Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Gotcha Day
Written on Monday evening 2/11/08
I can’t believe I’ve been an adoption blogger for two years and on the biggest day of the process, I am sitting here in the hallway of our hotel room without internet connection and therefore unable to post about finally picking Rita from the Children’s Home.
I was one hundred times more nervous today compared to Court Day. Today was the day we would be able to pick up Rita and become her parents – her extra special, forever caregivers.
To get to this day, we had to make our way to Velikie Luki on Saturday. Michael and I were/are definitely getting used to the driving in Russia. We left the hotel about 10AM, and made it to Velikie Luki around 2PM. A helped us check into our hotel – the same one we stayed in for Trip #1. The room was even worse (which is almost impossible) than Trip #1… this time we didn’t have the “deluxe suite”. I can only describe the room with pictures and you can draw your own conclusions.
OK, so we went to our favorite (only?) café in town – basically our oasis in the middle of VL. We ordered our favorite blinis and coffees before we headed over to the orphanage at 3:30PM. This was a true adventure… without our coordinator, without an interpreter, and us with only our “kid” Russian vocabulary.
The guard at the door had pity on us (that’s the only way you could describe our attempts to communicate our intentions) and led us upstairs to the music room (?) – there we asked the teacher for “Margarita”. She led us to a playroom and told us to wait.
Rita came down a few minutes later with her caregiver. The caregiver kept speaking to us… we presume asking us who our other child was. We said "that’s it, only Rita" in Russian. We spend the next two hours playing in this amazing playroom… tons of balls, hula hoops, darts, a mini-trampoline, and musica! Rita went for a quick dinner at 5:30PM, and came back downstairs to spend more time with us. We looked at pictures in her photo albums and on the computer. She’s very good at recognizing Yoshi, Babuska and Kristin.
Rita’s caregiver came down about 7:15PM and we think she said “Ten more minutes”. About 30 minutes later we brought her upstairs and were able to take pictures with Rita and her groupa. Along the others, we met Dima (her best friend) and a cute little boy named Pasha. There was only one other little girl (Julia) in her groupa.
Rita was able to eat her after dinner snack (an egg and a piece of bread with chocolate spread and red tea) before we left for the night.
On Sunday we came to the orphanage bringing with us some fruit (oranges, bananas, apples and pears), a bag of chocolates from the USA, red licorice and some bouncy balls. We did this in lieu of a big party. It seemed more natural and appropriate after spending time with her groupa the night before.
We spent a couple of hours with her in the bedroom next to hers (with the blue fairy sheets & curtains). Kseniya came for a while (Lera's classmate) and helped us translate when we were playing the memory game. We practiced counting in Russian and English and our phonetics cards. We decided to leave when it was time for Rita’s dinner. We were able to tell her caregiver that we would be back in the morning at 10AM to pick her up. The caregiver said she would be there in the morning. We dropped Kseniya off at her apartment complex and headed back to the hotel.
Finally …
We got to the orphange at 9:45AM today with Ludmilla along to help with translation. We went up to her groupa… Rita knew we were coming and starting running down the hall to us with the biggest smile on her face. She slammed into me and gave me the biggest hug eva. The caregiver said she has been asking her every day when we were coming to take her home.
We went in her room – the caregiver had already put some of the clothes and shoes we brought during Trip #1 into a bag for us to take with us. She asked us to check to make sure we had everything. We also asked about photos and any artwork we could take. She gave us a photo album of Rita taken during the summer when she was staying with the foster family (an orphanage caregiver).
Rita was told by her caregiver to say goodbye to her groupa – she ran back into the “living room” area and stuck her head in, said goodbye and waved and quickly ran back to us. Then she ran over to the next room and said goodbye to her speech (?) teacher with a hug. We also told her to go back and say a proper goodbye to her groupa and got a picture of her and her caregiver.
We went downstairs and undressed her. Everything went back to her orphanage – underwear, tights and all. We bundled her up in her new clothes, boots and snowsuit and made our way out the door. As we were walking down the hallway, a lady with an apron came into view and Rita ran to her and hugged her tightly. The lady started to cry – we found out that she is the sister of the foster mom. She asked if we could write and send pictures… Ludmilla got her address and wrote it down for us. She thanked us, cried and said goodbye to us.
As this was going on, Rita was making her way down the stairs and out the door… we kept having to slow her down! She seemed very ready to bust out of the place! We got into the car and went back to the hotel to drop off Ludmilla and say our final goodbyes with her.
Since we still had an hour to wait for Anton, we went back to the café and had a quick lunch. Rita had two chicken patties, mashed potatoes and a glass of apple juice. She ate her food quickly and efficiently. We thought we were off to a good start!
Rita was a trooper during the 3.5 hour car ride back to Pskov. She was very inquisitive, happy and patient with her new parents who hardly know any Russian. We stopped once for a bathroom break… what a relief… the gas station was new and modern and clean.
When we got to the Heliopark hotel we checked in and we believe… this is when our first dose of reality kicked in. (Not unexpected, but you never can prepare for these moments...)
Rita turned into an absolute maniac! We got to our room – and she could not stop moving – turning on and off every light, every switch (TV, radio, heater) in the place. She thought the bathroom was “fantastic” (said with a huge exclamation point) and thought the toilet and faucet were amazing.
We ended up moving to a different room because the first room was on the ground floor near the front door and entryway construction. We were afraid we were going to loose her in the first 15 minutes. We ended up on the third floor… and she did the same thing with all of the switches, knobs and buttons to be found (plus Michael’s computer). Michael called and had the housekeeper remove all contents of the mini-bar.
We looked at the time and realized it was time for dinner. (Thinking great we have something to do instead of turning on/off light switches!)
We had a nice meal at the hotel restaurant (potato dumplings with cream & bacon sauce, sausage pelmeni, grilled chicken and potatoes and a couple of pies). Rita ate a huge plate of food and a glass of apple juice. Plus at least two dinner rolls. This girl can really put it away and recycle!
After dinner we came upstairs to the room – had a lovely bath (she loves swimming), washed her hair, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair and all got in bed to “find the ducks” in her purple book. After finishing the book, we turned off the lights and within 10 minutes both Rita and Michael were asleep.
I got up to put some organization to the room chaos (clothes are still in a huge pile though) and type this out before I forget anything about this really important day for our family. So far the communication hasn’t been difficult at all – Rita is very patient with us and we seem to get by OK. We are just worried that we don’t have enough toys and room to keep her busy body occupied.
(Yes, she ate everything on her plate.)
Walk back to the hotel.
Yesterday we got her adoption certificate, new birth certificate, and passport photos taken. This morning Michael went to the passport office to submit her application and we are waiting at the internet cafe to pick it up. We are booked on the night train to Moscow --- which means we are coming home on Saturday ... yay!
We'll be staying at the Moscow Courtyard starting Thursday. More later... Sorry it's been too crazy busy to blog!
I can’t believe I’ve been an adoption blogger for two years and on the biggest day of the process, I am sitting here in the hallway of our hotel room without internet connection and therefore unable to post about finally picking Rita from the Children’s Home.
I was one hundred times more nervous today compared to Court Day. Today was the day we would be able to pick up Rita and become her parents – her extra special, forever caregivers.
To get to this day, we had to make our way to Velikie Luki on Saturday. Michael and I were/are definitely getting used to the driving in Russia. We left the hotel about 10AM, and made it to Velikie Luki around 2PM. A helped us check into our hotel – the same one we stayed in for Trip #1. The room was even worse (which is almost impossible) than Trip #1… this time we didn’t have the “deluxe suite”. I can only describe the room with pictures and you can draw your own conclusions.
OK, so we went to our favorite (only?) café in town – basically our oasis in the middle of VL. We ordered our favorite blinis and coffees before we headed over to the orphanage at 3:30PM. This was a true adventure… without our coordinator, without an interpreter, and us with only our “kid” Russian vocabulary.
The guard at the door had pity on us (that’s the only way you could describe our attempts to communicate our intentions) and led us upstairs to the music room (?) – there we asked the teacher for “Margarita”. She led us to a playroom and told us to wait.
Rita came down a few minutes later with her caregiver. The caregiver kept speaking to us… we presume asking us who our other child was. We said "that’s it, only Rita" in Russian. We spend the next two hours playing in this amazing playroom… tons of balls, hula hoops, darts, a mini-trampoline, and musica! Rita went for a quick dinner at 5:30PM, and came back downstairs to spend more time with us. We looked at pictures in her photo albums and on the computer. She’s very good at recognizing Yoshi, Babuska and Kristin.
Rita’s caregiver came down about 7:15PM and we think she said “Ten more minutes”. About 30 minutes later we brought her upstairs and were able to take pictures with Rita and her groupa. Along the others, we met Dima (her best friend) and a cute little boy named Pasha. There was only one other little girl (Julia) in her groupa.
Rita was able to eat her after dinner snack (an egg and a piece of bread with chocolate spread and red tea) before we left for the night.
On Sunday we came to the orphanage bringing with us some fruit (oranges, bananas, apples and pears), a bag of chocolates from the USA, red licorice and some bouncy balls. We did this in lieu of a big party. It seemed more natural and appropriate after spending time with her groupa the night before.
We spent a couple of hours with her in the bedroom next to hers (with the blue fairy sheets & curtains). Kseniya came for a while (Lera's classmate) and helped us translate when we were playing the memory game. We practiced counting in Russian and English and our phonetics cards. We decided to leave when it was time for Rita’s dinner. We were able to tell her caregiver that we would be back in the morning at 10AM to pick her up. The caregiver said she would be there in the morning. We dropped Kseniya off at her apartment complex and headed back to the hotel.
Finally …
We got to the orphange at 9:45AM today with Ludmilla along to help with translation. We went up to her groupa… Rita knew we were coming and starting running down the hall to us with the biggest smile on her face. She slammed into me and gave me the biggest hug eva. The caregiver said she has been asking her every day when we were coming to take her home.
We went in her room – the caregiver had already put some of the clothes and shoes we brought during Trip #1 into a bag for us to take with us. She asked us to check to make sure we had everything. We also asked about photos and any artwork we could take. She gave us a photo album of Rita taken during the summer when she was staying with the foster family (an orphanage caregiver).
Rita was told by her caregiver to say goodbye to her groupa – she ran back into the “living room” area and stuck her head in, said goodbye and waved and quickly ran back to us. Then she ran over to the next room and said goodbye to her speech (?) teacher with a hug. We also told her to go back and say a proper goodbye to her groupa and got a picture of her and her caregiver.
We went downstairs and undressed her. Everything went back to her orphanage – underwear, tights and all. We bundled her up in her new clothes, boots and snowsuit and made our way out the door. As we were walking down the hallway, a lady with an apron came into view and Rita ran to her and hugged her tightly. The lady started to cry – we found out that she is the sister of the foster mom. She asked if we could write and send pictures… Ludmilla got her address and wrote it down for us. She thanked us, cried and said goodbye to us.
As this was going on, Rita was making her way down the stairs and out the door… we kept having to slow her down! She seemed very ready to bust out of the place! We got into the car and went back to the hotel to drop off Ludmilla and say our final goodbyes with her.
Since we still had an hour to wait for Anton, we went back to the café and had a quick lunch. Rita had two chicken patties, mashed potatoes and a glass of apple juice. She ate her food quickly and efficiently. We thought we were off to a good start!
Rita was a trooper during the 3.5 hour car ride back to Pskov. She was very inquisitive, happy and patient with her new parents who hardly know any Russian. We stopped once for a bathroom break… what a relief… the gas station was new and modern and clean.
When we got to the Heliopark hotel we checked in and we believe… this is when our first dose of reality kicked in. (Not unexpected, but you never can prepare for these moments...)
Rita turned into an absolute maniac! We got to our room – and she could not stop moving – turning on and off every light, every switch (TV, radio, heater) in the place. She thought the bathroom was “fantastic” (said with a huge exclamation point) and thought the toilet and faucet were amazing.
We ended up moving to a different room because the first room was on the ground floor near the front door and entryway construction. We were afraid we were going to loose her in the first 15 minutes. We ended up on the third floor… and she did the same thing with all of the switches, knobs and buttons to be found (plus Michael’s computer). Michael called and had the housekeeper remove all contents of the mini-bar.
We looked at the time and realized it was time for dinner. (Thinking great we have something to do instead of turning on/off light switches!)
We had a nice meal at the hotel restaurant (potato dumplings with cream & bacon sauce, sausage pelmeni, grilled chicken and potatoes and a couple of pies). Rita ate a huge plate of food and a glass of apple juice. Plus at least two dinner rolls. This girl can really put it away and recycle!
After dinner we came upstairs to the room – had a lovely bath (she loves swimming), washed her hair, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair and all got in bed to “find the ducks” in her purple book. After finishing the book, we turned off the lights and within 10 minutes both Rita and Michael were asleep.
I got up to put some organization to the room chaos (clothes are still in a huge pile though) and type this out before I forget anything about this really important day for our family. So far the communication hasn’t been difficult at all – Rita is very patient with us and we seem to get by OK. We are just worried that we don’t have enough toys and room to keep her busy body occupied.
(Yes, she ate everything on her plate.)
Walk back to the hotel.
Posing for the camera at dinner.
Yesterday we got her adoption certificate, new birth certificate, and passport photos taken. This morning Michael went to the passport office to submit her application and we are waiting at the internet cafe to pick it up. We are booked on the night train to Moscow --- which means we are coming home on Saturday ... yay!
We'll be staying at the Moscow Courtyard starting Thursday. More later... Sorry it's been too crazy busy to blog!
23 Comments:
Adopt A Child.orgAdopting from Russia
Eastern European Adoption Coalition, Inc
Embassy of the Russian Federation
Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption
Karen's Adoption Links
Older Child Adoption
Russia Adoption Blog
Russian Adoption Medical Services
Russian Family Search
Russian Toys
Vernissage Press
Congratulations. You're a mom!
Yay! for coming home on Saturday!
And congrats on surviving and thriving through Gotcha Day! :)
Sounds like she is having a ball. Can't wait to see pix!
Have a safe trip home.
Safe travels. Imagine all the change Rita has in store for her.
Ronda
Glad she's finally with you for good. Hang in there the rest of the trip. Soon you'll be in your own bed and your own house!
Enjoy! So happy for you two!!
Yeah to getting home for you two as well. What an adventure!! enjoy your journey home!
Leslie
didn't know how to get this up so i put it under anonymous. i am technically challenged
cm
Just a heads up, after the first few days of heavy eating, she will lay off and start to get picky about the food. We were so shocked when the kids wouldn't eat the EXACT same thing they had loved just two days ago!!
I'm so happy for you guys. Its been a long road. Congratulations!!!
They got over it though (thank goodness!), and so will Rita. Rhonda's comment about the food was a good one too. That was completely true of my kids, and I'm interested to see if it happens with Rita as well.
Rita looks great. You guys sound like a family already.