FIRST VISIT WITH ANTONINA (2nd TRIP)

We visited with Maya Antonina this morning. We were picked up by our Coordinator at 9:00am sharp. He was accompanied by the Baby House Social Worker. It was going to be a monitored visit (sort of). She started asking questions while in the Van on our way to the Baby House. She wanted to give us an idea of what was going to be asked during our court hearing tomorrow morning. Some questions I already knew, but there were a couple of questions that kind of threw me off guard. One of them what happens if (God forbid) something were to happen to Maya in regards to her health. Let's say that she became seriously ill. She said, if it was a biological child you would stick by her, but since this will be an adoptive child, would you renounce to her and giver back. We are like, back to whom????? She is our daughter!!!! Even though we have not gone through the formalities of court, we consider her OUR daughter. So no matter in what type of health status she might be in the future, we are here to stay!!!

Another question was if Mauri and I were to get divorced (God forbid) what would happen?? Would he still consider her his daughter?? Would he assist with supporting the child morally and monetarily? We are like, of course, under US law, Maya will have his last name and it will be our child, whether she was adopted or not!! And by law he would have to help with child support!!!

After she finished with her questions, she told us that she had liked our answers, that if we continue to answer that way, we would do well in court!!

Well, once we reached the baby house, we wanted to see Maya, we missed her so much!!! She was taking her nap and the caretaker woke her up. She was still in her PJ's. Poor thing, I can't believe they woke her up. When I saw her I was a little concerned because she has not gained any weight. She still the same as when we last saw her 5 weeks ago. Her hair has grown a little though! We started playing with her right away. We hugged her and kissed her so many times, she must have felt overwhelmed!! Even though she was a little cranky she started playing with her toys. She immediately recognized her favorite toy from our last trip and she immediately remembers what button to press to hear the music. We were cracking up!!

We visited with her for about two and a half hours, yeahhh. We brought her a Gerber cookie for crawlers, but there was no way that could get her to eat it. The darn thing was really hard!! We broke it in little pieces for her, buy, no, she would not eat it.... We knew she was hungry, but she would not eat it. Her diaper needed to be changed since the beginning of the visit. I felt really bad that I did not have any pampers with us, so I could change her myself. Poor thing, she had to stay dirty for quite a while! Next time, we are brining her diaper bag with us, so we can be prepared.

This time she really opened up to us. There were a lot of smiles and giggles and there was also a lot of crying towards the end. We knew she was sleepy and hungry, but there was not much we could do. We tried putting her to sleep, but there was too much noise and she became distracted really easy. We continued to try with the cookie, but nothing.

We then noticed that she might be getting a cold. She felt a little warm, and her little nose was itching a lot and it was also watery. That's why she was not feeling well!! We told the caretaker, but we think (by her expression) that she thought we were exaggerating. All of the sudden, time was up. The caretaker came and took her away from us. We were like, its too soon.....Let us hug her and kiss her one more time, but they literally took her off our arms :o(
We wanted to run away with her. We cannot wait to get her out of there!!!!

Once we left the baby house, we were taken back to the hotel. Before we excited the van, our Coordinator started to prepare us for court. We told him through the translator that we were going to study all our paperwork and that we were going to be ready for court in the morning. We will be picked up at 9:30 am and the court hearing will start at 10:00am. Please pray for us.... We are in God's hands. I will try to post more tomorrow. Until then....