So Sweet

Here's a picture of our last morning with Chloe. She let me cradle her and she looked in my eyes and touched my face. I still can't believe we had to leave her. I hope she understands when they show her the book with our pictures and tell her that we're coming to get her.

Chloe's Size

I brought a couple outfits to Russia to try on her. I purposely brought pants to get a good idea of her size. I think 6-12 months is too small, although by weight she would fit in them. She weighs a little over 18 pounds and is almost 29 inches tall. So, I think her height puts her in the 12-18 months range. She only gained a pound and grew an inch in the last 3 months, so I'm guessing she'll be about the same when we get her. The light pink pants here are 6-12 month Gap and the bright pink outfit is 12-18 months, can't remember the brand. I measured her foot and it measured size 3. What a little peanut she is.

Chloe's Hair

People have asked what color her hair is. So, I have used this as an excuse to post more pictures. Her hair is blond and I think she has enough to put in a little barrette.

More Pictures and Chloe's Birthday

I had a couple people ask about her birthday and then I realized that I had not included that in any post. Chloe was born June 18, 2005. So she is 15 1/2 months old. Which means she will be about 17 months when we bring her home. Here's another picture of the little princess.

See Chloe Giggling

Day 3 - Absolutely Brutal

We knew all along we would have to leave her after trip one, but I could never have imagined how unbelievably and totally painful it would be.

We had another wonderful morning with the sweetest baby girl in the world. One of the first things we found out was that she is NOT usually very friendly with strangers and in fact often cries when someone new approaches her. Then at the end of our morning play time she cried and reached back for me when I gave her back to her caregivers. Then Justin and I both cried (not in front of her of course). Then this afternoon I could tell she was a little more quiet with us. I swear she was sad that she had opened herself up so much and then we left. But we still had a lovely time and she played and giggled. Then when we had to say good bye again she again cried and reached for us. We are both just a wreck. Then, of all things, we had to go to a folk dancing show that we had bought tickets for. It was very nice, but I'm sure people around us were wondering why we found folk dancing was so upsetting that we had to continually wipe away tears.

I'm sure I'll pull myself together. I have lots of adoption friends now who have done this and will now have to tell me how this is all going to be okay. But, right now it's very, very hard. It Saturday evening and are we are being picked up tomorrow at 5am and will arrive home at 3:45. I've been having trouble posting pictures, I'll try later but it may have to wait until we're home.

Day 2 with Chloe and Sight Seeing

Phew! Another very busy and very emotional day is done. We started our day by going to the baby home at 10:00 and stayed until noon. Chloe was happy to see us and came right to me. To be fair, I'm pretty sure she would do this for anyone at this point, but I was happy anyway. This time we got to take her outside in her little snowsuit. It seems that every child in Russia is in a snowsuit when it's in the 50's. They really like to keep 'em warm. She was pretty uncertain as to what to do at first. I think that there is a pretty strict routine of what the group does when they go outside and we were just letting her take the lead. She mostly wanted me to hold her which I was more than happy to do. She smiled, laughed and giggled for us and we took tons of pictures. Then we went back inside and played with her for a while until it was her lunch and nap time. Oh, and I so did not bring enough books. She is happy to sit and look at a book while I talk to her in a language she doesn't understand. She loves to point and talk to. Amazing! Her caregivers told our translator that she is very smart and knows lots of words. Wow!

While she was napping we went to lunch and had more Russia food, this time it was meat pies that reminded us a little of the ones the Campbells have on St. Patricks day. It was yummy! Then we went to Hay Market Square and did a little shopping. The bartering and being approached by sellers was a little more than I could navigate after only 3 hours of sleep last night, so we'll have to go back tomorrow to finish up. Then we went to the Church of the Spilled Blood which was just incredible. Justin and I decided we need to expand our vocabulary beyond, "Wow" if we intend to do any more traveling and sight seeing. But really it was just amazing.

We were back to the baby home from 4-6 pm. Chloe was as cute and adorable as ever. This time Justin scooped her onto his lap and then started making her giggle and she completely forgot that she hadn't been allowing him to hold her. I took some very cute pictures. We went outside again and Chloe was much more comfortable with having us do what she wanted. We put her in a swing and she would have stayed there for hours. When I out my arms out to take her, she would tilt her head back and to the side in a way that clearly said, "Nyet!"Then when we finally did get her out she walked right over to another swing. She looooves to swing. At the end of the day I gave her back to her caregiver and she reached back to me. My heart fell right out of my chest and hit the floor. It is beyond painful that we have to leave her for what we now found out could very well be 8 weeks. It is so hard to think about.

Tomorrow we spend our last day with the little princess and then we're going out to a traditional Russian folk dancing show with the two other families that are here. I'm posting some cute pictures from the day and Justin is going to try to figure out how to post a clip of video.

Until tomorrow...

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Introducing the Lovely Chloe Elizabeth Katerina

Isn't she just adorable? She has a little rash thing happening so there is this crazy colored sav on her face, so just ignore that. She is just a tiny little peanut. She is about 18 pounds and 28 inches, or so I think based on my conversion of kilos to pounds. Our translator carried her into the room and she went right to me. She warmed up right away and wanted to stay in my lap while she played. She was very interested in Justin and he was able to get her to smile and giggle a lot. However, she did not want him to actually hold her. She kept saying what sounded like "daddy." This made Justin completely melt. We found out later that what she what she was saying was the Russian for "man." Justin doesn't care, as far as he's concerned she was calling him Daddy and he is officially wrapped around her finger. She said several other things that sounded like words, but of course we don't speak Russian, so we can't say for sure. As we were leaving the lights were turned off and she said something which our translator said was the word for "sleep." Genius! She was very interested in everything we said or did and made amazing eye contact with us. She is also very ticklish and just giggled and giggled. She had a great belly laugh that we have on video and will try to download later. By far her favorite "toy" was the little photo album we made of our family. She would look through it carefully while we told her who everyone was. Then she would point and wait for us to say the name. When another child walked by she clutched her little picture book to her chest and said something that sounded very affirmative. Too cute! She was entertained by this for the majority of our time and was happy to just sit in my lap. Justin was able to get her to play a little game of catch or more accurately a little game of, "Daddy throws a ball to Mommy and I go get it and bring it back to him." This gave us a chance to get some video of her walking, she's very steady on her feet which is funny because she's so little.

So, back to the beginning of our day. We started by going to the "committee" to get our official referral. After this we were able to spend about 1 1/2 hours with Chloe before going to meet with the social worker and the director of the baby home who is also a pediatrician. Then, we signed all of the papers saying we want to adopt her. After all our business was done we went and ate lunch at a very nice restaurant with traditional Russian food. Between this meal and breakfast I ate blini, pelmini and borsch (not sure if I spelled those right). I think that covers all the Russian food that I had ever heard of. After lunch we went back to the baby home and took Chloe to get her passport picture taken. Sh did not like the looks of the place at all and started to cry. I snuggled and reassured her and she calmed right down. What a wonderful feeling to be able to hold and snuggle her and make her feel better. We got to stay and play with her until about 6:00. So, in this first day we did all of the official business that we needed to do. So, tomorrwo and Saturday we'll just be able to play with her. We already think leaving her here is going to kill us! But, she seems very well cared for and loved. What a blessing!

We're in Russia

We made it! It was about 13 hours from the time our plane took off from O'Hare until we landed in St. petersburg. We were met by a terrific driver/translator who will be with us for the time we're here and someone else is coming to our room in about an hour to let us know what is going to happen in the coming days. The drive from the airport took less than 1/2 hour and I would say the traffic was comparable to dowtown Chicago. Our hotel is right across from St. Isaac's Cathedral which is beautiful.

Tomorrow we are being picked up at 10:00 am we'll go get our official referral. Then... the moment we've been waiting for... we get to go meet our daughter.

Until tomorrow,

We Have Actual Travel Dates!!!

It is confirmed! We leave on Tuesday and return home Sunday. We are actually going to meet our little girl! Yeah!!!

We Might Have Travel Dates

We might get to go on Tuesday. We have been told to put tickets on hold but wait until tomoorw to actually book them. We will know for sure tomorrow. If we do go on Tuesday we would return the following Sunday, so that is a very short trip!

No News Today

We just found out that we won't hear anything today. Maybe tomorrow. I don't have words for how unbearable this is.

What Will Happen...

While we're waiting to hear our travel dates, I thought I would post this run down of my friend's recent adoption. She brought her son home from the same baby home in St. Pete just last month. She posted this on another site and I'm just pulling relevent sections of her description. So here goes...

Hi, I'm happy to share our experience in SP. (A little on the long side) we traveled Trip 1 July 2-7 and Trip 2 was August 18-26, we brought home our son on the 26th. The 10-day waiting period was waived, but I understand they will begin enforcing it later this fall. (have been hoping and hoping that they keep delaying when they will start enforcing it as several friends are traveling to SP soon.) Start to finish for us was just under a year.We spent about $8000 on Trip 1 and $9000 or so on Trip 2 (I'm guestimating, but it was around there). Our plane tickets were very expensive b/c of the G-8 summit, world cup and summer! Hotels in SP, we stayed at the Angleterre (a little austere, but GREAT location), it was $250 a night b/c of G-8 summit, usually it's less. Trip 2 we stayed somewhere else, the Kempinski. I was not a fan of this hotel, it was more expensive and the staff were a little cold. Plus, the Internet was down about 4 of the 5 days, and I was trying to do work (I know, it was a crazy plan in the first place.) Both hotels were located next to a park and the Hermitage (huge plaza) which was nice for strolls with our little guy.He was in a very well run baby home, and actually he is about 3 months ahead developmentally. The baby home is about 45 minutes outside the city and that was the biggest drag of the trip, going back and forth between the hotel and the baby home. Our agency did a fabulous job handling all the paper details and other logistics of when we were supposed to be where. We had Katya/Vlad as our translator/driver combo and they were so professional and really made sure we were safe and had what we needed. Katya made sure we had the chance to buy all the things we needed (like diapers, chocolates for the caregivers on gotcha day, that kind of thing). She also gave really nice tours of the fortress, the canal tour we took, the churches and Peterohof (amazing gardens, go if you can!) Court was about 35 minutes long, and the judge asked us questions like who would take care of the child, and who takes care of the flowers at our house (we have a crazy yard that we inherited from previous owners). Nothing very hardball at all. The tricky part of court for us was related to our child's history, and the judge and prosecutor asked the social worker lots of questions about that, but those weren't directed to us at all. We took the overnight train to Moscow (about $262), had a beautiful compartment with snacks and water, and reasonably comfortable cots (2 on top and bottom). Left at 11.20 pm and arrived at 6.40. (b/c of the late departure time we had to buy an additional night's room at the hotel.) Daniel slept with me in my cot, and he actually slept the whole night (me not so much, but I got enough sleep to make it through the next day.) I felt 100% safe on this train, Katya took us to our compartment and made sure we knew how to turn the lights on/off (hard to figure out actually) and how to lock the door. We locked it after she left and opened it just before we arrived in Moscow to use the restroom (perfectly clean.)In Moscow, we also stayed at the Mariott Grande which was very nice, but couldn't believe how expensive it was (particularly room service.) Driver was just fine in Moscow, not overly friendly, but a safe driver and was very kind to our son. Ilya made sure we were all well taken care of and gave us a nice tour of Red Square which I couldn't pay any attention to because I was so busy watching Daniel to make sure he was safe and reasonably content.By the way, we flew Lufthansa home to Philadelphia through Frankfurt, and I think next time we will flight straight to Moscow (non-stop) and then drive home to Philly. Daniel took the first flight in stride, but melted down in the 6 hour layover in Frankfurt and continued to be miserable on the second 9 hour flight. For his very strong personality, it would have been better to do it all in one punch.I think that's about all I can remember just now, it seems like such a long time ago, but we have will have been home 4 weeks on Saturday!Good luck to all who are waiting.

So, that was her experience. Things will be less expensive for us since we're not going during the super expensive summer months. However, if the ten day wait is not waived, we would end up spending LOTS. There is a ten day (working days that is) waiting period that is currently being waived in St. Pete. If they don't waive it we would probably end up doing three trips as it is more expensive to stay in most cases. We'll be praying that doesn't change until we have completed our adoption.

So Frustrating!

We were supposed to hear our travel dates today, but now it won't be until Wednesday. I feel like screaming!

A Couple Little Steps

We have had two positive things happen this week. The State of Illinois actually got the papers to our agency so they will likely make it to Russia in time. Then, we got our fngerprint appt. in the mail. Our INS fingerprints expire at the end of the month so now we'll be able to get them redone before that happens. So, we seem to be on track for things to work the way they're supposed to. We are hoping that during the week of the 18th we'll get our travel dates and will leave by the end of the month.

Planning for September Travel

Well, we don't have actual travel dates (which is the only thing that really means your traveling) but we do have more than a, "We hope you can travel in September." We now have a, "You should travel in September." I know this probably seems like a very minor difference in semantics, but it really does look more hopeful. We are redoing a slew of paperwork and if it all comes together just right then we should be traveling in September. I am reserving full on enthusiasm until we have those travel dates. One advantage to September travel vs. summer travel is the cost of everything goes down. If we travel in September than we would hopefully go back in October. After court we will go to Moscow for more paperwork type things. Moscow is sooooo expensive right now. My friend who is going today will be paying $350.00 a night for a hotel room. Yikes!

Somebody Else's Good News part II

My very good friend who has helped talk me off a ledge dozens of times since we both began our adoptions is leaving with her husband on Saturday to meet her daughter. I am so happy for them and I feel like things are really moving and we must be next. YEAH!!!

Oh, I should add that she began her adoption in November of 2004. So, 21 months later she's traveling. Now, that is a long wait!

Somebody Else's Good News

My friend who traveled for trip one on July 2nd just got word that she's traveling for trip 2 on August 19th and may return home with her son as soon as August 26th. So, that's 6 weeks in between trips which is good considering so many Russians are on "holiday" during the month of August. From the day she got word that they would travel on trip one until the day she brings home her son will be just under 10 weeks. That means if we found out today that we were traveling we could be home with Chloe on October 19th.

Sometimes No News is Bad News

We found out today that we will most likely not travel until September. This is NOT good news, but I'm glad to know and will try to stop thinking about it non-stop for a few more weeks.