With Open Arms

We awoke this morning at 3 AM wide awake. Both of us got up and looked out the window at a sleepy Kaluga. Thankfully, we eventually did get tired enough to sleep again until 7 AM, so we are now on Russian Time.

Our driver Vlad, translator Nadya and Dr. Oleg met us in the lobby of our hotel at 10 AM. Shortly afterwards, we met Margarit in front of the hotel and then walked next door to the offices for the Ministry Of Education. We met the official who had a copy of our dossier on file. There she greeted us, gave us permission to see our referral, take pictures, and ask any questions we wanted to in order to make a decision about the child. She then gave us a photo, and it was of an adorable little boy!

From there we went directly to the orphanage, which had several small children playing outside with thier caregivers, all bundled up in winter clothes. Once inside we were taken to the chief Doctor's office to meet and discuss how the rest of our visit would go.

The chief doctor of the orphanage led us to the room where our boy sleeps and plays with other children his age. When he saw us, he immdiately came over to us and smiled and gave me a big hug with arms wide open. He is not shy and smiles easily! While in that room, Dr. Oleg took a few measurements, height, weight etc. We got to see his crib and take photos.

Then we were led down the hallway to the music room for further examinations, conversation and play time. The social worker also met us in the music room to observe the examination and our time together. We spent at least an hour in that room with the precious boy. He has a great giggle, which Jason got out of him by playing airplane and teasing him a bit. He liked the toys we brought, and gave a nice hug to the blue bunny from our niece, who reminded me last Friday not to foget to bring to Russia. Our boy was getting very tired and sleepy so his caregiver came to take him for a nap.

From the doctors initial findings, he feels that this child is very healthy, no red flags or things to really worry about other than the standard stuff you worry about with all kids. So we are feeling very positive about our first visit so far.

After that, we went back down to the office of the Chief doctor where our Dr. Oleg asked more questions, and we got to ask a few of our own. These people are very kind, very intelligent, and care very deeply for the children at the orphanage. Just before we left, they took us to the room with the children from our referrals group and showed us how they all go on the potty. Each little one has thier own potty, and they all sit there until they are done doing thier business. You could really see the kids' different personalities. Some were rambunctious, some calm, some were scooting around on the potty trying to look into the wastebasket, it was quite comical! Imagine taking care of 10 little kids in one bathroom on potty chairs and keep them there! One is difficult enough, Im sure!

We left the Orphanage and came back to the hotel to eat at the cafe with Dr. Oleg. The food again, was very good. We had chicken noodle soup, beef patty with mushrooms and sour cream sauce and mashed potatos.

Here we are resting now in our hotel room, and waiting for Nadya and Vlad to come back to pick us up so we can have another visit with our referral this afternoon.

Thank you all for your prayers! Everything is going great!