(Maureen's Post)
I awoke this morning with a stomach full of butterflies, knowing how significant today would be. Irrational thoughts began to cross my mind such as wondering if we were doing the right thing, coming all the way over here to build our family. Of course, excitement in anticipation of this day and fatigue from jetlag were probably playing into that.
Our day started out with breakfast at our hotel - even more selection than at the hotel in Almaty yesterday. I think I've eaten more servings of fruit in the past 2 days than I have in the past 2 weeks! In addition to getting meat and cheese similar to what I had yesterday, I also had some blini (thin Russian pancakes) with jam, yogurt, a fruit salad of chopped pineapple, bananas, topped with plain yogurt and chopped kiwi, a meatball-type thing made of ground meat (not sure what kind), onions, and rice (I thought this was actually quite good), strawberry yogurt, a hard-boiled egg, and a cup of tea. We sat with the Mechems at breakfast and the Kurtz's came down soon after we started. Sean also ate some of the same things I did, but also tried some of the oatmeal with some raisins. The oats are more like whole oats and had a little bit of that crunchy texture - fiber is good for you, Da? Anyway, we quickly scrambled up to our room afterwards to finally place a couple of quick phone calls home to touch base. We had unsuccessfully been trying to do this since yesterday. Sean even ended up dialing a number to someone in another foreign country by accident, so it will be interesting to see what our phone bill will be like once we check out. It was good to talk with our moms, but conversations were unfortunately cut short as we were expected to be downstairs to meet our interpreter in a matter of minutes. So, we ran down the stairs and met with our group and Inna to get in Oleg's minivan to go to the Children's Hospital.
I awoke this morning with a stomach full of butterflies, knowing how significant today would be. Irrational thoughts began to cross my mind such as wondering if we were doing the right thing, coming all the way over here to build our family. Of course, excitement in anticipation of this day and fatigue from jetlag were probably playing into that.
Our day started out with breakfast at our hotel - even more selection than at the hotel in Almaty yesterday. I think I've eaten more servings of fruit in the past 2 days than I have in the past 2 weeks! In addition to getting meat and cheese similar to what I had yesterday, I also had some blini (thin Russian pancakes) with jam, yogurt, a fruit salad of chopped pineapple, bananas, topped with plain yogurt and chopped kiwi, a meatball-type thing made of ground meat (not sure what kind), onions, and rice (I thought this was actually quite good), strawberry yogurt, a hard-boiled egg, and a cup of tea. We sat with the Mechems at breakfast and the Kurtz's came down soon after we started. Sean also ate some of the same things I did, but also tried some of the oatmeal with some raisins. The oats are more like whole oats and had a little bit of that crunchy texture - fiber is good for you, Da? Anyway, we quickly scrambled up to our room afterwards to finally place a couple of quick phone calls home to touch base. We had unsuccessfully been trying to do this since yesterday. Sean even ended up dialing a number to someone in another foreign country by accident, so it will be interesting to see what our phone bill will be like once we check out. It was good to talk with our moms, but conversations were unfortunately cut short as we were expected to be downstairs to meet our interpreter in a matter of minutes. So, we ran down the stairs and met with our group and Inna to get in Oleg's minivan to go to the Children's Hospital.
At one point during the selection process at the hospital we were left alone with James for about 15 minutes to give us a chance to know each other and for us to decide if we wanted to continue visitation with this child. Inna also informed us that if so, we would get to have 2-hour visitation today, which was a great surprise, as we thought we may have to wait until tomorrow afternoon to start our longer visits with him. I thought I would have cried when I first saw him, but I didn't. I was just so happy to finally hold him, and Sean and I both had such huge smiles on our faces that would not go away. We mostly spent those first 15 minutes holding him and talking to him and staring at him in awe. He had some upper and lower respiratory congestion as his breathing was a little labored, and he would sometimes "whistle" through his nose when he exhaled because of all his boogers. Gonna have to bring some saline nasal drops and a bulb aspirator tomorrow. He was a little bit warm, but so were we, as the rooms in the Children's Hospital are kept very warm. They believe being cold is bad for the babies. He didn't seem feverish, though. We think maybe he had been temporarily placed in this room in isolation so that he would not spread the virus to the other children. When everyone returned back into the room they were accompanied by Dr. Natalya, our regional coordinator who I also believe delivered James when he was born at the Maternity Hospital. We were asked what we thought of him and I answered, "he's wonderful!"
I asked about his congestion and we were told that he seems to catch colds easily. We stated that we wished to select James and pursue his adoption. We signed some paperwork and were told starting tomorrow to bring 8 diapers a day for him, an outfit for him to wear, and toys for him to play with. Then we were left alone with him again for our 2-hour visitation. At first, I thought that maybe James wouldn't take to Sean right away, since he's not really ever seen a man before; all his caregivers in his life have been women. After a little while, he was giving Sean huge, toothless smiles as Sean was acting goofy (anybody surprised by this?) playing some kind of duck-quacking game with him. Sean is obviously very smitten with James and just kept kissing his little head. He is such the proud Daddy! James was pretty drooly today, so we're suspecting that his first tooth may be coming soon. The outfit he was wearing was clearly too small for him. It was a 3-month sized footed sleeper with the sleeves almost halfway up his arms and his legs scrunched up since the outfit legs were too short. He couldn't quite kick his legs like he wanted to. He's definitely needing 6-month+ clothes now, so we'll be bringing him a new outfit tomorrow.
One of his caregivers came in during our visit and handed me a bottle to feed him. The formula was very warm, probably much warmer than I would like, but when in Rome... Again, they believe exposing babies to anything cold, including formula, is bad for them. So, it's not uncommon for the babies to be seriously bundled up outside, even in milder temperatures. The nipple on the glass bottle is really fast flow; he sucked the formula down in no time, flat! I burped him afterwards, but maybe it wasn't enough or he was getting bounced around too much playing with Daddy, but I was quickly inducted into the spit-up club! It was such a great feeling to have him gaze into my eyes while I fed him. We must have exhausted him, as James began to fall asleep towards the end of our visit. He does this thing where he will put one of his hands on his cheek in and start making sucking motions with his mouth to soothe himself to sleep. We plan to bring a pacifier to see if he will take it. Another thing he does is illustrated in one of the pics above. Sean was holding him as he would suck his thumb (with the other four fingers outstretched over his face) then start "talking" and cooing as he drifts off to sleep. It was the sweetest thing to watch.
After the visit, Oleg took us to the Skif Trade store, or as Inna calls it, the "Pick-Up store." It's called the Pick-Up store since shoppers can go down aisles and pick up and select products for themselves instead of picking items from behind a manned counter. The pic of items above shows some filled peach muffins, jam, loaf of freshly baked bread, water without gas - voda byez gaz, cherry juice - vishnya sok (which is delicious, by the way), chips in a can like Pringles, some miniature hard bagles, Coca-Cola Light (i.e. Diet Coke), peanut M&M's, body lotion, bar soap, shampoo, conditioner, and liquid hand soap. We cleaned out all the size 3 diapers they had left at the Pick-Up store, too. There are only 16 in a package, so we will be shopping for more diapers in a few days.
Across the street from the Pick-Up store is a kiosk that sells cheese and meat pies. They were out of chicken, so I got a cheese-filled one and Sean got a meat one. Inna confirmed with the guy at the kiosk that the meat was beef. Pretty cheap - only cost 40 Tenge apiece. Sean and I had these for lunch after returning to our room and thought they were pretty tasty. The rest of the afternoon was spent napping, watching Russian TV stations, and updating the website, of course. In a few minutes we will start preparing for our visit with James tomorrow. He wasn't too excited with the toys we brought today and preferred to be entertained by us. We may have to break out the big guns early with the noisier toys tomorrow...
Some of you have asked about the weather. The temps recently have been hovering right at freezing or just below, but this is mild for Southern Siberia according to Inna. Apparently, last winter was the worst they had in a long time, with temps dipping into the minus-40's. Compared to Houston weather it can feel really cold if it's windy like it was last night when we landed in Kokshetau, especially since the heater in our room conked out on us a couple of times. A country where they keep the indoors stifling hot during the winter, and we end up in a hotel room where the heat goes out - go figure. Today was pretty nice, with it snowing lightly in the morning and the sun peeking out from behind clouds by mid-day. Oh, and that's another thing: latitude-wise we are pretty far north, so the sun doesn't rise until about a quarter past 9AM. The sun seems to set just before 6PM, too. Quite interesting!
Since Kazakhs were a nomadic people, they lived in mobile housing units called yurts. The last pic in this post shows a reproduction of a yurt that was in the same room that we had our breakfast buffet at the hotel. As for our accommodations, we still do not know exactly where we will be staying. We are hoping to have a better idea on tomorrow. Living out of the suitcase does get a little old after a while, but we're not complaining - after all, we made it here! But I think we'll feel so much better once we're settled in somewhere.
Thanks for following with us! We know you have all been anxiously waiting to "meet" our child as much as we have. Looking forward to tomorrow's visit! Love to all!
