ken and I did our best to stay cool, but in a city of no air conditioners, it was tough!

We went back to Old Arbat Street today. We ate at a place called my-my's (pronounced moo-moo's). It is cafeteria-style Russian cuisine, with a cow motif running throughout. It was cute and the food was good and cheap, so we were happy to eat there. I also did have my Starbuck's iced coffee...it was delicious, a little taste of home!

Here is a picture of me posing with the cow and my Starbucks outside of my-my's. Ken felt too ridiculous to pose with the cow, so I took one for the team!

Olga is picking us up at 5:30 today, in about 2 hours. From there the three of us will travel by train to Bryansk. We will be checking into our hotel around 1:00 am, then waking up early to go visit Angelina before our court hearing. Our next post will have the result of court! I can't wait to share the news!

A Great Day Outside

I must say that even though our apartment building is a bit on the sketchy side, its location is wonderful! We have spent most of the day today exploring outside, and got to see some great sights! We first walked down Novy (new) Arbat Street. This street is lined with restaurants, shops, and casinos. Ken and I enjoyed walking it, as it had many bright lights and was very entertaining.

About 1.5 - 2 miles down Novy Arbat Street is Red Square. We were quite impressed that our apartment is so close to Red Square! There were looooong lines to actually get into the part where you can see St. Basil's close up, but since we've already been there, we were happy just to walk and sit around the gardens surrounding the square. We spent a lot of time people watching, and trying to pick out the Americans who have just adopted. We saw at least one couple.

We left Red Square and went back up Novy Arbat to eat at TGIFriday's! Yep, this was our first meal in Russia last trip, so we were excited to go back there and have a familiar lunch. It was great! After lunch, we went to Old Arbat Street, a street that runs parallel to Novy Arbat. Old Arbat Street is a long pedestrian street aligned with many shops and restaurants. It's very touristy, and very busy, but it was nice to be a part of. Ken could not talk me into buying a black q-tip hat, which I've been saying that I wanted. However, we did buy an artisan-made apron for Angelina. We also had some yummy ice cream, and I've spotted two starbucks on Old Arbat, so I think I'll help myself to a coffee tomorrow morning!

So, it was a good Saturday here in Moscow, we are starting to get excited as the day after tomorrow, we will get to see our daughter!

Here are some pictures of our day:

Adrian in a flower garden outside of the Kremlin.

The changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown.

Ken posing with a lion.

A beautiful gold-domed church.

A far-away view of St. Basils.

Giant clowns on Old Arbat Street.

Angelina's apron

8 Medical Doctors???

We have successfully made it through our 8-doctor specialist medical exam today! What an experience this was. First of all, the traffic in Moscow is awful, I'd say it takes at least an hour to get anywhere, that's how long it took us to get to the clinic. Since its summer, all adoption medical appointments are made for Friday, so we saw lots of other couples there for the same reason we were. We met many couples from North Carolina, none from New England.

So, Ken and I were brought into a room where 4 women doctors were there waiting for us. They asked us a few questions, had us take off our shirts, shoes, and socks. They listened to our breathing, took our blood pressure and checked our reflexes. 3 of the 4 women were nice and not scary. There was one, however, who reminded me of "The Trunchbull" from the movie Matilda! She was something! To make it worse, she was the one with the rubber mallet checking reflexes...I think that I'll have nightmares of her and her mallet in nights to come! Anyway, this part of the exam lasted 10 minutes. Then, both Ken and I had to answer some questions by a psychologist. She was nice. That took about 10 minutes each. Then, we were done. So, it took about a half hour to complete the exams, then we waited for about an hour and a half to get our paperwork with 8 doctor's signatures and stamps of approval....yep, I said 8, even though only 5 examined us! But, who are we to ask questions?!

So, we are back at our apartment, enjoyed a nice meal of mac & cheese that we brought from home, and now we are planning on relaxing for a while. I'm not sure if we have recovered fully from jet lag yet.

Here are some pictures from our apartment:

Our Living Room

Bedroom

Ken in the kitchen cooking mac & yack after many minutes of trying to figure out how to use the stove!

The view from our kitchen. When I first saw this yesterday, I immediately thought of the Atari game Frogger. Can't you just see the little frog trying to cross this road?!

We Made it to Moscow!

Well, we made it! Its been quite a long journey across the world, but we are excited to finally be in our apartment!

My parents brought us to Logan Airport, after of course, stopping for some food on the North End! Our plane was supposed to leave Boston at 7:50, but there was a malfunction with one of the doors, so we were a half hour late taking off. Not a problem, our plane was great with indivudual movie screens on the back of each seat, so that was nice! We landed in Munich with plenty of time to spare to make our connecting flight even though we were late landing. However, our flight from Munich to Moscow was delayed, too! Argh! We were bussed to the plane at the normal take off time, but then we waited and waited and waited. About after 35 minutes, another bus pulled up with a bunch of Russian musicians. They came on the plane, and it took them about another half hour to get their instruments strapped down and secure...what a sight!

But, we got to Moscow with no problem and so did our luggage! Olga, our facilitator was there waiting for us, she was a welcomed sight! She and our driver took us to the apartment that we are staying in for the weekend. Our apartment is nice and clean, so this is good. The building that we are in is, well, weathered.

Our plan for tonight is to chill out and go to bed early. We are meeting Olga in the morning to get our medicals done, she says this should take about 2 hours...waiting for the doctors, and the appointments themselves. After that, we are free to run about the city of Moscow until Sunday night!

Getting Ready To Do This All Again...

We are in the final countdown before leaving for trip #2! Ken and I got our passports with our visas today, and we have spent tonight packing and getting last minute paperwork together!

I can't believe that just in a few days we will be seeing our sweet daughter again! Its certainly worth 100 trips around the world! We are very lucky to have such supporting family and friends who are all excited to hear about the court's decision, hopefully, we will be flying home next Tuesday as new parents!

Our next post will be from Moscow!!

The Calm Before The Storm

We have had a pretty relaxing 4th of July weekend, Ken and I are enjoying laying low and relaxing now as we know we won't have so much free time soon enough!

We have our flights for both trips booked, and we have our accommodations set for Moscow for both trips! We are excited as instead of a hotel room, we rented an apartment to stay at while we are there. We will be using the same apartment for both trips, so we can scope it out next weekend and be extra prepared for it when we go back with Angelina. It will be nice to have a kitchen and living area separate from our bedroom. The extra space will be great especially since we need to spend 3 extra days in Moscow that we were not planning for. Our apartment has free Internet access too, so there should be plenty of blog posts!

Our passports are in Manhattan getting visa's glued into them, I expect to receive them by Tuesday the latest. And, of course, we have ordered our flat, clean, crisp, non-written on new bills for use while in Russia.

Other than this, we went shopping today and got our toiletries re-stocked, we also are going to be getting some simple - easy to pack food like oatmeal and microwave popcorn for our apartment. Oh, we got a new outlet power converter since I had an incident with our first one and my hair dryer in May. I should have listened to my always-right husband and just bought a Russian hair dryer while we were on our first trip, as I can't find any adapter that can run a hair dryer here...

So with all of that being said, we are leaving in 4 days and I think that we are ready! If we could only fast forward to August 2nd.

Travel Details

We've been working on getting our visas in order and our plane reservations booked. Needless to say, its been a busy day completing paperwork. Ken has been dealing with the reservations, and I am working on getting the one document that needed to be updated fixed.
Many people have been asking us if we are saying in Russia for the whole month of July, so I thought I'd break down our situation. Our court date is July 14th, a Monday, but he have a physical scheduled on the Friday before which is why we need to leave so early. After the court date, there is a mandatory 10 business day waiting period. We could stay in Russia, and we probably would if it were cheaper, and if we were allowed to visit Angelina...but neither situation is plausible. So, we have opted to come home and wait out our time here, where people speak English, and in the comfort of our own home.

After the 10 business day waiting period, we will fly back to Russia to pick up Angelina. We need to spend a week there, 3 days in Bryansk, 2 days in Moscow, to complete American embassy paperwork and such. Then, we will fly home with our daughter, and she will be an American citizen once we land in Boston!

So our travel schedule looks like this:

Trip 2

Leave Wednesday, July 9th.

Return Tuesday, July 15th.

Trip 3

Leave Saturday, July 26th.

Return Saturday, August 2nd.

We Got Our Court Date!!!!

We just got "the call"!!!

Our court date is on July 14th.
Gotcha day is on July 28th.
Home forever on August 2nd!

We are so overjoyed and very overwhelmed...we leave for Russia next Wednesday!