The Tale of our Russian Adoption

How it all started

2008-11-24T09:31:00.000-08:00

Jeff and I met in early 1998, both divorced with kids. I brought 4 with me ~~ Chris (12), Sarah (11), Emily (9) and Alex (3) and Jeff brought 2 of his own ~~ Erin (5) and Kevin (3). Mine lived with us and his visited on the weekends. That made for some pretty crowded times since when we got started we lived in a 1200 sq ft apartment. Eventually we bought a house and Jeffrey Jr joined our crew in November 2000. What's one more when you've already got a half dozen?

We bought a bigger house in May 2003 so my mom (who was suffering from end stage Parkinson's Disease) and her live-in help could move in with us. That's 9, count 'em... 9 people under one roof.

My mom lived her last year with us and passed away in February 2004. It was the same month our oldest, Christopher set off on his own into the Air Force. I guess the sudden loss of 3 people created a rather large vacuum in the house because suddenly I needed to adopt a little girl from Russia. Having been adopted myself, I had always wanted to adopt a child.

Jeff had been adopted too so he understood the concept of wanting to give to a child what our parents had given us.

I spent a huge amount of time scanning the Internet looking through photolistings of adoptable Russian kids. It's illegal in Russia to post the children's pictures on the internet, but at that time it was not highly enforced. Probably a good thing because otherwise I would not have seen Katherine's picture.

She was so cute with her short cropped hair, thick winter sweater and no shoulders.... what more could you ask for? She looked a lot like Jeffrey and Jeff thought the agency was trying to pass a boy off as a girl and hope we wouldn't notice until we got back to the states. (Boys were much harder to place than girls.)

After the agency assured me that she was in fact a girl and that she did indeed have shoulders hiding under there, we started the adoption process in October of 2004.

Paperwork for an international adoption is daunting to the say the least. You need about 500 different pieces of paperwork and each piece must come from an official source. Each source must then be verified that it is official by another official source. This is accomplished by attaching verification stamps and signatures of officials who have been been given the power to use said stamps and make said verifications.

And if that weren't enough, each verification must be further verified by sending the pile of stamps and signatures to the state capital so officials there could further verify the verifications.

And then they charge you $50 each for the pleasure of doing so.

Now Russia has this funny way about them. When they don't like how an agency is being run, they shut it down. Just close the doors and that's that. They eventually get around to reopening it again at their leisure but there is no telling when.

Twice while we were waiting for permission to travel (Russia has to invite you before you are allowed to come over and play) they closed the branch of government responsible for foreign adoptions. They were the ones that would issue something called a "databank release letter". The golden ticket that releases Katherine's name out of the "adoption databank" and makes her available for visitation and possible adoption.

January rolled around with no news of when we could travel.

About this time Russia also decided that they didn't like how we Americans were handling our side of the adoptions so they stopped re-licensing agencies. If your agency still had a valid license then you were fine, but if the license expired while you were in the middle of an adoption, you were screwed. We would be screwed at the end of February.

While I was waiting I met a very nice lady named Cathy who was adopting a little boy, Victor, out of the same orphanage using the same agency that we did. We emailed quite a bit and became friends while waiting to go and meet our kids.

During this time Jeff had been sick for a couple of weeks on and off. First a cold, then a fever, then he developed chest pain. We attributed it to a chest cold and overlooked the fact that it was getting slowly worse.

Two weeks after the pain started, while we were at the Honda dealer buying a new van, he sat down said we better get him to the hospital.

Hours and hours later and moments before they let him leave because they couldn't find anything wrong, a single test came back showing an elevation in heart enzymes, indicating the beginning of a heart attack. They rushed him to ultrasound which showed a piece of plaque had broken off and become lodged in his left descending artery. The lower half of his heart had stopped beating. They immediately inserted a stent and opened up the blockage. The good news was that he had no heart disease or even partially clogged arteries anywhere else.

He spent 4 days in the hospital, 3 in the cardiac care unit. It was a complete blur for us. In the back of my mind I began to wonder if we would be able to go to Russia at all now. We knew we had to get there within the next 4 weeks and I had no idea whether the doctor would let Jeff travel.

I felt selfish to even be thinking of that when he had just been through a life threatening experience. It turned out though that he was thinking about it as well. His nurse pulled me aside one day and told me he kept telling them he had to be OK because he needed to go to Russia and get his little girl.

As it turned out the doctor didn't see any reason to restrict travel. He said the rest of Jeff's heart was in near perfect condition and he should be just fine. So Jeff came home and we began preparation in earnest for our trip.

10 days later Jeff's mom called. His father had had a massive stroke and was in the hospital in a coma. We waited through the weekend and it was obvious that things with his dad were not going to get better. Jeff booked a last minute flight and flew to Vegas for 24 hours to be with his mom. He came home and said things didn't look good but there was nothing we could do and his mom was insistent that we not postpone our trip.

We reluctantly agreed and within a week we received our OK to travel and were on our way to St Petersburg.

Our First Trip

2008-11-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

So the three of us (Jeff, myself and Jeffrey) set off in the dead of winter on our journey.

Jeffrey and some of our 1/2 ton of luggage waiting at LAX

A couple of shots flying over the Rockies:

Landing in Detroit:

Stopover in Amsterdam:

Our plane getting fueled up:

Finally, countless hours after we took off from LA, we landed in St Petersburg Russia.

The lady in passport control glared at me the moment I stepped up to the window. She snatched my passport out of my hand and looked at it for a long time before she looked me, one eyebrow raised. "Eeez theez you?"

I immediately felt guilty. Was that me? Who knows after 16 hours on a plane with a 4 year old. I certainly didn't feel like myself. Or maybe this was a trick question. I couldn't think straight and I stood there with my eyebrows knitted together and one eye twitching. She shoved the passport back across the counter and snatched Jeffrey's from my other hand. She held the passport up to compare the picture to him. She scowled even more deeply and informed me that "Your child eez not dressed to go outside... Eeeez that how you 'ave dressed him for this terrible cold?". I grabbed his sweatshirt from my bag, yanked it over his head and assured her that his winter parka was in the luggage. She shook her head, shoved his passport back over the counter and motioned for me to get out of her sight.

With that fun out of the way we met our translator Natalya (the first friendly face since we landed) near the airport's entrance doors. She presented me with flowers and hugs.

We stepped outside and immediately froze to death. By the time we got to the car Jeffrey was trying to climb under my shirt.

We discovered that we had 1/2 ton of luggage and Natalya only had a 1/4 ton car. It took a lot of juggling, swearing and Jeff's incredible packing skills and we somehow got everything (including ourselves) into the car and we were off.

We arrived at the Renaissance Hotel 6 PM local time. That was 5 AM our time and I had slept less than 2 hours since we left LA over a day ago. I was dizzy with exhaustion.

Jeff said we should stay up another few hours so we could get a regular nights sleep. He said if we did that we would sleep through the night, wake up in the morning and be on Russian time. It was a good practical idea he said. I'm sure he said more but I had fallen asleep next to Jeffrey and missed the rest.

The problem with going to sleep at 5:30 AM (LA time) is that your body wakes you up in the middle of the day (LA time) and wonders why you are sleeping and why on earth it is pitch black outside.

2:30 AM Russia time and I'm sitting up in bed wide awake. 10 minutes later everyone else was awake too. We turned on the lights and began our day. Which consisted of Jeff sitting at our laptop, Jeffrey watching DVDS on the portable player and me reading the current Harry Potter book for the next 4 hours while we waited for the breakfast buffet to open up.

We were the first ones to arrive and we were starving. We hadn't eaten since the last plane ride more than 12 hours before.

The food at the buffet was delicious. It definitely had a European flare with several types of fish and Russian pastries. But they also had eggs, French toast, cereal and fruit. I found a pitcher of milk and poured some over my cereal only to be greeted with lumpy, thick keifer. At least it wasn't milk gone bad as I originally thought.

After breakfast we went back up to the room and spent the next 2 hours unpacking and getting organized while we waited for our driver to pick us up.

When we got down to the lobby, I found Cathy and her daughter waiting for us. It was great to meet her face to face for the first time.

When our driver showed up we all ran through the freezing cold and straight into the large van they had provided for us to travel back and forth to the orphanage. There we met Cathy's husband Mike and son Patrick.

We headed into the city to the MOE (Ministry of Education) where we would receive our official referrals and then off to meet our kids. (In general you aren't supposed to know what child you will be meeting until you get to the MOE, but most adoption agencies find a way around that.)

The ride out to the orphanage was 2 hours and through beautiful snow covered countryside. The van was comfortable and afforded lots of good viewing from the big windows.

First two shots are as we were leaving the city:

This is Natalya in the front seat:

Driving in Russia is always an adventure.

We got a little too close to log truck in front of us but by now I was already learning to close my eyes and hope for the best.

As we got into Kingisepp I took some pictures of the village.

When we finally arrived at the orphanage they escorted us into the tiny directors office. Only our translator spoke English.

They started with Cathy, telling her all about Viktor. Then they turned to us and began telling us about Katherine (Katya in Russian). Suddenly there was a commotion in the hallway, Cathy looked up and said "OH here they are..."

I couldn't see anything from where I was sitting but I felt myself begin to cry. So much for holding it together. They marched both kids into the room and there she was.

My first thought was that she didn't look anything like the picture I had seen and she was so skinny. Like pictures of the kids they show you on the "Feed the Children" commercials. She dutifully walked over to me, turned her back and waited to be picked up. I scooted her up on to my lap and I could feel every rib through her dress.

Before I even had a chance to get a good look at her, they took her hand, pulled her off my lap and led her out of the room.

They began to apologize right away and said that there was something that had not been written in her files and that we should know about it right away. They said she had been exposed to TB 2 years before and that they understood that it was a serious matter and again were very sorry that we had come all this way without knowing that. They said it would be possible for us to meet another child but they did not want us to see her again if we decided to do that because it would be very hard for her to understand.

All this being passed from the director through the translator to us.

At first I was surprised but having read about it I knew it was a common occurrence with Eastern European adopted kids and not as big a deal to us in the America.

We told them of course we still wanted to meet her and they brought her back into the room where she marched up to me and starting talking very earnestly and pointing at her hair. Natalya laughed and said "she is telling you she wants to grow long hair."

Natalya told her I said she could have long hair and she burst into another long string of happy chatter and then spent the next hour and half stringing beads, coloring and playing with some of the toys we brought for her.

Here is a shot of Victor:

Soon it was time for us to go, but we told her that we would be back tomorrow.

When we arrived next day, they told us we could take the kids out for a walk in the town. They sent along 2 of the older girls from the orphanage next door as our guides. Very sweet girls who were already 16 and past the age that they could be adopted.

They gave us a sled for Jeffrey so he didn't have to walk in the snow and we set out to see some sites.

Jeffrey prepared for the cold (and this still wasn't warm enough).

They took us to the top of a hill where the children from the town had created a sledding slope and were careening down the hill on small soggy pieces of cardboard.

It was fast, dangerous, life threatening and wet. The kids couldn't wait to do it.

You can just see the end of the ice slope on the lower right of the picture:

Katherine, looking like the little boy from Christmas Story who couldn't put his arms down, was the first to to go flying down the ice slope. She pushed off and went airborne before reconnecting with the ground, flipped over and slid the rest of the way down the hill on her back.

Apparently this was the correct way to do it because everyone in the group applauded. Viktor and Jeffrey went next, both becoming airborne before landing on body parts other than their bottoms and arriving at the bottom head first.

Much cheering and applause from the crowd.

After many runs down the hill it was time to head back.

Before we reached the orphanage, Natalya suggested we stop at a cafe for some lunch. It had been almost nine hours since we had eaten so that sounded really good.

The place we went to was a little hole in the wall with 2 rooms and giant fireplace in the back.

Natalya read us the menu and we decided on soup and a sandwich which turned out to be a small piece of bread with a pickle and 2 slices of salami. I liked it better than I thought I would and the soup was fantastic.

Natalya ordered the kids a piece of layer cake. It didn't even hit the table before Viktor starting eating. It was gone before Katherine even got hers.

When hers arrived she stared at the cake without touching it. We kept saying Eat.. Eat! She would smile but wouldn't touch it. Finally she took a small bite and then the cake was gone in a flash.

Natalya told us this was a treat that they never got in the orphanage and it was also the first time for them in a restaurant.

I took Katherine to the bathroom while we were there and discovered that bathroom etiquette is quite different in Russia. First there is no toilet seat. Just a cold dirty toilet bottom which she had no trouble perching herself on top of while her hands touched the inside of the rim. ICK ICK!

Then of course there is the issue of toilet paper. Most people in Russia don't use it. She looked at me like I was crazy when I tore off a piece of the brown roughage and tried to get her to wipe her under parts with it. I figured we'd work on that later.

We spent quite a bit more time sitting around the tables next to the fire talking and laughing. It was very surreal knowing we were 100 miles from anywhere in a small village in Northern Russia.

Finally it came time to leave and all too soon we were back in the directors office getting ready to go home.

As we were packing our stuff Katherine began to talk to me... chattering on and on in Russian. Natalya said she wanted a picture of us together. The director took a picture with her own camera and printed it out and then we took two with a Polaroid Cathy had brought. Katherine smiled and tucked the pictures into the family photo album I left for her so she could look at pictures of us and our house while we were gone for the next who knew how long.

We took a few for ourselves. We had to wake Jeffrey up... can you tell?

Suddenly the social worker was there gathering Katherine's things and leading her out of the room. She pulled away and came and looked up at my face and said something very seriously. I looked to Natalya who said "She wants mama to come back... " Tears pooled in my eyes. She smiled and leaned up for a kiss. I leaned down to kiss her and then she went to Jeff and kissed him on the cheek and left.

"She certainly has taken to you" Natalya said.

I looked up and saw Jeff standing with his back to the group looking out the window with tears trickling down his face. I somehow made it the van, sniffling and wiping my eyes before I completely broke down and cried.

The trip back was a blur and I think all of us slept most of the way.

The next day we went to the notary to sign the acceptance papers and then stopped at a little retro looking cafe not too far from our hotel.

That night I went down to hotel gift shop to get some small souvenirs to bring back for the other kids.

The shop was small and filled with some very expensive looking things. But the prices didn't seem overly expensive. As a matter of fact most of them seemed down right reasonable.

This is where I like to say all the traveling and time change and stress and lack of sleep all came into play and clouded my otherwise intelligent mind.

I walked through the store feeling positively giddy that all the things were priced within reason and chose generously. Several nesting dolls, 2 crystal key chains and a crystal with a beautiful ballerina lazered into the center.

I took the things to the counter where the well-dressed lady asked if wanted the total in rubles or euros.

Well, rubles I suppose, I mean after all...that's what they were marked in wasn't it? We WERE in Russia so I naturally assumed that all the prices had been marked in rubles.

She rang up my purchases and the total came out to 4200 rubles.

OH NO.... hang on a second.... 4200? That's, um, let's see. I was desperately trying to do the math in my head but seemed to have lost all ability to think. But unfortunately I hadn't lost enough of the ability because my brain was quickly doing the calculations and coming to an answer that I didn't like very much.

It turned out the prices were marked in Euros and Rubles were marked in tiny little print up in the corner of the price tag. Who bothers to read the fine print?

The items I thought were $5 each were actually closer to $30.

I stuttered and stammered and basically stood there with a stupid look on my face. The lady behind the counter asked if I was OK. I was too embarrassed to tell her my mistake, so I simply handed over my credit card, said Thank You shot out of there before I bought anything else.

My little shopping expedition had totaled 150 AMERICAN dollars.

You can bet the kids weren't getting their hands on those $50 nesting dolls.

I figured I wouldn't say anything to Jeff until he got the bill and by then I was hoping I could think of a better excuse than I couldn't read the price tag.

The next morning at 4 AM our driver arrived to pick us up in a black Mercedes sedan and whisked us to the airport through the dark and quiet streets of St Petersburg. I felt like I was in an old spy movie with the mist hanging low along the roads and our driver hunkered down in his seat with his hat pulled down over his eyes.

When we got to the airport it was closed. I wasn't aware that entire airports could close, but apparently I don't know everything. It finally opened at 5 AM and after going through a rather questionable security check (which amounted to them asking me if I had any weapons, taking my word for it and waving me on) we boarded our plane and were on our way home.

We stopped in Frankfurt where they confiscated my nail clippers. Everyone also got a huge kick out of the fact that our last name is Zucker which means Sugar in German. I began to humor them by acting surprised and laughing along. It had to be a better reaction then shouting "YES I KNOW... Everyone in the freakin' airport has told me that already!". I guess it was good they took my nail clippers. Who knows what I might have done.

From there we flew on to Detroit where we went through customs and then had some time to eat and relax for about an hour. I took Jeffrey to the food court while Jeff made some phone calls now that our cel phones worked again.

I came back with sandwiches, cookies and drinks. Jeff was looking out the window quietly.

"Hi" I said.

"Hi" he said.

"So did you get in touch with everyone?"

"Yes."

"Is everything OK?"

He turned to look at me with tears in his eye.

"He's gone."

I knew immediately that he meant his father had passed away. We had been keeping in contact with his mom and uncle via e-mail during the time we were gone and knew things looked very bad.

I'm sorry was all I could manage to say.

I looked around us. 100's of people milling around, some trying to get seats, some talking and laughing. Completely unaware of what we were feeling. I couldn't bring myself to let go and cry.

Jeff looked at me and I looked at him and we hugged and tried to shut out the world for just a moment.

They called us for boarding and we got swept up in the mass of people and before we knew it we were taking off on our last plane ride home.

I got a beautiful shot out the window as we were flying and imagined Pa-pa Teddy out there waving and telling me everything was going to be OK.

Back Home and Waiting

2008-11-22T19:38:00.000-08:00

The weekend we got home we had to unpack from one trip and immediately pack to go to Las Vegas for the funeral.

Here are a few shots of our group while we there. We stayed at the Excalibur which has a great buffet.

Erin, Jeffrey, Alex and Kevin:

Kevin and Alex:

Sarah, Emily and Grandma:

Erin and Jeffrey:

We went to the huge indoor aquarium at one of the hotels.
Aunt Robyn is all the way on the right.

I was jet lagged and cranky but by the time we got home again 5 days later we had re-adjusted to our own time zone.

Thus began 2 months of waiting for Russia to grant us a court date. 2 months of checking my emails daily hoping for some news. Any news.

All I got for the most part were emails telling me I needed another piece of paperwork. More verifying the previously verified.

And one thing after another.

Jeff's passport was expiring. We didn't want to have to redo his passport because our coordinator told us if we redid it, then it would have a different number (she was wrong) and it would cause too many paperwork snafus for the Russian government. Russian adoption is one big snafu from start to finish so we didn't need to add any new ones. But we were worried we couldn't secure a visa because there are rules that say you cannot get a visa if you don't have a certain amount of time left on your passport before it expires.

In the end, after much sweating, hair pulling and worrying we were granted a visa. I don't know how, but thank you "Russian Connections Travel Agency" and whatever connections you have that got it approved. I am quite sure some money must have exchanged hands for this to have gone through.

I finally received word that we had been granted a court date for Tuesday April 12th and purchased plane tickets accordingly only to have it changed on April 10th to the following Friday, April 15th.

We changed our plane tickets which of course cost a fortune, but it simply would have cost more to stay in the hotel for those extra days.

Monday, before we were set to leave on Tuesday, I got an email telling me the Russian judge wanted 2 more pieces of paperwork. I spent the better part of the day scrambling to get the paperwork I needed, getting them notarized and taking them to the county to have them certified, verified and stamped with blood (well it felt like it).

We were in downtown LA getting the last official stamp put on them on the way to the airport on Tuesday. Talk about cutting it close.

As we sat on the plane I simply could not believe that we were on our way. I spent quite a bit of the ride worried that I had forgotten something.

Thankfully that turned out not to the case.

The Second Trip ~~ Back in the USSR

2008-11-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

This trip included Jeff, myself, Emily (our 16 year old) and of course Jeffrey. Here we are someplace in Europe waiting for our next flight. (You can tell I was tired before we even started because I couldn't remember where we were, but I think it's probably Paris).

Flying somewhere over Europe:

And here we are landing in St Petersburg... notice all the fires? The people there burn the fields every year to get rid of debris and overgrown grasses. Makes for lovely air quality.

When you've been traveling for the better part of 24 hours on several different planes, any destination seems a good one. Even Russia. We arrived tired and cranky and ready to go back home.

We were shuffled through customs and Jeffery and I were separated from the others into a different line. Somehow we got through our line very quickly and collected our luggage only to find ourselves sitting with it for quite awhile before the others appeared.

In retrospect, I should have figured something was wrong when we were fast tracked through the line without the usual signing of paperwork. One might ask why I did not mention this to the customs official but wasn't that supposed to be HER job... to make sure I get everything right?

We met up with our driver who was sent from the agency and he drove us to the same hotel we used last trip. As I was checking in, I got the first hint something was wrong. The man at the desk asked why neither Jeffery's nor my passport had the correct form stapled to them and why they were not stamped correctly.

In my travels through Russia I had perfected the clueless blank stare. I used it often. Now seemed like a good time to try it out again.

The man behind the counter said I couldn't even check into the hotel without these things. He called the manager over and there was much discussion in Russian. I continued to practice my new look, with a heaping helping of innocent victim thrown in for good measure. I think I just looked sick. The manager kept looking over at me (maybe he was worried I was gong to throw up) and finally shrugged his shoulders and stamped the passports himself and said "OK no problem".

I'm not sure why people say "no problem" when it's really not true. It gives one a sense of false security.

Unfortunately the false security didn't last very long because when we saw Natalya the next morning and gave her our passports, she flipped out.

"Why don't you have a immigration slip? Did you lose it? And where is the immigration stamp? Why don't you have an immigration stamp?"

"The lady going through immigration just didn't give me one. The man at the desk stamped my passport though, see right there.. He said OK no problem". I didn't feel I needed my clueless stare this morning because I actually had answers. OK, they weren't the right answers, but at least I had some.

I have come to realize that living in a free country like America your entire life does not prepare you well for going someplace that is not.

Natalya was almost in tears. "You don't understand... they can come and take you out of the country without a slip stapled in your passport showing you went through immigration correctly."

Well isn't that nice.....

Natalya said this is something the immigration people do from time to time. They seem to enjoy the thought of how many poor unsuspecting foreigners were not going to be able to check into their hotels or get harassed by the police because their passports were not processed correctly.

The Russians have a sense of humor after all.

We had to postpone everything we had planned that day to deal with this issue which kept becoming worse and worse as the day progressed.

First we went to the airport and Natalya used a "customer service" phone at one of the counters. Clearly the Russian "customer service" department did not get the memo that when someone uses this line, someone on the other end is supposed to HELP them. A man answered and Natalya explained the situation and asked the man if they could PLEASE stamp my passport correctly .

He laughed and said "Why would we want to do that". (Seriously, that's what he said).

Then he added "If she does not have the right stamp in her passport she has 24 hours to leave the country or be in violation of the law" and hung up.

I felt like I was going to pass out and Natalya started crying. When we got back out to the car, no one needed to ask how things were going.

Our next step was the American Embassy. I had to try to explain to the person behind the counter that No, I did not sneak through immigration, No, I did not lose my paperwork and No, I have no idea why I did not have the right form stapled inside my passport. Honestly people, I am just as clueless and stupid as I sound. Jet lag and humorous immigration officials will do that an otherwise intelligent person.

There was a lot of talking in hushed voices, scowling looks and wandering back and forth by the people behind the counters. Eventually they gave me the correct form, filled out by an official at the embassy. I was warned that since it did not have the immigration stamp that can only be given at the airport someone could get technical about it and have the police come and take me out of the country. But not to worry... no one would probably even notice.

Yeah right...

When my passport was going to be inspected by how many people in the next few days as we tried to complete this adoption?

My head was swimming, but at this point there was nothing to do but keep moving forward and hope for the best.

Oh yeah, and prepare for the worst.

After all that nonsense, we needed a break. So we drove the 2 hours out to Kingisepp to visit Katherine for the first time in 2 months.

We brought bubbles which were a huge hit.

Dig that fancy bow!

They would not let us see any part of the orphanage other than the entrance hallway and directors office until we had the adoption papers in hand. Here is Jeffrey near the front door.

As we were leaving, kids from Katherine's group were peeking out at us from their day room window. In the second picture you can see a few of them with their hands up by the eyes making circles, asking us to take pictures of them. It was rather heartbreaking knowing they had to stay and I couldn't take them all home with me.

So back at the hotel and trying to talk myself into the feeling that everything would be OK, we watched some very exciting Russian television. Of course I can only guess that it was exciting since I couldn't understand a word of it. I never did understand why one of the more fancy hotels in St Pete did not have any English programming on their TVs.

I was preparing for court the next day when Natalya called.

She was very sorry. Really it wasn't her fault. Really Really she was sorry! (That is never a good thing to hear before you even know what is coming).

Court had been postponed from Friday to Monday. The judge wanted to look over the paperwork again.

Honestly, how interesting can these documents be? The need to read them 20 times over seems to be a good excuse to make the parents sweat and wait. and wait. and wait. and spend more money on hotel rooms and food.

So instead of going through court and bringing Katherine home the next day, we had 3 days to do absolutely nothing, except wait and worry.

On Saturday we figured we might as well go out and explore since there is only so much Russian language TV you can watch. Since we were in walking distance of the Hermitage we decided to go for a visit.

The area was filled with beautiful buildings and statues.
I wish I had taken more pictures.

We even saw a man who had a baby bear walking on a leash.
You don't see that everyday!

We went inside, paid for our tickets and had to leave all of our belongings at a coat check. I could have paid to bring my camera along but didn't find that out until later.

It was breath-taking. I loved the Egyptian section and Emily loved the galleries of art from the Renaissance. Jeffery on the other hand loved all the fancy padded chairs they had in each room for the docents to sit on. He loved the chairs so much he tried to climb in each one of them that didn't have a docent sitting in it. He did this by putting the sole of his shoe on the fabric to give himself a leg up. This caused the docent to have a Russian melt-down... it wasn't pretty.

We made our way through the museum, leaving a wake of disgruntled museum employees in our wake. We cut our visit shorter than we would have liked, but to be fair to the 4 year old, we were asking him to behave himself in a boring old museum in the middle of his night.

He fell asleep on Jeff's shoulder as we were walking back to the hotel.

We spent the rest of the weekend watching television which included Homer Simpson having a bad day in Russian which was funny even if you couldn't understand it.

We ate a lot of room service and spent time browsing the mini market next door trying to figure out what was in each package. It was hit or miss as to what you might get. There were packages of stinky cheese that were cleverly disguised as sweet fancy desserts . We learned to figure those out pretty quick. Every time we went into the store, the lady behind the counter spent most of her time staring at us, craning her neck as went out of view and whispering behind her hand to the other employee.

We also spent some time sitting on our window seat looking out over the city. Here is the view from our bedroom window.

We also ventured out a bit to the local McDonald's. I had to guess at what we wanted and I'm not sure that I got what I ordered in the first place.

The walk to and from the hotel was impressive.

This was outside our hotel.
You can just see the mini Market with the Coke sign next door.

When we got back to our street there had been a car accident. I am surprised I didn't see more of this with they drive here.

Soon enough the weekend was over and Court Monday dawned early and cold. My stomach was in knots and I was not sure I was going to be able to make it through the day.

Court Day

2008-11-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

Monday morning I couldn't eat breakfast I was so nervous. That says a lot, because there are very few things that cause me not to eat. I was sure that we would get a call telling us the hearing had been canceled again.

But when no call came, we headed downstairs (leaving Emily and Jeffrey behind) and met our driver. This time instead of the the shiny new Mercedes van he brought last time, this van was about 30 years old and looked like it could barely limp along. At that point I didn't care as long as it got us to where we were going. We arrived at a building so old and run down that I didn't think it could possibly be the court. I was wrong. Natalya met us with our court translator in the lobby and we went in through a turnstile, up a small staircase and into a skinny long hallway. We stopped at the first door and everyone was talking very quickly in Russian and gathering documents.

Other people arrived and milled around.

We were all squeezed into a very small area off the hallway and everyone was pacing back and forth and looking very nervous. This did not help my sense of dread that the judge would deny our petition and we would go home empty handed. I just wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.

Suddenly the door cracked open and I could see the judges chair and desk and just enough room for the prosecutor, secretary, the 2 ladies from the orphanage, us and our translator. It was tight squeeze as we filed in.

We stood around waiting for what seemed like an eternity, (probably closer to 10 minutes) until the judge came in through a back door. She was all business and began right away without even looking our direction. She spent a lot of time reading each paper out loud and our translator repeated everything to us.

She finally looked up from her paperwork and asked which one of us would like to talk about why we wanted to adopt. Jeff stood up and recited a somewhat rehearsed speech about how we were both adopted and wanted to do give a child the gift of a home that our parents had given us. She asked if we were "both in agreement" with this adoption and we said yes.

Then she started the questions about our finances. She asked if we could afford another child, if we planned on paying for her education and if we expected our income to stay the same. Then she questioned the ladies from the orphanage who said they thought she was a good match for our family and that we interacted well together.

They stressed the fact she had been exposed to TB over and over again, saying that no Russian family would want her because of this. The judge asked if any Russian parents had shown any interest in her and the director said not ever. The judge asked if there was a possibility any Russian family would take her and the directors once again said no Russian family would want her because of her TB exposure and that she desperately needed to be in a family as soon as possible with "good food and vitamins". They said they believed we could give this to her.

The judge asked me to stand and asked about Chris who was in the Air Force. She asked how long he was in for and if when he got out he would come to live with us. She told me I could sit down and that was the end of my participation.

Then she asked the prosecutor to give her opinion of the proceedings and she said all the paperwork was in order and she was in favor of granting the adoption.

The judge stood, said she would consider our request left the room.

Another 10 minutes that seemed like an eternity passed before she returned.

She began reading paperwork out loud again, repeating everything that had been said previously.

As soon as she finished she closed her files and said "All Finished" and stood up and left the room.

I looked around practicing my blank stare again.

The translator was smiling and said Congratulations.

It was so anticlimactic....nothing like I had imagined. I imagined that when this moment came, I would break down and cry but instead all I felt was this overwhelming relief and uncontrollable desire to get out the hell out of there.

When we left the court we went straight down the street to the MOE where we were signed off of the list of prospective adoptive parents. We were official now.

Here is a picture of a building across from the court house. I couldn't get a full view but the top was certainly impressive.

We went back to the hotel, changed out of our fancy court clothes into comfy go for a long car ride clothes, picked up Emily and Jeffery and headed for the orphanage. We stopped along the way to eat then settled in for the 2 hour drive.

Here is a one of the big government buildings as we were heading out of the city:

And here is a picture of a grocery store and bus stop in one of the villages we drove through. You purchased your items through the little window on the left.

On the way we got pulled over by the police who were carrying machine guns. They asked our driver what our business was and he showed them papers and they let us continue.

Once in the village we went to a local office with treacherous stairs to pick up her new birth certificate and the certificate of adoption. Everything was ready as soon as we arrived so I suspect that the adoption had been approved even before the court proceeding because with as long as things take in Russia, I didn't think they could have had it all done in the few hours since court was over.

Then onto the orphanage.
Here is a shot of the front door:

There they brought her to us and we changed her into going home clothes. They always joke that when you adopt a Russian child that's all you get. One skinny naked little kid. Nothing leaves the orphanage, especially clothes.

The director was quite impressed that we brought her jeans and tennis shoes that lit up.

We finally got to go upstairs to see where she had been living. Their day room was quite large and had a parakeet, fish tank, lots of plants, a small TV, several couches and some tables and chairs.

Here are she and Jeffrey with most of the other kids in her group.

We brought goodie bags for each kid and I had Katherine pass them out to each of her friends. They opened them up and ate the chocolate first.

Katherine was the only girl with longer hair. As soon as the director knows that a little girl is going to go home, she lets them start to grow their hair longer. All the other little girls had their hair cut very very short. One little girl was sick and not allowed out of bed. We took a goodie bag to her and she was so happy.

Off the day room was their bedroom where all 12 of them slept. Katherine is sitting on her bed.

These pictures are of their bathroom:

Emily and I were fighting tears as we were getting ready to leave looking at the kids and wishing we could take them all.

Soon it was time to leave and the caretakers where holding Katherine and kissing her and she was wiping her tears and trying to hide the fact she was crying.

But by the time we got to the van she was smiling and climbing in without looking back.

Here is Natalya (red hair) saying good bye to the director (on the right) and the translator (in the middle).

On the way back to the city, our driver got pulled over again.....more police with machine guns. This time they said he was speeding. There was no way he was speeding considering the number of people who passed us like we were standing still. Our driver simply got out of the car, took out his wallet and handed the officer some money. The officer nodded and waved him away. The whole thing took about 3 minutes.
Natalya said it saves time for the drivers to pay the fines on the spot. The police do the paperwork later back at the station. Jeff leaned over to me and whispered, "The only paperwork that gets done back at the station is counting how much money they each made that day".

As we continued on, Katherine ate almost a whole bag of cheese puffs. Within about 15 minutes she looked pale and ill. We stopped the van and took her out to get some air and when we got back in she laid down and fell asleep.

She woke up as we got back to the city but continued to lay down and she looked very sad and quiet. I misinterpreted her silence as sadness for leaving the only home she had known for the past 2 years.

As we pulled up the hotel and were getting out, she turned a pretty shade of green and puked all over herself, the back of the van and sidewalk.

She looked up at me and smiled.

OK now she felt better.

I apologized to the driver and tried to wipe up the back seat but he said that it was OK and that most kids threw up at some point along the way because they weren't used to car travel. At least I knew why he brought the old ugly van for this trip.

When we got her up to the hotel room and changed her clothes, she suddenly opened up and starting chattering away in Russian and smiling and chasing Jeffery all over the place. All my worries that she was sad disappeared as she giggled and laughed and tried every knob, drawer and remote control in the room.

She had more spaghetti for dinner than I thought she could possibly fit in her stomach. When it was bedtime she wouldn't sleep in the pull out bed with Emily so I folded one of the thick bed quilts and put it on the floor next to my side of the bed and she slept there.

We all fell asleep exhausted. I simply could not believe that we had gotten this far.

Moscow ~~ Leaving St Pete behind

2008-11-19T13:51:00.000-08:00

Once we made it back to the hotel from the orphanage our hope was that we would get Katherine's passport the next day and take the midnight train to Moscow. As with everything else Russian, it didn't go as planned.

It used to be that our coordinator could just take all the papers into the passport office and go back and pick up the completed passport herself. They had changed the rules within the last few weeks so after she went in waited and waited to give the paperwork to the lady who normally helps her, she discovered that lady was out of the office for 2 days and the only other person there was not willing to make any allowances because of the new rules.

So she had to come back and get Jeff and take him to the office and they both got to wait some more. And wait. And wait. And wait. All the way to 5 o'clock when the office closed only to be told it was not ready and please come back tomorrow.

One more night in the hotel. (I don't even want to say how much each night was costing us).

The next day Jeff went again at 11 AM and waited some more.

We were hoping everything would be done early enough so we could take the 4PM express train into Moscow that day.

Finally at 1:30 Jeff called me and said he gotten the passport and was on his way to get the train tickets but as soon as he got back I would have to go with Natalya's husband to get Katherine's visa photo. Natalya was in court that day for a couple who were adopting 2 kids and she couldn't take us herself.

As soon as Jeff got back I took Katherine and went to find the photographers with Mr. Natalya (unfortunately I do not remember his name).

It turned out to be the same as everything else on this trip... utterly frustrating. Apparently he knew what street it was on but did not know which photo place it was. And there were many. After he parked (half on the street, half on the sidewalk) we went to 5 different places before we found the correct one. It didn't take very long but by the time we were on the way back to the hotel, it was almost 3 and our train was leaving at 4.

Back at the hotel there was a frenzy of activity trying to check out, get our luggage into the van and get us to the train station through the hideous traffic on time.

We got to the station at 3:50. Jeff looked at our tickets said at least we're in train car #1.

I was smiling at our stroke of good luck.

Right up until we got onto the platform and saw that the first car was #40. Our car was someone in the far distance..And they don't allow you onto the train unless it is the car you have a ticket for.

We started walking, then jogging, then running to keep up with Natalya's husband who had 2 of our bags and was sprinting into the distance. It's amazing how fast you can move when you have no choice.

Jeffrey however wanted no part of hustling. He became dead weight, trying to sit down or turn around and go back. There was one brief moment I thought OK kid, you wanna stay in Russia, go for it.

But instead I scooped him up and tucked him under one arm, rolling luggage in both hands and a back pack thrown over my shoulder and traded him back and forth with Emily as we raced towards the end of the train. There was no one left on the platform by the time we reached the last car and our lungs were burning from lack of oxygen.

We hoisted all of our belongings into the car just as they were sliding the doors shut. We entered the main seating area and to our horror discovered every one of our 5 seats was separated from each another. The lady who sold Jeff the tickets assured him they were together. "Together" being a relative term possibly meaning on same the train.

With my chest heaving and Jeffrey complaining (same tune, different day), we stood there looking lost. My ticket placed me next to a older lady who, when she saw me coming, pushed all her belongings into what was supposed to be my seat and turned to look out the window.

A very nice man, noticing our predicament stood up and gave me his seat which was next to one of the kids seats and I sat there and while the 2 little ones shared one seat next to me. The man in turn shoved the rude lady's bags aside and sat where I was supposed to sit. Jeff sat up front and Emily sat in the back next to young man who spoke some English and they spent the entire ride talking.

For the next 5 hours, Jeffrey let me know that he had had enough of Russia and cooperating and sitting still and being locked in a hotel room. He slide in and out of his seat, ran back and forth between his seat and his fathers, twirled his rubber blinking star ball around dangerously close to the lady across the aisle and basically made himself as disagreeable as possible. I spent a large portion of time trying to disappear into the seat cushions.

Unfortunately I did not fit.

We finally arrived in Moscow at 9 PM and was met by our next coordinator Oksana and 2 drivers who carted us and all of our 1/2 ton of luggage to the Rossiya Hotel.

The front desk was run by typical Russian employees. They answered you when they felt like it and ignored you the rest of the time.

We had to get 2 rooms, one for us and the little kids and one for Emily. Our rooms were directly across from St Basil's Cathedral. I was so exhausted and wanting to go home that I only managed to take a couple of pictures of it.

The windows in the room were huge and practically went all the way down to the floor AND there was no screen. Fortunately it was very hard to work the mechanism and they opened in, not out. I made sure I wouldn't show the kids that they opened at all so they didn't want fiddle with them.

The beds were simply 2 twins pushed together which was bad news for Jeffrey who likes to sleep between us. He ended up sleeping with Katherine on the other end of the cot that they had brought in. He woke up once in the middle of the night, crawled in bed with us and when we woke up we found him stuffed upside down into the crack. As Jeff picked him up to move him back, he said he wanted to go home to his own bed. You and me both kid.

In the morning I called Emily's room and she did not answer. I went down the hall and banged on her door. She did not answer. I decided she must have been asleep with her headphones on so the 4 of us headed out in search of the breakfast buffet. I was told it was on the 21st floor. I discovered that the elevator only went up to the 12th floor. Jeff insisted I didn't know what I was talking about and that there was no 21st floor.

I went to the front desk and finally got someone to pay attention to me and she told me that only the far elevators in the back of the hotel go to the 21st floor and when I get there turn left twice. (HA! see I told you I knew what I was talking about!)

When we got to the 21st floor there was a wall directly to the left.

As I stood staring at the wall waiting for it to open up and let me through, a very nice English gentleman directed me to take 2 RIGHTS and said we could find restaurant that way. Without his help I might still be standing there today.

The breakfast buffet was extremely Russian without a lot for Jeffrey to choose from so he ended up with bread and butter. Katherine ate some mystery meat patties with rice.

As I was standing in the juice line, a man waiting ahead of me started to shake and stagger around. He was holding a glass of juice which he threw into the air as he stiffened up and pitched backward hitting his head squarely on one of tables. It was very surreal and I watched as several people looked down at him, look at each other then step over him and continue to get the rest of their breakfast.

Two waiters hurried over to the man who was completely passed out on the floor. I went back to the table and told Jeff what happened just as an Asian man came over to us and asked if Jeff was a doctor. We said no and he continued on trying to find someone to help.

When we got up to leave and I poked my head around the corner to where it had happened and the man was still laying there except he was snoring heavily.

Jeff said sometimes when a person has a seizure they fall asleep afterwards.

It was quite an experience and left me feeling a little weird thinking that I couldn't get a hold of Emily. I tried to call her again when we got back to the room and still no answer. We both went down and banged on her door, loudly. I was beginning to feel a slow panic thinking maybe she had fallen out her window and was laying unconscious in the bushes below. (She had opened the window the night before to let in the crisp cool air and was sitting perched on the window seat enjoying the view and freezing air when I left her).

Or maybe she had fallen and hit her head and was knocked unconscious on the floor. (As you can see the stress of the trip and the lack of sleep was taking a toll on my rational thought).

We had the necessary doctors appointment at 9 AM so we had to leave whether we could get a hold of her or not. We packed ourselves and the 2 kids together and went down to the lobby to wait for our ride. I still felt a sense of dread not being able to contact her. I was at the point that if I finally got a hold of her and she wasn't actually horribly wounded, she certainly would be by the time I was done with her.

I decided to try one more time to call her and went to the front desk where I used a house phone. The phone rang and rang and rang. I figured I had nothing better to do while we waited for our ride so I let it ring at least 20 times imagining that she was laying on the floor reaching in desperation for the phone unable to get up and just as I was about to hang up and I got a very tired, groggy voice saying "Hullo?"

"OH MY GOD you're alive!" I shouted. The lady at the desk looked up and frowned.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"What's up? You're kidding right?? Where have you been?"

"Sleeping...where else would I be?"

"I've called you a hundred times and banged on your door and I was worried sick"

"I didn't hear anything"

"No kidding. So you're OK right?"

"Yup....."

Believe me if she was standing in front me, she might not be as well as she thinks.

But at least I was able to go to the doctors appointment without that worry on my mind.

Moscow ~~ The last of the last

2008-11-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

Our ride showed up and we were off to the medical exam. We arrived at what looked like a large apartment building and inside there was a long line that I gratefully found out had nothing to do with us. We wove through a couple of hallways to the office.

Inside there were several families already waiting to see the doctor. We took seats and Oksana went and talked to the desk.

It wasn't long before we were called in and the doctor had Katherine strip down to her undies and he put her up on the table. He weighed her on a baby scale, just having her sit in the little baby holder.

"5 years old and 31 pounds" he proclaimed. "Oh she's a skinny mini".

He chatted with her in Russian while he ran his hands up and down and pushed and prodded on her, all the while pretending to look for her tickle spots. She giggled a lot.

He proclaimed her very healthy but said her tonsils were a little swollen. We said she had been coughing a little. A nurse came in and took her away for a chest x-ray that would tell us definitively about what sort of exposure she had had to TB.

We went out to the waiting room so I could spend time worrying that maybe she still had TB and they wouldn't let her leave the country. Or maybe her lungs had been badly damaged.

Jeffrey was sliding in and out of his seat and looking for something to do when he suddenly struck up a conversation with another adoptive parent who was holding her one year old baby. Jeffrey made faces and pretended to be a monkey making the baby smile.

I was just thinking was a sweet boy he was when he suddenly turned to me and said "Mommy, isn't that an ugly baby?"

I checked to see if the floor would open up and swallow me. No such luck.

Jeff began apologizing and I tried to tell Jeffrey that that wasn't a nice thing to say.

"But Mommy, it IS an ugly baby isn't it."

No way kid, you're not dragging me into this conversation.

The mother was so nice about it. She smiled and said "Oh well WE think he's cute".

Thankfully she got called at that moment into the exam room. As I was about to scold Jeffrey again he happily struck up another conversation with a different family, this time however without placing judgment on their child's looks.

The X-ray came back shortly and the doctor looked it over and said that any concern for her having TB was overblown . He said her lungs were clear and healthy. Finally something to smile about today.

We went back to the hotel and met up with Emily. Fortunately for her I was still in a state of relief from the doctors visit and abandoned any thought of throttling her. We decided to have a celebratory lunch at their Japanese restaurant "Tokyo" in the hotel lobby. It was delicious.

At 1:30 our driver showed up again and took just the 3 of us (me, Jeff and Katherine) to the American Embassy for the final paperwork. Emily stayed with Jeffery in the room.

Oksana was not allowed to come with us into the building so we went in alone.

Inside we paid for her visa and then sat and waited. We talked to several other families. Two of them were also bringing home older children. One family was picking up their 7 year old daughter who they had hosted the previous summer and another family was bringing home 2 girls who were probably about 9 and 12. They said "We're older so we started older". Its nice to see the older ones going home.

At exactly 2 PM a very American young man came out and explained what we were about to be given and what we had to do with the paperwork. He said as soon as the plane touched the ground in the United States our kids would become citizens. Then he said to watch for our number and step up to the window.

We were the second to be called at the first window. I was expecting an interview or at least for them to ask us questions. I thought this was still a hurdle to overcome.

But it was nothing like that. All they did was give us the paperwork and made sure we knew what to do with it. The young American man was the one who helped us. He reminded us 10 times not to open the manila envelope, that it was to be given to the INS in New York. He said if it was open when we got there they would send us back to Russia. Then he said he wasn't joking.

At this point I didn't even want to breathe on the envelope because as soon as I was outta this country, there was no way I was coming back. I handed it to Jeff and told him not lose it or let me touch it.

The whole thing took about 5 minutes and before we knew it we were back in the car and heading for the hotel.

Our driver dropped us off and told us they would be back to get us at 9 AM the next morning to take us to the airport.

At first when we got back to the room I was gung ho to go sight seeing. Until I looked out the window and saw it was snowing.

Since I didn't have the clothes or the stamina to face the weather, we settled down and watched Aladdin and Shrek 2 on the DVD player we brought and hooked up to the TV.

By dinner we were pretty hungry but didn't want to spend too much since lunch had been a small fortune.

At both ends of each even numbered floor there was a small cafe. Each was different. After checking out a few of them, we found only one on our floor had a menu with some English.

I asked first if they took Visa (yes) then asked if the prices were marked in rubles. I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice... no way... THIS time I was ahead of the game!

Yes the girl said... those are rubles. WOW I thought... only $5 for entrees.

We ate well and the food was delicious. I couldn't get over the prices. 120 rubles for an large delicious salmon steak.

The kids got restless and since Emily joined us late and I hadn't finished yet I sent Jeff back to the room with them and Em and I stayed for a bit.

I asked for the check and when it came it seemed rather high. I paid but kept looking at the bill trying to figure out how she over charged me. I gave Jeff the itemized receipt when we got back to the room and asked him to figure it out.

He looked at me and said "Well.. yes the salmon was 120 rubles..... Remember when you asked her about the price, if it was in rubles and she said Yes but then pointed to the other side of the menu where there was another number and said 'And that's grams'? Well she didn't make it clear that the rubles were per 100 grams, not that the food was only 100 grams."

So they charged me 120 Rubles ($5) for each gram of food I ordered.

Well I found a way to do it again.

Paid way more than I wanted to. The quick bite to eat, so we didn't have to spend too much ended up costing us over $100. Each plate that I thought cost about $5 actually cost $20 each. And that was $20 for each of kids chicken dinners too.

Live and Learn.

The problem was I thought I had learned already.

**SIGH**

Pictures....

2008-11-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

These were taken the first week she got home (all 33 pounds of her).

Note the missing tooth.. we never did find out how she had it knocked out.
We had the other front one pulled not too long after this because it was damaged as well.

We took her to Build a Bear and she was a bit overwhelmed and didn't want to pick anything but after a bit of encouraging she ended up choosing the pink poodle and loving it.

Her first trip to Disneyland with 2 brothers, cousin, & Chip & Dale

This is at a Bar Mitzvah about a month after she got home.
She was so shy when we got there but she finally warmed up (obviously).

Emily liked to dress her up and take pictures:

And here we have before and after:

2004 (5 years old) & 2010 (11 years old).

Looking good!!