Following our Hearts: Entries from Final Days in Russia

Well, Here is the recap of our time from Astrakhan until we got home. If you are not into reading scroll to the end for pictures!
October 1st:
We were to leave around 5 pm that night to make our 7pm flight to Moscow and we had nothing planned that day. Needless to say it was hard to keep a toddler occupied for several hours while trying to pack. It got to the point where I packed everything up an just kept taking him outside for little walks. It is always interesting how I think I stick out so much as an America but how Russians will come up to me and start asking me something, in Russian, I just kindly smile and so “No Russki”. However, I did meet someone I never thought I would ever meet in Russia – A Jehovah Witness! As I am walking the short little block in front of our hotel, a lady comes up to me and asks me a something – I say “No Russki” and she then proceeds to look for something in her purse. She pulls out a book and looks up something in an index and then gives it to me to read. After reading the first paragraph(in english) I knew she was a Jehovah's Witness and kindly said “Christian”, and “Jesus” and tried to walk away, she kept talking so I kindly looked and her and said “Spaseeba”? which is Russian for Thank you. Who in a million years would have ever thought that encounter would have happened?
Well, after a very long morning, it was wonderful when our translators finally came and we actually got to see his passport. We were not sure if we would get the paperwork because they only had two days to process it instead of the normal 7 but we had everything and were ready to go! It was a sight to see myself and Kyley and Greg taking all our stuff out the hotel to the car (the thing with this small hotel is that there were not elevators and it was a flight of stairs just to get to the hotel lobby – so carrying 40lb+ bags down the stairs was not easy. Thankfully we had the translators to help with the kids while we carried the luggage).
Once we made it to the airport, things went fairly smooth and we said our good-byes( so hard to say good bye when you know you probably will never get to meet again). We made it to the waiting area which was a big deal for me. Ever since our first trip home, I had dreamed about what it would be like to sit in that waiting room with our new little one and it was finally here! How wonderful! One of the last things I remember in Astrakhan was having the airport doors open to get on the bus to the plane and being hit be a hord of mosquitoes – In October!
Well the flight to Moscow was pretty good we had a bulk head seat so M had room to get up and down. No problems with the ears but did not like the seat belt at all. I had to bribe him with food once I got the belt back on for landing. And the Kids meal on the plane – well it was more of a snack then a meal and had only sugary foods – just what we needed at 8pm at night.
At the airport it was a bit of a wait for the luggage and then when we got outside it was raining – no surprise for Moscow but I am pretty sure M had not been in the rain before so it was interesting to watch him try to figure out what happened.
Next was filling out paperwork in the car on the way to the hotel so they could get everything to the embassy in time the next morning. We had to finish it up in the hotel room and got everything completed after midnight.
Here is where the worst thing since court happened. As we were filling out paperwork we realized that the I 600 form that I had had Russ sign and notarize in the States was not the I600 but the I600A! She was not too concerned at that point but I thought I would die – if I had to stay in Moscow any longer! Needless to say I did not get much sleep that night.

October 2nd:
The next morning we went to the doctors and I was anxiously waiting for our translator to let me know if the form would be ok. She got a call and said that everything should be fine so I was able to take a deep breath! There were three families at the doctors and he was running very late( found out later he was stuck in an elevator). Little M checked out fine but I had the doctor look at his thumb because by now he had a blister on the thumb that he sucked. He cut off the dead skin and bandaged it up – amazingly enough he would still try to suck that thumb, especially when he slept. I have to jump ahead and tell you that after the doctor's bandage needed to come off, I had placed a bandaid on it to let it heal. It worked great until he went to sleep. In his sleep he would still suck on that one thumb and when I went to check on him before I went to bed, the bandaid was GONE! An guess where it was – His mouth! He had sucked off his bandaid! From then on the bandaid was only on during waking hours.

Now back to the doctor visit – once the last family was done, they rushed us all out to the car(in fact the last family did not even have a chance to fully dress their child). They needed to get the medical reports to the embassy before a certain time or we would not get an appointment for the next day and then would have to wait until Monday. Everything seemed to work out ok and we were on the way to the hotel, until the doors opened and we were back at the embassy. At this point, I was told that the form I was worried about eariler would not work! The good news is that I just have to fax a form to Russ, get him to sign and notarized it and fax it back to the embassy. No problem, except that it needed to be at the embassy by 5 pm Moscow time and at the time it was about 3am back home and he had until 9am back home to get the letter faxed. So the afternoon was a loooong one as I had to call Russ at 4am, have him pack up the kids and travel to the local FEDEX store at 5am. He had contacted a 24 hour notary to meet him there. Amazingly everything all worked out - purely by the grace of God - but the stress level those few hours were through the roof.

The remaining highlights of Moscow:
*Taking a $60 round trip taxi ride to the hotel where Kyley and Greg were staying so that I could have some friendly conversation after a horribly stressful day.
*Little M still was not interested in naps
*Sleeping went pretty good at night – I would just put him in the crib and lay in bed beside him with the lights off – within 10 minutes he would be out an sleep through the night
*The embassy visit was great – it went smoothly and pretty quick. It was so nice to see the American flag and the lady at the window was American – Hearing English with no Russian accent was really great. Even though we were still in Russia – I still felt like I was on American soil – Oh how I missed it.
*The last afternoon, I wanted to take him to Red Square, Our hotel had a shuttle that took us close. So we walked down Tevrskaya Street(Not an easy trot with a stroller) and spent a little time looking at my favorite site in all of Russia(besides little M) St. Basil's Cathedral. There were other people on the shuttle that I ran into at Red's Square and they took pictures of us together. I also tried to get one of Little M and St. Basil's but he was more interested in the cars driving by – but I finally got one that is pretty good.
*Eating for Little M went pretty well, as long as there was food, he ate it. However, ordering cold milk to drink did not go over with him – they must have just had it at room temperature on the orphanage. He did however really like the ice cream that I got for him at the very expensive Italian restaurant.
*We tried McDonald's and he did like the chicken nuggets. He wanted to try my coke, so I let him, and the face he made was horrible – so no more pop for him!
*Did well at the airport. Got there in plenty of time, went through luggage check pretty well but then it took a really long time to get our tickets because we had changed them and did not have a seat assigned – but we ended up in a bulk head seat so it was worth it. Passport control however was one more nightmare on this trip. The lone was long but that was normal and little M slept awile in the stroller. Now for those of you who have adopted before, you are told many many times to make sure that your child's Russian passport has their new name in english spelled correctly – no problem, I had check it over and over again. However, when we got to passport control and I gave them his passport, the new birth certificate and the adoption certificate. It was then that the nice lady on the other side of the window(who did not speak english) pointed out to me that the passport had his name spelled wrong - in Russian! How was I to know that! I must have grown as pale as a ghost because the lady was so kind and immediately started saying Nyet, Nyet and handing all the papers back to me. She was trying to tell me it was ok and she let me through. Thankfully this was the last heart stopping event of the trip!

The Trip Home
Plane ride went really very well for a two year old. I could keep him confined to the seat area and did manage to get him to sleep for about 1.5 hours on the plane but I had to hold him for most of that. Thankfully Kyley and Greg were on the same plane so potty breaks for me were a little easier.
I was concerned about making my connection in Atlanta especially when US passport control said that he said there was no way I would make the connection. But then again – I had God on my side. We had to wait awhile in immigration( there were only two adoption families) and once we got to the immigration person, he was really nice. At that point I really wanted to make my connection but I was in the US and if I had to stay one more night away from home – I was just happy to be back in the US. I even felt like breaking out in the song ( God bless the USA). So I said my good byes to Kyley and Greg and off we went to catch our flight. We had time to stop by to get an I love Atlanta bear and some chicken fingers for the flight. We got to the gate – called home to tell them we made it and then it was time to bored – I wished I could have talked to the passport control person and told Him I made it!
The plane ride to Columbus went smoothly and he slept for most of it. I had him in the stroller walking through the airport but got him out before we turned the corner to greet our wonderful family. It was so wonderful to put my arms around them! He did well in the car and it was so great to walk in our home with him. The dog was scary for him but as long as Mama was holding him he was fine.