march 1 - day 1

hey everbody! well, where to start...

getting here
we left our house at about 6:15 a.m. on Saturday and finally arrived in Ust at about 2 p.m. Monday ( about 3 a.m. EST)--about 45 hours later!! this is of course with long layovers in Chicago and Frankfurt, and then an "overnight", if you want to call it that, in Almaty before flying down to Ust on Monday.

we were met at the Almaty airport by Oleg, who didn't seem overly excited to see us--possibly due to the fact that it was 3:40 a.m.? (We were delayed over 2.5 hours on the runway in Frankfurt because of extremely high winds!) Poor Oleg. nevertheless, he gave us our tickets fot the next day and helped us get over to the Asunkar without seeming too concerned by our copious amounts of luggage. in the airport customs we met another a couple from MO who are adopting from Uralsk...i regret that we didn't take time to get their contact info...we hope their trip goes well.

Hotel Asunkar is really more like a hostel, which we were expecting - sink in the room, toilet down the hall--but the no-shower/tub-to-be-found part was a little bit of a surprise. still, we were SO grateful for a clean place to lay our heads for a few hours and get freshened up before flying down to Ust.

we slept as long as we could and ended up having JUST enough time to get over to the airport and get checked in; had to pay an extra $100 for having extra bags and some overweightones - but, we were expecting this, and since we hadn't had to pay any extra for bags or weight in the US, we didn't feel too bad about it. grabbed some tea and coffee at the Gloria Jeans (i know, i know, how north american of us...) and voila, it was time to board.

as we boarded the crowded shuttle bus to taxi us out to the plane, however, a thought struck me: "rob, where's the stroller? did we check it in?"

oops. we both recalled the yellow stroller leaned up by the gate when we were transported all our luggage into the hotel. sigh. i guess there it stayed. (niki, we're sooooooo sorry! promise to get you a new one.) we emailed the hotel, but they didn't find it. some almaty citizen is getting a nice stroller with a supercool bungee cord around it.

we were feeling really great and the flight was quick. i for one was completely distracted by the beautiful Kazakh people around us- particularly the distinctively "Kazakh"-looking ones--(meaning Asian)...the more I am seeing them, the more strikingly beautiful I think they are.

we were met by Olga, our translator - what a sweetheart! we loved her immediately. there are at least two or three feet of snow on the ground, but it was about 17F -- didn't feel bad at all. (Olga says it's finally warming up! :-)

the ride to the hotel was kind of surreal...just couldn't believe we were here. lots of snow on the ground and it seems like even more on the roof tops, lots of concrete block apartment buildings--soviet style but with eastern accents-- but with many newer store fronts too. this city seems to have a lot of trees, and I can only imagine it's very pretty in summer. many people with furry caps and fur coats out were out and about, and there was quite a bit of traffic; Olga says it's because it's one of the first "warm" days --people are using their cars again.

we learned a number of things about Olga, and i tried to use my Russian as much as possible (i've asked Rob to keep pushing me in this; I don't want to whimp out and get shy). Olga is very helpful and gracious about my "nimnoga po-russki". ;-]

made it to the Shiny River and had a quick introduction to our coordinator, then hurried to do a little unpacking and freshening up before leaving for the Baby Home. the room is fairly small, but very nice. nice big king bed, which is good since there's no couch or desk in our room. had a few moments to pull some of baby things together into a backpack and back down to the lobby where we met Olga and the Sarsams, another AA family who are adopting siblings.

the baby house
it's been easy till now to share about our excitement, our travels and our observations, but i guess this is the part of the blog where i need to make a decision: how much do i share? how honest do i be with all the feelings and thoughts we have as we do this? what about the parts that aren't so easy, exciting, or delightful? i would like to be able to share "it was magical and we knew right away"...but not every story is quite like that. i'm going to try to be candid as i can--knowing that most of you who are reading know and love us, and all of you care and wish all of us well;  i feel like this will help us process this very emotionally and mentally demanding experience with all it's unknowns. i hope maybe too, that this will help us in the transitions to come, as well as many of you who still have this experience ahead of you. 

a bit of background info: many of you know we learned some months ago about a little boy with a cleft palate and have been expecting and hoping to adopt him. just a couple days before leaving we received an assessment from an int'l adoption clinic with whom we're contracting (something many families adopting internationally do) that expressed some real concerns about him from the fact that he is very underweight and sized for his age, with a cleft palate. from their perspective, this combination could suggest that there are other factors at play than just malnutrition, though I won't expound a lot about that right now.

needless to say, this was pretty disconcerting for us, since we've assumed that his small size are due largely to eating difficulties that cleft palate children have. we're going to share info with an int’l adoption clinic and have another lined up as a second opinion - hopefully they can give us some insight as we send back photos and videos. we've spent a LOT of time in prayer over the past few days and we have many friends praying with us--for wisdom and discernment, and an open heart--as we go and meet this little boy that we've grown to care about.  thankfully, we've experienced a tremendous amount of peace over the past few days of packing and traveling; we've truly been able to enjoy it as well.

and now, heading to the baby house, it's kind of like the "moment of truth" had come...i still felt amazingly calm, and it wasn't until we were seated in the orphanage director's office that i finally felt my pulse starting to speed up, knowing that at any moment they would be bringing him in...potentially bringing in our son...

my first glimpse of him being carried into the room...he's so small! He is almost eighteen months old and I knew he was size/weight of less than a year --but I think I was still surprised to see such a little guy. he looked like the photos we had seen, but I guess since we’d never seen him in a context it was hard to tell. He does look more little boy now, and less baby-faced. He is cute, blue-eyed, and dainty – could be that he comes from small-boned parents, too. He has beautiful blue eyes and long eyelashes.

they invited us to go over and make contact with him... he was shy and uncertain, looking at us and quickly looking back at the caregiver or doctor as if to say "is it ok? who are they and should i look at them?"

it's kind of awkward to introduce yourself; what do you say? hello little russian-understanding baby boy who can't understand a word i'm saying but who might become my son. i know that sounds weird, but it is a really weird experience! they invited one of us to take him, so Rob held  him and i went for a couple toys from the bag. he didn't resist rob, but it was clear he was pretty "strange" around us, as my mom used to say. we held out a couple different toys, trying to get him interested, but he was way too uncertain to be much interested.

i noticed almost immediately, however, that he seemed pretty alert to sounds; when the caregiver, director or orphanage doctor would speak - or anyone in Russian - it got his attention and he'd look; i'm thinking it made him feel assured. (can you imagine all these strangers directing mumbo-jumbo to you? poor little guy!) finally the little puffy laptop toy got his attention, but he still wasn't interested in touching it.

they led us with him to one of the baby rooms where the other family was meeting with their thirteen-month-old, a healthy-sized toddler. we all sat on the floor and one by one rob and i started pulling other toys out. finally he got the courage to try pushing the little buttons on the puffy laptop, but you have to push them pretty hard to get them to sound, and being pretty dainty, he either wasn't able to push them hard enough or he was just too uncertain, so he lost interest when he couldn't make it sound.

the real successful toy was the little 3-block set with fruit and bananas on the outside and inside. almost immediately when we got those out he went for them and began putting one block inside of the other, and really, this engaged him more than anything else the whole time we were there. it was encouraging to see how immediately he took to them and knew what to do with them.  he wasn't too interested in trying to stack them, but he loved putting them inside and taking them out.

He has a good attention span when he finds something he likes to do. He liked to sit and play but doesn’t  seem to move around much.

i hate to say it--but the whole time you're analyzing from all the developmental lists you've seen--how's his reaction, how's his grasp, how are his motor skills, is he ok for his age?  especially in this case, we have concerns about his development, so it seems like we have to have this wary eye out. the other little boy in the room was clearly more active and about twice the size, so i needed to resist the urge to watch and compare the too.

to be honest, it was kind of an overwhelming, a little bit scary hour; i wondered, has any other family ever felt this way? unsure? all i could recall are all the stories of "as soon as we saw her, we just knew!"  and that wasn't very comforting, since we weren’t really having that exact experience; but then, we came into it with concerns, so I suppose that’s hard to overcome in a single moment.

after about 45 minutes we did get to see a few smiles, especially when the translator, whom he was obviously a little familiar with, would pipe in with some Russian words or encouragement. he also seemed to enjoy when we would clap for him and say good job when he would put the blocks together—he’d then start clapping too. he also enjoyed putting these little finger puppets into the plastic baggy i'd brought them in; it was really cute, he kind of dunked them into the bag with gusto. to me, he does seem good with his little hands, which is really encouraging.

He has a good attention span when he finds something he likes to do. He liked to sit and play but doesn’t  seem to move around much. He also did very little vocalizing.

I think, between being somewhat jet-lagged and having this first overwhelming encounter, it was kind of an emotionally draining day. I know we have concerns…is the palate the reason he is so small, is he on target, are there other issues like FASD or something else…but I guess we have gone into this having decided to take one day at a time and trusting God to show us things.

We took a short walk around the block to Pizza Blues – a place many families have mentioned on their blogs, etc. we had no idea how to do things – do you go up and order? Do you sit and wait to have your order taken? We decided, you watch to see what everyone else is doing. ;-] and when all else fails and you can’t read the menu, you order off the pictures up at the front! Eventually we found they had an English menu and we ordered some rather tasty chicken patty type things and some soy sauce beef. And of course everything is served with cabbage slaw and or spicy carrots.

It was snowing and a bit windy now so much colder than earlier, but still a ton of people out and about! Will have to remember to wear the long johns when we go out. Earlier in the room and at the baby home WAY to warm to wear layers. Guess we’ll find our rhythm.

Back at the Shiny River, Rob got us online by about 10 o’clock. Did a couple quick emails and turned in. We had a pretty rough sleep, awake off and on – I know it’s part jetlag – but we also feel somewhat overwhelmed by the situation: will this little boy be the boy we should commit to adopting, despite the unknowns of his health? Could we really handle it if he has major developmental issues? Our minds were both pretty full…we have so many questions, and all we really know right now is that we are here, God is here with us, and tomorrow will bring us more information and hopefully a conversation with the doctor.

And we know that a lot of you are praying with us…thank you.

 (i haven't been able to log on to the blog the last couple times i've tried, so my friend kim is posting this for me; i'm hoping to get on and share some photos soon...thanks Kim!)