Monday, September 23, 2013
Our First Trip
Hi All,
Sorry for the delay in writing a post about our first trip. We left on our first trip on August 31st. We flew from Denver to Toronto to Munich to were our girl is in Eastern Europe. Once we arrived and filled out paper work for our one missing suitcase....we drove four hours to her orphanage. It was a long day of travel, but it all went well.
We got to the hotel in time to go to sleep in order to get up early to meet our girl! When we got to the orphanage we were led into an office that they use as a doctors office. As we were sitting there Paul asked me if I was as calm as I appeared....I said that I am about to throw up I'm so nervous ;-)
A few minutes later she walked in with one of her caregivers. Yes, you read that right....she walked in! We were so excited to find out that she can walk. The video we have of her from two years ago, she could only walk a few steps before falling. So we were really happy to see how well she is walking. She was appropriately shy for the first few minutes that she was in the room. We had brought some glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces....she thought that they were pretty cool. After a few minutes we brought out our newly purchased Ipad. Well she loved that! Even a kiddo who has lived her whole life in an orphanage figured out the Ipad faster then I did ;-)
She was able to move things around on the Ipad using her fingers. She doesn't have much movement in her arms, but she can move her fingers and hands somewhat. So she found it easiest to use the Ipad when it was flat on the coffee table and she was standing up.
Another surprise was how much she is talking.....like non stop. She will fit in fine at our house LOL. She was asking all sorts of questions in her native language. She got used to asking me a question and then looking at the translator for a response.
We were able to see her every morning for 2 hours and every afternoon for two hours. We were quite lucky that we were able to take pictures of her. I am going to check if I can post them on our blog....there are a lot of rules about that sort of thing. We were also lucky in that we were able to take her outside to their playground. We saw were she sleeps and eats in the orphanage. It was a clean although quite old building. They really seem to care about her. They seem very happy that we are adopting her.
It took them a few days to finally tell her that we were adopting her. Her teacher (who was awesome) finally took out our photo album that we had brought for her. He went through each picture with her. At the end he asked her if she wanted to come live with us. She said YES! We were all sad at the last visit but he told her that we were coming back for her, so she was ok....I was a mess, but I held it together until we left. Sadly, she doesn't understand that there are 4-6 months between our first trip and when we can go get her. That just seems like forever! We are going to send her another photo book and a communication book that they said they would work on with her. Everyone was very nice and we are very grateful.
Since there was a holiday the last day and we weren't allowed to see her, we came back to the capital on Thursday night. We had all day on Friday in the capital. We were soooo happy to meet and hang out with Erin and Cliff. They are adopting two angels from a different orphanage. They were amazing and we were so happy to have had the opportunity to meet and hang out with them!
All in all our trip was amazing! We are so grateful to our friends at home for helping with our kiddos. We were able to skype with them, which really helped with the separation. It is hard to believe that our first trip is behind us....it almost feels like a dream! Once we got home we updated our homestudy. Since we are adopting Baby A on Oct 9th (WOOT WOOT) we needed to update it and send that to the state for approval. So we are waiting to get that back and then all of our paperwork is sent to USCIS. We are really hoping that the time in between our trips goes quickly.....we want our girl home with all of us!!
Sorry for the delay in writing a post about our first trip. We left on our first trip on August 31st. We flew from Denver to Toronto to Munich to were our girl is in Eastern Europe. Once we arrived and filled out paper work for our one missing suitcase....we drove four hours to her orphanage. It was a long day of travel, but it all went well.
We got to the hotel in time to go to sleep in order to get up early to meet our girl! When we got to the orphanage we were led into an office that they use as a doctors office. As we were sitting there Paul asked me if I was as calm as I appeared....I said that I am about to throw up I'm so nervous ;-)
A few minutes later she walked in with one of her caregivers. Yes, you read that right....she walked in! We were so excited to find out that she can walk. The video we have of her from two years ago, she could only walk a few steps before falling. So we were really happy to see how well she is walking. She was appropriately shy for the first few minutes that she was in the room. We had brought some glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces....she thought that they were pretty cool. After a few minutes we brought out our newly purchased Ipad. Well she loved that! Even a kiddo who has lived her whole life in an orphanage figured out the Ipad faster then I did ;-)
She was able to move things around on the Ipad using her fingers. She doesn't have much movement in her arms, but she can move her fingers and hands somewhat. So she found it easiest to use the Ipad when it was flat on the coffee table and she was standing up.
Another surprise was how much she is talking.....like non stop. She will fit in fine at our house LOL. She was asking all sorts of questions in her native language. She got used to asking me a question and then looking at the translator for a response.
We were able to see her every morning for 2 hours and every afternoon for two hours. We were quite lucky that we were able to take pictures of her. I am going to check if I can post them on our blog....there are a lot of rules about that sort of thing. We were also lucky in that we were able to take her outside to their playground. We saw were she sleeps and eats in the orphanage. It was a clean although quite old building. They really seem to care about her. They seem very happy that we are adopting her.
It took them a few days to finally tell her that we were adopting her. Her teacher (who was awesome) finally took out our photo album that we had brought for her. He went through each picture with her. At the end he asked her if she wanted to come live with us. She said YES! We were all sad at the last visit but he told her that we were coming back for her, so she was ok....I was a mess, but I held it together until we left. Sadly, she doesn't understand that there are 4-6 months between our first trip and when we can go get her. That just seems like forever! We are going to send her another photo book and a communication book that they said they would work on with her. Everyone was very nice and we are very grateful.
Since there was a holiday the last day and we weren't allowed to see her, we came back to the capital on Thursday night. We had all day on Friday in the capital. We were soooo happy to meet and hang out with Erin and Cliff. They are adopting two angels from a different orphanage. They were amazing and we were so happy to have had the opportunity to meet and hang out with them!
All in all our trip was amazing! We are so grateful to our friends at home for helping with our kiddos. We were able to skype with them, which really helped with the separation. It is hard to believe that our first trip is behind us....it almost feels like a dream! Once we got home we updated our homestudy. Since we are adopting Baby A on Oct 9th (WOOT WOOT) we needed to update it and send that to the state for approval. So we are waiting to get that back and then all of our paperwork is sent to USCIS. We are really hoping that the time in between our trips goes quickly.....we want our girl home with all of us!!
Saturday, August 31, 2013
4 Hours Until We Leave!!!
So I feel like we are as ready as we will ever be!
The schedules for each day are made and posted on the fridge :-)
The fridge is stocked and there is pizza money on the counter for the bigs. All the littles are packed and their stuff is dropped off to the various places that they are staying.
I haven't slept more then four hours per night in a few days.......this will be great because I can sleep on the insanely long flight and then not have jet lag....right ?! ....this is my theory and I am sticking to it!
I will try to blog while we are in country. But wifi can be spotty and I need to find out if we can post pictures of our girls (some places are ok with it, some aren't) So I will do the best I can. I am very excited to meet "Rita" and begin this amazing journey! I am also more then a little sad leaving the kiddos at home. I am glad that it is only a week because I know that it will be hard (way harder on me then on them I am sure ;-)
Once again thank you all for your support during this amazing adventure!!!
I haven't slept more then four hours per night in a few days.......this will be great because I can sleep on the insanely long flight and then not have jet lag....right ?! ....this is my theory and I am sticking to it!
I will try to blog while we are in country. But wifi can be spotty and I need to find out if we can post pictures of our girls (some places are ok with it, some aren't) So I will do the best I can. I am very excited to meet "Rita" and begin this amazing journey! I am also more then a little sad leaving the kiddos at home. I am glad that it is only a week because I know that it will be hard (way harder on me then on them I am sure ;-)
Once again thank you all for your support during this amazing adventure!!!
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Almost Ready
It is so hard to believe that it is almost here! All the kids packed with a weeks worth of clothes etc....check, basket of stuff delivered to where each kiddos is staying check, 4 gallons of chicken noodle soup made..check, tons of pasta with chicken and cream sauce made...check, medical power of attorney, passports, cash in new bills for visa, call credit card company and bank, check, check, check.....I was packed, but then our amazing dentist at Colorado Kids pediatric dentist gave us 200 tooth brushes/paste to donate to the orphanage ....so had to move some stuff around to fit it all.
So all in all, it is coming together! It is so exciting that we are only days away from meeting her after waiting so long!!
Thanks again to all our friends and family who have been so amazing on this journey
So all in all, it is coming together! It is so exciting that we are only days away from meeting her after waiting so long!!
Monday, August 26, 2013
OMG We Are Going
I am such a bad blogger and have been neglecting our poor blog. But the honest truth is I have been pouting. Our dossier has been in Eastern Europe since May. Each week we would wait for news that our dossier was submitted and each week we would be disappointed. There was a newly elected government that was being put into place. But I guess a lot of people weren't happy with the new government so there were (and I believe still are) protests in the streets. So week after week the IAC meetings were canceled.
Finally at the end of July there was an IAC meeting.....but sadly we were told that our dossier was not submitted. I wanted to crawl in my bed and not come out (and I did, well as much as you can hide in your bed with 7 kids. ) To make matters worse, the government shuts down every Aug for holiday. So we resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't be traveling until November at the earliest. This would mean that our second trip to pick her up wouldn't be until Spring. We were so bummed.
Well, last Wednesday I received an IM on Facebook from our placing agency saying "go check your email." The email said "Surprise you were submitted at the July meeting and we weren't told. You will get travel dates in the next 48 hours!" We were soooo excited as we waited not so patiently for the travel dates to come. The first dates that were sent happened to be when we will have company out to Colorado visiting us. We thought that if we left our company with our kids and jetted off to Eastern Europe we might never have anyone visit us ever again!! So we asked if there were any other possible dates. Shelley emailed and said "if you can pull it together quickly, you can leave on the 31st." As in this month.......as in one week from the email.....as in we are meeting our girl in a week. Well, we made a few phone calls and things started to fall into place! We are so grateful to Cathy and Jenny for all the help with our brood! Thank you Christy for all the equipment.
So now we are running around like crazy...doing laundry, packing, making meals, booking plane tickets etc. It is hard to believe in less then a week we will be meeting our newest daughter!!!!!
Thank you all for all of your love and support...we are so grateful!
Finally at the end of July there was an IAC meeting.....but sadly we were told that our dossier was not submitted. I wanted to crawl in my bed and not come out (and I did, well as much as you can hide in your bed with 7 kids. ) To make matters worse, the government shuts down every Aug for holiday. So we resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't be traveling until November at the earliest. This would mean that our second trip to pick her up wouldn't be until Spring. We were so bummed.
Well, last Wednesday I received an IM on Facebook from our placing agency saying "go check your email." The email said "Surprise you were submitted at the July meeting and we weren't told. You will get travel dates in the next 48 hours!" We were soooo excited as we waited not so patiently for the travel dates to come. The first dates that were sent happened to be when we will have company out to Colorado visiting us. We thought that if we left our company with our kids and jetted off to Eastern Europe we might never have anyone visit us ever again!! So we asked if there were any other possible dates. Shelley emailed and said "if you can pull it together quickly, you can leave on the 31st." As in this month.......as in one week from the email.....as in we are meeting our girl in a week. Well, we made a few phone calls and things started to fall into place! We are so grateful to Cathy and Jenny for all the help with our brood! Thank you Christy for all the equipment.
So now we are running around like crazy...doing laundry, packing, making meals, booking plane tickets etc. It is hard to believe in less then a week we will be meeting our newest daughter!!!!!
Thank you all for all of your love and support...we are so grateful!
Friday, July 12, 2013
UGH still waiting, waiting, waiting
Well, I was hoping to have good news to report, but sadly there really is no news. We are waiting for the government in our daughter's country to appoint a vice minister who will be in charge of parts of the adoption process. Sadly, there is a lot of civil unrest over there right now. There are protests about the government. This is not related to adoption, adoptions are just caught up in the mix. So until a new vm is appointed our dossier can not be submitted. So sadly this means our girl will not be home by Christmas. We are bummed but know that she will get home just as soon as we can get her here.
Baby A's case has moved to an adoption (WOO HOO)! At this point I am not sure when all the paperwork will be complete and we will be given a court date, but I am hoping it is soon! The kids are super excited to have her be a permanent addition to our family! She adds so much to our family! We are so grateful for all the journeys our family has gone on and we look forward to all the journeys in our future!
Baby A's case has moved to an adoption (WOO HOO)! At this point I am not sure when all the paperwork will be complete and we will be given a court date, but I am hoping it is soon! The kids are super excited to have her be a permanent addition to our family! She adds so much to our family! We are so grateful for all the journeys our family has gone on and we look forward to all the journeys in our future!
Sunday, June 30, 2013
AMC awareness day
Today is arthrogryposis multiplex congenital awareness day! Here is a great explanation on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoroBmYi5b4
This is what our sweet "Rita" has.........so today I am wearing my blue AMC awareness shirt! We have spent the last 9 months learning as much as we can about AMC. We have hooked up with some amazing people in the AMC world online.
Well, on the adoption front......we are still waiting. There have been protests going on in the Eastern European country where Rita is. While they are not related to adoption, it has slowed things down. Our dossier is waiting over there to be submitted. So once a new vice minister is appointed our dossier will be submitted and we will get travel dates to go meet our girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoroBmYi5b4
This is what our sweet "Rita" has.........so today I am wearing my blue AMC awareness shirt! We have spent the last 9 months learning as much as we can about AMC. We have hooked up with some amazing people in the AMC world online.
Well, on the adoption front......we are still waiting. There have been protests going on in the Eastern European country where Rita is. While they are not related to adoption, it has slowed things down. Our dossier is waiting over there to be submitted. So once a new vice minister is appointed our dossier will be submitted and we will get travel dates to go meet our girl.
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