BABY HOUSE VISITS 3 & 4

BABY HOUSE VISIT# 4

We made back at 4:30 to meet with Antonina and the Inspector. We were told that she works with all the baby homes and orphanages in the region. She is considered a very important person. She is the one that will speak on behalf of Antonina at court. Anyways, she started going over Antonina’s file, telling us as much information as she could about the mother and her grandparents. There is no known information about her father. We know that Antonina’s mom abandoned her at the hospital right after birth. That’s all I can share for now (due to confidentiality issues). She also asked us questions about us, why we decided to adopt from Russia, if we had decided to ADOPT her (which the answer is YES), how long have we been trying to have a child, among other things. Then she saw how Mauri was interacting with Antonina (since I was the one answering most of the questions). The she said that she wanted to see how Antonina interacted with me, so we started playing. After that she started laying with Antonina, then she made some notes in her file and told us that completed our interview with her. After she left, we has a little bit more time to play with Antonina, but she was getting tired and hungry since she was missing her meal and naptime. Her caretaker came down to pick her up and asked us if we could buy diapers, wipes and baby cream for her and we said yes. We were told that we were to have a last visit with her before we were to depart back to the US. An interesting thing happened when we were about to leave, one of the US couples that I had mentioned before that were there to visit with their 2 little girls happens to be Melissa, she is one of the mom’s who belongs in the Tver yahoo chat group. She came to me and said, are you Yadira, and am I, yes? She goes I am Melissa, do you remember me? And I go, of course, yes, from the chat groups, you see we had been emailing back and forth, and also my friend AG had been helping her with some information that she needed. Am like, what a small world. They have their court date very soon, so does the other couple that was there. Well, that’s all for now. Tomorrow we are to meet with the Notary to formally sign the petition to become Antonina’s parents. Please continue to pray for us. We miss you all very dearly!!!!

BABY HOUSE VISIT# 3

Well, this morning we headed for our third visit. Again the inspector could not meet us. We were told that she was going to be available to observe us in the afternoon. So that means that we will get to see Antonina again today :o). As soon as we walked in we realize that there were 2 other families who were visiting their daughters. One couple was adopting 2 girls at the same time. I am not sure if they are siblings. I asked the mom hold they were and she told me that one of them was 12 months old. If you saw them, they were very cute, still tiny. I am not sure what it is with Russian little baby girls that they are so small. Maybe it’s to do with what they feed them. Anyways, the other couple was waiting for their little girl too. I had seen their little girl in the database so I recognized her right away. Well, since the room where we were supposed to use to visit with Antonina was so full I requested to be taken upstairs so we could see her interact with her group. At first they told me that was not allowed, but you know me, I was polite, but persistent. It was very important for Mauri and me to see her interact with her peers. Well, finally the Deputy Director agreed and they took us upstairs to a room where we were going to have our visit. Then we were taken to the room next door to see her interact with the other babies. We told the director that we were going to be as invisible as possible, that our only intention was to see her interact with others. All the babies were still in their PJ’s. They were working as a group with the Psychologist. They were 2 babies with Down syndrome who are mainly kept in their cribs, if you only saw what we saw, it was heartbreaking. Then we got to see the babies interact with each other, they were so cute. Antonina did very well, she was the one who kept following the exercises that the Psychologists was giving them, we were so proud of her. She was doing very well. For the first time I felt like a proud Momma. She learns quickly, that’s why we are confident that she will do well. What she needs is a lot of love, perseverance and dedication. Well, after we observed, we were told that she was going to be changed and was going to be taken to the next room for us to play with her. They brought her in one of the outfits that we bought for her. It had “Daddy’s Girl” written on it and it’s purple. She looked so cute. She favors Mauri so much that she is starting to build a little bit of trust with him. You should see them play. My heart melts when I see them together. What can I tell you about Mauri, he is very happy, and so am I. Well, we played for over an hour, and then it was time for her meal and then naptime. You should see how restless she becomes when she starts to hear those pots and pans with the food, it’s like, ok people, I already entertain you, so now it’s time for me to go eat :o). We said our goodbyes and left to be taken back to the hotel. We are do back at 4:30 to meet with the Inspector.