Visas ... everywhere you want to be

Today we took the children to the US Embassy to have the immigration visas processed. Once they arrive on US soil, they will officially have dual citizenship and will retain dual citizenship until the time they are 18, at which time they chose what they wish to do.

The Embassy holds processing every day at 2 p.m. We had to pass through two sets of armed guards, a security scanner, and a pat down to get inside. We walked in this little holding area with about 16 other US parents adopting, including three who had stayed at our hotel in Novosibirsk. We're told that because Russia has been reaccrediting agencies and many have not been reaccredited yet -- like ours -- that 16 families a day is a very small number; normally there may be closer to 50 families in here.

There was nothing major or eventful during the processing, just signing paperwork, and then being handed everything on the children to take with us ... their Russian passports with visas inside, birth certificates, etc...

It was like being in a nursery. Kids were crying, running around, parents chasing them ... Yana and Ruslan behaved fairly well considering the chaos.

We can't post any photos of our visit at the Embassy because they don't permit photos on the premises.

Only a few hours more

It's 2 a.m. and Fran and I are up, trying to finish some of the last things to prepare for traveling in a few hours. We get picked up at 9:30 a.m. to go to the Moscow airport. Our flight leaves at 1:25 pm and gets into JFK at about 3:30 p.m. (Yeah ... a two-hour flight .... no wait, there's that darn time difference). We then have a 8 pm flight out of JFK to Denver (5-6 hours) which gets in at about 11 p.m. We then rent a car and try to start the overnight drive to Rapid City (6 hours) and see how far we get before we need to stop and rest.

My sleeping habits are so screwed up, this trip may just get me right back in line and sorted out.

We've packed the baby Benadryl to keep the kids 'comfortable' on the plane.

I think we're going to wish we had bought adult Benadryl.

Marking the visit: Who knows if we/they will ever return

A few photos from our picture days in Moscow.
- Fran and Yana waiting in the hotel lobby for our translator to arrive. Yana always seems to know when a camera is on her.
- The family in front of the Hotel Ukraina, a gorgeous massive castle-like hotel with classic Russian architecture.
- The family on the bridge which overlooks both St. Basil's Cathedral (on right) and the Kremlin (on the left).
- In front of St. Basil's Cathedral. Not eberyone in the family seemed to know the photo was being shot, and took time to admire other people as they walked by.

Scenes from Moscow

= Mikel with the children waiting in the lobby of the Hotel Ukraine.
= Yana and Ruslan looking out the window of the 17th floor hotel room at the skyline of Moscow.
- The doctor examines Yana and her height during his visit Sunday morning.
- The kids have their first bath, and love the water ... or at least splashing mama with it.

Leaving Novosibirsk

Top photo: Daddy and the children all enjoying a drink from their sippy cups after a long, difficult road navigating our way through the Novosibirsk airport terminal with four pieces of luggage, two carryons, and two other carryons (the kids).
Lower photo: Anna, our agency translator, poses with us outside the Novosibirsk airport before sending us off to Moscow ... and probably breathing a deep sigh of relief that we were gone.

Daddy's trying to adjust, but it's taking time

It hasn't been easy the last couple days for me here.

Not only have I not slept through the night since I arrived, I got that cold early last week and have felt either under the weather, doped up on meds, and always tired a lot of the trip.

Then the children arrived.

At first everything was fine. But after the third night in a cramped hotel room with them and all the things associated with two small kids, I was struggling with my nerves. This is a stressful time for any adoptive parent, but adopting two and then being stuck in foreign hotel rooms for what will be nearly a week is difficult.

I had a bad night Saturday and worse Sunday with nerves and stress. I'm sure my body is pretty broken down anyway, given the sleep and health issues ... but I found myself awake at night wondering if this was the right thing after all. I never wanted to grow old and not have experienced being a father -- and I so desperately wanted Fran to be a mother -- but I questioned Sunday night whether I was the right kind of person to be a father. I'm organized, neat, have low tolerance for disobedience (probbably a trait I got my from my father), and tend to avoid chaos and loud situations. I knew that children weren't any of these things, but perhaps getting them both at the same time, being stuck in a hotel room with little place to go to find a little peace occasionally, and my health all had me second-guessing everything.

Probably what triggered my reaction the most was Yana's occassional bad behavior. I watched her misbehave -- hit her brother, throw something, do something she was told not to do -- and then not follow directions from Fran, which I found completely unacceptable ... although I knew she was only 2. But I think as I watched her go through these things, II remember what our doctor told us Sunday morning at the hotel, that she has a mother who drank and though she doesn't have FAS she may have FAE ... but it was way too soon to know. we felt that due to her intelligence, she was likely to have little or no effects from her nother's drinking, but he warned us that intelligence has nothing to fo with whether a child will wind up with some instances of FAE.

I guess that just stuck with me for a long time Sunday as I watched Yana. For most of the day, she was fine, but then she'd have a moment or two where she'd need a timeout, and she didn't seem to understand that she had done something wrong. Again, that's the way it is with 2-year-olds, I just hadn't been around them much. And so I thought we had adopted a child who suddenly was exhibiting all the symptoms of a child with long-term behavioral issues -- after we had our court date and it was too late to change our mind.

Her behavior had me so wound up with stress, that I was sick from it Sunday night. What had we done? I had all these horrible thoughts that tormented me. I was sick and emotionally a wreck. I woke Fran up in the middle of the night to talk about it.

But then something happened Monday. Fran spoke with me about her experience with her 2-year-old nephew, who did the same things as Yana only worse. She shared with me information from medical journals on 2-year-old behavior, and that everything Yana was doing was perfectly normal for an even healthy child ... they just go through these things. And Yana on Monday didn't have such a bad day. The word 'no' started to sink in a little more, she didn't push or shove her little brother, and actually did a ton of things to help her brother and her parents through their day. Yes, she did have a couple of timeout moments again, but not as many as Sunday. And I began to look at these acts as less a signal of FAE and more of a natual stage for a two year old.

I'm feeling better today. I'm still awake in the middle of the night, still not eating well, feeling claustrophobic.

But I'm not as worried about Yana. And that's helping me adjust to the chaos a little better.

I'm still not sure how I am going to adjust to all the things that children present that are contrary to the way I like to live my life. But I'm guessing I'm not the first dad to feel that way.

And I have Fran to help me make it through.

Doctors make house calls

In order to schedule an appt with the US Embassy for the children's final papers to enter the US, they need medical checks done here. The doctor comes to your hotel (7 a.m. Sunday), which is nice and convenient.

He checked over both children and gave them a thumbs up. He cautioned that Ruslan may have a lazy eye, but didn't think his respiratory problems were more than a cold. He confirmed that Yana had scabies so we gave her some of the steroid cream that doctors in the States had given us. It is contagious and its possible she could have passed it on to Ruslan, and even us. We won't know for three weeks. Scabies is a common issue here with orphanage children. The doctor also noted that Yana is a little short on the growth chart and seems to have rickets (nobby knees, bow legs), but that it's so mild and common, that just more Vitamin D in her diet should take care of that easily.

No, we didn't get lost

It took us awhile to find a way, but we managed to get online so that y'all wouldn't think that we wound up lost in Siberia.

The kids adjusted to the four hour plane ride from Novo to Moscow fairly well. Probably nothing more than just a car ride for them. Ruslan slept the first two hours, Yana the second two hours after some fussiness and whining ... I'm learning what I heard so many other parents say when kids act up "Looks like somebody is ready for their nap." Couldn't be more true. Their behavior seems to get a bit more unruly the longer they are up.

We're staying in the Hotel Ukraine, which is a huge old-style Russian hotel with massice ceilings, chandeliers, ballrooms ... just gorgeous. It got high marks for being very affordable and nice ($125) and it hasn't disappointed. Thankfully the room, with their tall ceilings and larger living space, give us all the feeling of space here so that it's not quite as claustophobic.

On Sunday, our driver and translator took us out to get photos in the Red Square with the children, and do a little shopping. Today, we did very little except play in the room. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we have a 2 p.m. appointment with the officials at the US Embassy, to get their VISAs etc...

And on Wednesday, we leave for the US. It will take us more than a day to get home, but it's one trip I can't wait to take.

I'm ready to come home.

Y'all may find this funny, but someone's gonna pay for dressing me up like this when I get older. Just you wait

Mom, dad: If you think this is acting up ... just wait

Everybody's smiles, until it's time for sleep

Arriving at the hotel with bundles of joy

Scenes from Novosibirsk

Photos of the hotel, the KGB school in the city (yellow building), the dept store where we shopped a lot, the cafeteria style restaurant which Anna took us to to celebrate our adoption after court, the sign to Cherepanov (which always signaled to us that our two-hour trip to the baby home ws almost over ... all cities in this region have these type of large signs), the view from our window of the hotel this week after their first snow of the lonng winter season, the poor neighborhoods here in Russia, and the local arena which hosts the circus and other events (such as Spiderman something or other, as you can tell by the sign.

Next stop: Moscow

Our next stop is Moscow this morning, where we take the kids on their first plane trip, a practice 4-hour trip for what will be the final exam Wednesday -- the 9-hour flight from Moscow to NY, followed by a 5-hour flight from NY to Denver, followed by a 5-hour drive from Denver to Rapid City. This is not the trip we originally planned, but when the court changes happened five days before we were supposed tobe in Russia, it was the best we could do without having to take out a second mortgage on this adoption.

We are staying at the Hotel Ukraina, at least that is the plan, but we are hoping they provide cribs, breakfast, and Internet access, so we can keep communicating. If you don't hear from us for a bit, don't worry. we'll find a way to post, even if it means going somewhere else.

My last blogs from the Hotel Sibir

Sitting on the second floor near the conference rooms, all alone as usual in the middle of the night, because I haven't been able to master sleeping past 1 a.m. in Russia, I post my last few blogs from this hotel and this city.

I am surprised I couldn't sleep better after our first full day with the children. Whew.

The passport photos and breakfast this morning was a nice diversion, as Fran mentioned below, because otherwise we spent most of the time in that 12x16 room with those two wide-eyed, wide awake, not-so-wide vocabulary children of ours.

And daddy even got his first moment to care for the both of them alone. And it was an unmitigated failure.

Fran went downstairs to get some things at the gift shop in our lobby, and I told her sure, I can watch the two of them. How hard can it be?

Immediately as Fran left, Yana went to the door and started crying for her 'momma' to come back. She wanted nothing to doo with daddy for the next 20 minutes, even though daddy pulled out all the stops, using food, toys, games, songs, music ... anything to appease her (in the future, $20 and daddy's car keys may work, but for now ...).

So I finally decided that I couldn't be a public embarrassment on the entire eighth floor of the hotel -- I knew everyone could hear her -- and I went and picked her up, since she wasn't coming to me (perhaps it's because daddy's been wearing some of the same clothes for a week?)

She continued to cry as I tried to bounce her and cajole her, and at the same time watch Ruslan, who had now decided he wantged to go for a walk around the bed mattress. So I had my head on a swivel, trying to keep her quiet, and keep him from .....

,,,, too late.

Suddenly Ruslan, who had innocently been trying to scale Mount Pillow, lost his footing on the precipice, and slipped well to the side, and started to fall head first toward the floor.

with one hand, I quickly reached out to catch him while still gripping Yana, who had stopped crying for a moment to watch her foolishly uncoordinated brother.

I Caught Ruslan and kept him from heading head first tot he floor, but his momentum still mad ehim swing back toward the bed, where he conked his head on the bed frame.

For a moment, there was complete silence.

For Ruslan, his shock and fall were still sinking in to his little brain.

For Yana, she was trying to remember if she had ever been as stupid as her bbrother to try and walk on a mattress before she was even able to walk on a floor well.

For me, I was wondering how hard he had hit his head and about to breathe a sigh of relief when ...

... waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.

Ruslan, now realizing he had hit his head, and it probably hurt, and while it was entirely his fault for climbing without a chaperone, daddy could be held responsible by momma and social services, he decided to wail. And wail. Mouth wide open.

So as I sat on thhe edge of the bed, and Ruslan sat on my left knee bawling his little eyes out, Yana -- the innocent observer to this point -- was on my right knee staring at her brother. and being a girl who has to mimic everything she sees ...

... you guessed it.

So there is daddy, his first full day of parenting, his first time having the kids alone, sitting on the edge of the bed with each children crying on each of his knees.

And of course, that's just when momma returns from downstairs. She looks at me, I look at her, and I can't help but laugh a little. This was an Adam Sandler movie moment right in our little hotel room.

If this were a test, well let's just say I failed miserably.

But I also know the classes have just begun, and I have nowhere to go but up.

Last call in Novo

It's our last night in Novosibirsk, but more poignantly it's our children's last night in this region of Siberia where they were born. We'll spend four more nights in Moscow, and then they'll head to their new forever home in America.

Our plane, S7 or Sibir Air or Siberia Airlines -- take your pick on what you want to call it -- leaves at 10:35 a.m.

Today we took the children to get their visa photos. Yana showed her sweet face to the photographer. But, as Ruslan was considering crying during the photo shoot, his visa photo will forever show a furrowed brow.

We enjoyed our first family meal at a table this morning (Yesterday, we fed the children on the bed in our room.) Ruslan sat in the high chair and Yana fed herself while sitting in the regular chair. They both ate a lot: strawberry yogurt, some kind of warm cereal, cheese, bologna and juice. Not too many messes and no spills. Pretty good, we thought.

Opening Day. Let's Play Two

An assortment of images from the first day of the rest of our lives (sorry for the small size, but the Wifi cards here cost $8 and are used up pretty quickly when we post images. We've been going through nearly two a day it seems lately).

Among these pics:
- A photo of us with Yana in the square of Cherepanov, in front of a statue of Lenin. We're told nearly town in Russia has a statue of Lenin. So if the country has a love affair with their former dictator, why then change the name of his city Leningrad, to St. Petersburg?
= A photo of Ruslan in tears as he is getting dressed by Fran and being held by one of his caregivers at baby Home No. 2 before he left.
- Mom playing with Ruslan and Yana on the hotel room bed, which has become the play area, eat area, sleep area, changing area of the hotel room, since there is no other area.
- Yana smiling as she is getting dressed by momma prior to her prison break.
- Mom in the car, introducing Yana to her new Strawberry Shortcake shoes, which met with Yana's approval and therefore made this whole babysnatching thing from her home OK by her. Give a woman a pair of shoes, you can take them anywhere.
- Tea and cake in the office of the senior doctor in Cherepanov, apparently a tradition when parents show up to take a child with them from a home. either that or an excuse to get American couples to buy expensive cake for you. On the right are our agency rep Anna, and our agency contact who flew in from Seattle, Jamie.
- The pile of graft, er bribes, we gifts we had to pack up for our trip Thursday. Fran made gift bags for the chocolate and the coffe which went to senior doctors, assistant senior doctors, social workers, social studies teachers, caregivers, staff, the homeless people we passed on the way, the Kremlin, Gorbachev ... I think we bought something for everyone in the country.

Scabies, bronchitis, head rocking ... what's wrong?

No one ever expects to pick up completely healthy, problem-free children from a Russian institution, especially those which are so poor as the ones Yana was in. and both kids have some medical issues we need to deal with, and some which popped up while we've had them.

Yana has what looks to be a bit of a rash on her lower back and on her chest. we took pictures and sent them to our international adoption doctor, who suggested it is not likely scabies, but to watch for squiggly lines of a rash ... which I think she has on her back. (Could be she was allergic to the new American clothes she wore on her ride home ... her body prefers the passed-around garments in the orphanage?) The doctors we hired sent us overseas with a series of filled prescriptions for many emergencies, from head lice to scabies to eye infections.

Ruslan we know had bronchitis in his first year at the baby home, and doesn't breathe very clearly ata ll. In fact, many times, he almost purrs like a cat, due to some type of congestion in his chest. He also is rocking his head back and forth fairly fast when he is laid down for a nap, and does so for nearly a minute, which is kind of frightening, but may be just his way of rocking himself to sleep. We're not sure, but we'll watch him.

Teddy Grahams, goldfish and yogurt. Welcome to a well-rounded American child's diet

We didn't get a lot of information regarding what to feed the children, though apparently Yana's baby home fed her six times a day, which would explain her porridge belly. Mom has some Teddy Grahams, Goldfish, and some yogurt in the room, as well as some apple juice in sippy cups (It took us a little while to get Yana to understand she needed to suck on those things to get the juice to come out, but now that she knows, she won't let go of the darn cup. Ruslan still hasn't quite mastered it, so mom takes the lid off and he pours it into his mouth the old-fashioned, adult way).

Both kids can feed themselves with the finger food, though this morning we will take them down to the hotel for their first breakfast at a table, so we'll see how they perform under the glaring lights of public introspection.

Needless to say, dad is loving their diet, because it's as close to laying on the couch with the remote, a bag of Dortos and a Coke as he has gotten in a long time. and for right now, snack foods for dinner are sanctioned and temporarily approved by momma, so daddy is sharing in the goldfish and the teddys.

They're finally with us. Now what?

So, there we all were, back in the hotel room after picking up the children, the four of us on the bed, all staring at each other, wondering:

"Now what?"

They brought up two cribs and put them in our room which was tiny as it was, but we stacked their hotel furtniture in a corner and have somehow made room. I'm sure the kids are saying to themselves, "Geez, you break us out of the orphanage, and bring us here? we had more room in the baby home? This is supposed to be a better life?"

After crying before he left the baby home, Ruslan was perfect the rest of the evening, his demeanor switching between docile to waterbug. Yana, however, who we had never seen cry in all of our visits to the baby home, and who had never cried on the two-hour trip back from Cherepanov, now decided to showcase her vocal skills. It may have had something to do with a rash she seems to have on her back and chest, or it could be mom and dad's parenting skills.

We tried to put both children down for a nap at about 4 p.m., more for our sake than theirs, but they had gone without their usual 12-3 nap. But apparently "putting the child down" is not as easy as the phrase suggests. We figured just by putting them in the crib, they would immediately lay down and go to sleep.

Hah.

Ruslan began trying to climb out, and thought it was pretty funny how his momma nearly had a heart attack every time he got his leg up and nearly over the top.

Yana, meanwhile, let us know that being penned up in a crib was not her idea of a good time. she also showed us that she is a much better and more connsistent crier than her brother. She belted out a cry which lasted over an hour. Fran tried to read to her, sing to her, speak to her in Russian, ignore her, stroke her back ... nothing seemed to help. Finally Fran gave up and went into the bathroom and then began cleaning up the room ... and Yana laid down and fell asleep, probbably out of sheer exhaustion.

I then tried something novel to get ruslan to sleep. I layed him down in the crib, and tucked him in. All of sudden, he went from jungle monkey to sleeping child in a second.

Amazing.

We let them sleep for an hour and half, for us to catch our breath, then momma fed them and we let them play kinda late so that they would fall asleep and sleep through the night. Well it's 4 a.m. and they are still sleeping, so that's a good sign.

What a first day. And not even a full first day.

Don't tell me every day is going to be this exhausting?

Looking back. Looking forward.

How do you explain this whole journey, from the day that you decided you wanted to stop with the hundreds and hundreds of dollars which seemed to be thrown away on fertility treatments which were not covered by health insurance, embarrassing and turning our love life into a biology experiement, from that moment that you didn't want to risk $10,000 on an invitro treatment which would only have about a 28 percent success rate for a couple our age and risk utter devastation of both the heart and bank account if it failed, the moment when you pretty much give up on having biological children and therefore children which will never look like you, never have your beautiful wife's features (and perhaps thankfully none of yours).

It was the moment when we decided we would invest our entire savings, all that we had saved and worked for, into a pair of children and a process which seemed to take forever -- though only 22 months -- and feels like it ended today, even though we know there is still some journey left.

We finally made it past all the highs and lows..
...the huge list of paperwork,
...the endless times we needed a notary,
... all the letters of recommendation,
...the two separate trips to be fingerprinted in both Syracuse and Auburn because the process took so long that the first clearances expired,
the months of research we did in selecting an agency and a region to adopt from.
...the health requirement procedure which changed three times during the process,
...the fact that twice during this process Russia put all agencies through a reaccreditation which hed upp the process for months (and our agency has not been reaccredited yet, and therefore we are adopting as independents)
the weekly phone calls from our agency rep in Seattle.
the day in March when we turned down a referral for a boy, because we had wanted a boy and girl and it cost us 5 more months of waiting.
...the fees, fees, fees, which at some point, you just can't think about, because you don't want to know and -- in the end -- it won't matter.
...the new job, and our worry that it would somehow adversely affect our adoption or set it back even longer ... so we didn't list our house until after our first trip to ensure our home address would remain the same in Russia (though it winds up costing us duplicate rents in the coming months).
the first referral we received for a girl, that we agonized over and cried over in a hotel room here in Siberia, before deciding to reject her.
...the second referral, which our doctor said had an above average risk for some type of fetal alcohol exposure due to her mother's drinking habits, and her low birth weight. We decided to take a chance on Yana, because of her huge increase in weight, and head circumference, and our visit with her in which she impressed us with her intelligence.
...the three schedule changes in booking our flights for our second trip, which cost us hundreds of dollars in change fees with the airlines.
...and the nerve-wrecking court date.

Today, as I write this, we have two beautiful children sleeping in their cribs in our hotel room upstairs.

Was it all worth it?

Yes it was.

But what a journey.

And what a new journey ahead.

Kids: Meet momma and poppa.

And just like that, our old lives are gone, replaced with two children and a whole lifetime of new types of issues, joys, concerns and moments.

We started the morning traveling the two hours to Cherepanov to pick up Yana. But first we needed to make sure we had gifts for the senior doctor (the magic $9 coffee), the social worker (coffee), the assistant doctor (box of chocolate), the caregivers (a bigger boc of chocolate), the social studies teacher (less expensive box of choclate), and the staff (a cake).

When we arrived, the senior doctor had us in her office and served up the cake and tea and we had a little tea party in her office, celebrating the adoption.

Then they brought in Yana, and Fran changed her out of her orphanage clothes -- which all the children share -- and into her spiffy super-sized clothes from the US. Yana seemed even more excited by the new clothes, and probbably knew something was up, because she started to bounce around the room.

It was then time to go, and the senior doctor walked us out, and we got into the taxi van. Yana didn't cry, just seemed to take it all in, staring at everything. She settled down in an instant, I think stunned and amazed at the sequence of events. She probbably had sledom been outside the baby home, much less in a car. In fact the last time she probably traveled in a car was a year ago when she was first admitted to the baby home, after being taken from her mother for neglect.

And so everything was new. She handled the two-hour drive back to Novosbirsk well, going through momma's baby bag to try and find something she wanted to play with, and after the excitement was too much, she fell asleep in my arm for about a half-hour.

We had to stop off on the way to get Ruslan to buy another cake for his staff, to go along with the coffee we had for the senior doctor and the chocolate we had for their caregivers and their social studies teacher (apparently these teachers have a lot to do with the adoption process ... either that, or our agency rep just wanted to get them some chocolate on our dime).

when we arrived, we brought Yana in to meet her brother. She wasn't impressed. Ruslan began crying the moment he saw us and all during the time that he was being changed into our clothes by the caregivers. I was only happy that the caregivers don't speak English, because otherwise they may have said "Boy, don't you have any idea how small this child is. These clothes are HUGE."

Ruslan's spirits seemed to pick up as soon as we left the baby home (why wouldn't it, right?). He was still sniffling when we got in the car, but soon he was looking out the window at all the cars and the people and probably blown away by it all. He was given up by his mother at birth in the hospital, so you can just imagine how he must have felt when he finally left the baby home grounds.

Shock, stunned, amazed, thrilled, concerned, anticipation ...

... actually that was the way his parent felt.

As we were driving back to the hotel with both these little bundles of joy in our arms, Fran and I looked at each other probably wondering "What have we gotten ourselves into?", not knowing if we were going to be able to figure this whole parenting thing out quick enough, and honestly not sure if it still felt real yet.

Surreal, yes.

We gotta get outta this place. If it's the last thing we ever do/

The first reaction from many parents here once they get their kids is excitement, joy, relief ...

Their second reaction is:

Now get us the heck out of here.

And so once you gget the children, you wind up in a cramped Siberian hotel room. Great joy followed immediately by great claustrophobia.

The key to leaving Novosibirsk is the passport for the children. To get the passport for the children, you must have their adoption and birth certificates. And so there's this mad sprint by your agency reps to get it all done.

Some American adopting couples who had court a day earlier than us have already left (Pictured in this blog is single mom Meg and her sister Elizabeth and their new boy, and Dave and Jackie and their new girl). They got their passports within 36 hours of their court appearance. A couple of others here at the hotel were told by their agency that they would get their passports Thursday, because that's the only day that passports are distributed.

In theory, that is the law. But what we've found in Russia, the laws are made to be bent if you have the right agency rep with the right contacts .. and carrying either chocolates or coffee. Like cigarettes in prison -- which seems like a fair analogy after a week here in Sibera -- you can get just about anything with a little bribe.

In fact, the passport office is 'technically' closed to visitors on Wednesdays, but thanks to the magic of Platinum Instant Coffer in the 1 pound glass jar, the door to their offices magically opened just enough to allow our agency rep to sneak in Wednesday afternoon, give them all of our certificates for the children, and promise us we would have the passports by Friday. That means we have booked a flight out of Novosibirsk on Saturday morning, and will wait in Moscow until our Tuesday immigration visit at the US Embassy Tuesday.

So while two couples who had court last week, have waited seven days to get their passports, we will have ours in 3 days.

I'm bringing some of this magic coffee back to the States.Maybe I can get a bigger tax return if I just send the IRS a jar ...

No training wheels, no test run

Due to the issues Fran relayed in her previous post, we decided to pick up both children today. We leave at 8 a.m. for the two-hour drive to Cherepanov to pick up Yana, then return to Novosibirsk to pick up Ruslan.

Our rep had offered that maybe we shoulod pick up Yana today and Ruslan tomorrow, so that we get Yana accustomed to 'life on the outside' before introducing a second child into our lives -- and our 12x16 hotel room. But after Wednesday's disappointment, WE JUST WANT OUR KIDS.

So no warm ups. No 24-hour gradualk indoctrination into parenthood. No dipping one toe into the water (No more bad euphemisms)...

We're diving in. Both kids at the same time. Bring 'em on. Fran and I have been waiting what seems like a lifetime for this. We're ready.

I think.

Not 100 percent but what else is there to do at 3 a.m.

After feeling miserable and getting worse through the day Wednesday, I finally got some sleep from about 5 p.m. on, thanks to a variety of things, from throat drops, spray, nasal spray, multisymptom drinks and antibiotics. Bad news is, it''s 3 a.m. and I've had about 10 hours of sleep so I'm fairly awake. Still feeling poorly, but not as poorly as yesterday.

Amazing thing: In Russia yhou can get antiobiotics without a prescription as long as you press the issue with the pharmacist. In addition, a five-day supply of penicillin, which is what I think I have, was less than $20. In the States, it would cost $60 even with health insurance coverage.

Of course, since I don't understand the language, maybe it's not penicillin and its some kind of hormonal treatment they gave their Olympic women's swim team here in the 1970s. So if I return to the States weighing 30 pounds more and with a beard, you'll know.

Now Filling in for Mikel

Zdrostvoytye from Russia. No, you’re not dreaming. Indeed, there is already something suspicious about today’s post. We all know Mikel has admitted he knows no Russian.

MiNYA zaVUT Fran, and I’m the substitute blogger today. Let me go ahead and offer up front my apologies about not being as funny as my husband.

Sadly, Mikel is under the weather AND we don’t have our children yet. He just took three kinds of medicines and went to bed (at 4:15 p.m.). It was important for him that we post, so I told him I might could figure out how to do this.

We don’t have our children yet (we were only scheduled to pick up Yana today anyway) because the representative from our adoption agency’s main office in the states (Seattle) flew in this morning, and her plane was delayed two hours (she’d been needing to return to Russia and wanted to shadow one of her families). Actually, our lack of children in tow is due to a confluence of factors, that being the main one. We needed to be back in the city of Novosibirsk at 2 p.m. to get some papers to one of the government offices to speed up the children’s passports. Yana’s baby home is two hours from Novosibirsk one way (otherwise we could have done it), and we couldn’t pick her up after our 2 p.m. appointment, as the baby home director must be there so that we can sign papers with her, and she leaves at 3 p.m. Whew.

We considered picking up Ruslan only today and Yana tomorrow but were steered away from this because our representatives felt like Ruslan would not be all too happy about traveling two hours one way in a car and then practically turning right around for another two-hour drive. And we didn’t want to have to hire a babysitter for the little guy or have one parent stay with him while only one picks up Yana.

For sure, we’ll get them both tomorrow! After the delay, we said “Nyet” to the idea of getting Yana on Thursday and Ruslan on Friday.

So, here we are with one more night as just us. It’s probably for the best, as Mikel is feeling worse and got about zero hours of sleep. I found four hours of sleep and then got up for the day with him at 3:30 a.m.

We ended up visiting with Ruslan for a couple hours this afternoon and then traveling to the necessary government offices to get his adoption certificate and his birth certificate and then to get some things notarized.

Today, Ruslan’s attitude toward us was vastly improved, though still not as happy-go-lucky as toward the end of our first trip to Russia one month ago. No crying today, though he seriously considered it a few times. Ditto with the happy faces. He did seem to enjoy banging on the piano, and he also demanded to be helped down the slide many times once Mikel introduced him to it. He also loved flipping through a large cloth Elmo book I’d brought along.

On our way back to the hotel, we had the driver stop off at the Anteka, or pharmacy, where our translator helped up figure out what Mikel needed. When I was at the supermarket yesterday getting food for the kids (What fun trying to figure out exactly what you’re buying when you can’t read the box! … Among other things, I think I purchased instant mashed potatoes and two types of porridge/hot cereal/oatmeal. I believe I purchased milk, hopefully whole, and I know I purchased yogurt and butter. Strangely, Yana’s diet includes hot tea and butter on bread. I’m not so sure about the tea, but I figure I could spread a thin layer of butter on a piece of bread once a day for consistency’s sake … anything to avoid the diarrhea that another adoptive mother here said she’s battling.). Anyway, in Russia, all medicines are sold in the Anteka, which is either a totally separate building or at least an individual vendor inside, say, a supermarket. All the drugs are behind the counter, so you must ask for what you want. As the lady (was she actually a pharmacist?) did not speak or understand English, it was difficult for me to describe Mikel’s symptoms or ask for a specific kind of drug in Russian. There are no Tylenols or TheraFlus or NyQuils here. So I motioned to a box that showed arrows pointing to a person’s forehead, nose and throat. Pretty good guess, I thought, but it only seemed to totally clog up Mikel’s nasal passages to the point where he couldn’t breathe and, thus, could not sleep a wink.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day. We know it will be for two reasons, anyway.

A compromise

So in order to convince Fran that the photo of her sleeping bed wasn't that bad, I'm posting a cute photo of her with Ruslan. In this one, she has significantly more clothes on.

ALERT: Possible photo removal

As I type this, Fran has looked over my shoulder and noticed that I posted the photo of her sleeping in bed (see below)

"Ohmigod, you can't post that ... you don't know whose reading this ... look at me ... noooo .... everyone's going to think I sleep in the nude ... you just don't know who might see this ... you have to take that one down ... that's not right ..."

So enjoy the photo while you can. It may have to come down soon (though Fran doesn't know how to remove it, so it may stay up longer than she wants).

A quiet celebration

We took this picture with Oksana, who was our translator during the court hearing. Our agency couldn't be present inside of the courtroom (the judge's little office), because we are technically completing this adoption as an independent adoption, because no US adoption agencies are accredited in Russia right now. They changed the rules for all agencies back in June, and only families -- like ours -- whose paperwork was already in the country were allowed to complete their adoptions. But you had to complete the adoption alone when it came to court, and your agency rep couldn't be present.

So Oksana -- who we had met before when she filled in to help our agency with some of our visits -- did all the interpreting during the proceedings. We had a quiet little celebration after in the hallway outside the judge's office, because we haven't seen a lot of Russians smile while we've been in this country, so we doubted celebrating was permitted in the courthouse. It was nice that both the senior doctors from the baby homes came over and congratulated us after the hearing. Quietly.

I'm also posting a picture of the exterior of the courthouse. I was afraid to film much of anything on the inside of the Russian courthouse, for fear of being caught and sentenced to Siberia ... wait, we are in Siberia. What you don't see in this courthouse photo is that there wer two Russian soldiers stationed on either side of the steps leaving into court. I made the safe assumption that they -- like the inside of the courthouse -- would not be photogenic.

How things get done in Russia

After court Tuesday, a few hours after our court hearing, our agency rep showed up at the hotel and told us we must get ready right away and go. She had received the final court documents and we needed to take them over to the Dept of Vital Statistics to get Yana and Ruslan's adoption papers and birth certificates (with our last names). Once those were finished, they then needed to be taken to the passport office -- they need a passport in order to get on a plane and leave Novosibirsk, so the passport is essential. And once we leave Novosibirsk, we go to Moscow and spend a day at the US Embassy where the kids will be examined bby doctors, and have their visas processed, etc...

So we had to make the first step in the paperwork quickly, because our flight back to the US is scheduled for next Wednesday, which means the Embassy visit must occur Tuesday (the US Embassy for some unknown reason is closed the last Monday of each month.)

So our agency rep rushes us off at 4:45 p.m. from the hotel to get us to two different Depts for each each child, each dept on a different side of town. The sooner the adoption papers/birth certificates are done, the faster we can get the passport office our paperwork (and apparently the passport office closes its doors to visitors on Wednesdays. They work, but just don't take kindly to visitors on Wednesdays).

We arrive at the first Dept of Vital Statistics. Our agency rep asks us to wait outside the office, but asks for one of the $9 glass containers of Platinum instant coffee -- a jar about the size of a grapefruit -- which we had bought as gifts for the baby home officials.

A few minutes later she comes out of the office with a smile, and invites us in, where we sit down with a woman from the dept and sign a few papers and PRESTO Yana has her birth certificate done. All it took was 5 minutes.

Instant coffee.

Instant birth certificate.

We left with the paperwork, and left behind the bribe, er, instant coffee with the woman in the dept.

Our rep then rushed back in the taxi and over to the other Vital Statistics Dept. She asked us to wait in the taxi and to give her another of the $9 containers of coffee. After a few minutes, she came back out to the taxi, but this time she still had the coffee.

We would have to wait until 2 p.m. Wednesday to get Ruslan's birth certificate.

Maybe they preferred tea over coffee.

The last moments of freedom

On the last night before the troops arrive, I captured Fran sleeping at 4 a.m. It will be the last time she will be allowed to determine what time she gets to sleep in. She'll thank me for taking this picture in the years to come, although she wasn't very happy at the time I took it.

Our last night of freedom, spent in a hotel lobby with a laptop

This is it. Wednesday at 9 a.m. we leave for Cherepannov to pick up Yana. So by lunchtime she will be with us -- FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES. So this will be the last night that Fran and I will be able to:

Sleep in until whenever we want.
Go to a movie if we feel like it.
Watch a TV show with profanity in the middle of the afternoon.
Watch LSU and Michigan on a Saturday afternoon uninterrupted.
Eat whatever unhealthy dinners or snacks when we want.
Join clubs, play in recreation leagues, sing in choirs, and not worry about how many nights a week the commitment is.
Walk around the house in whatever state of undress we wish.
Let the dog ride in whatever seat he wishes during car rides.
Take midday naps because we're tired or have a headache.
Watch TV soap operas.
Make a impromptu decision and just do it.
Oversleep, but still only need 5 minutes to get ready and leave the house to avoid being late.
Spend money on ourselves, just beacuse we see something that would be neat.
Eat out a couple nights a week.
Not worry about the volume of our voices (although the Dickeys may not have such a thing as an 'indoor voice').
Pass gas and blame it on the dog (well, I guess maybe there are more options for blame now).
Spend a few extra hours at work whenever necessary with no advance notice.
Getting up at any hour of the morning and blogging.

A lifetime of doing what we want, when we want, will come to an end. We're going to have to act like real adults now.

And that's OK. About time we started living for others.

Welcome to our family, just don't get too close to daddy

It's 4:30 in the morning and I can't sleep again. My sinuses, fever, throat, you name it ...

This should be a time of great joy and excitement, and instead it's a time of great psuedrophine HCI and antihistamine.

What makes it worse, is that I have run out of Sudafed and Tylenol Cold medicine, and so we went to the local department store to buy some more medicine, but nothing is in English and the woman selling the meds doesn't speak English. So you just have to guess, based on pictures.

We bought Coldex, which was the only word on the box which resembled a word in English. For all we know, it could have been a ploy by manufacturers to get Americans to purchase the medicine, which may in reality be a laxative.

But that wasn't the end of it. Once we got the box home, we didn;t know how many tablets to take and how often. There are a few numbers on the back of the box, like 4 and 2, but does that mean 2 tablets every 4 hours? Or 1 tablet 2 times a day for 4 days? All the tablets were in a sealed group so the packaging wasn't giving us any clues.

In the end, we decided that a picture is worth a 1,000 words and the cover of the box showed two tablets. So I took two.

And I'm still not feeling well.

But I'm a lot more regular. Maybe it was a laxative after all.

We're Parents!!!!!

1 year, 10 months, and streams of paperwork later ... (and in my case, 43 years) ...

Fran and Mikel are the proud owners of a 2 year old girl and a 1 year old boy.

PARENTS.

The Russian judge officially approved our adoption today at 1 p.m., meaning we can head out to pick up the children Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, we will head to Cherepanov and pick up Yana and spend the evening with her. Call it a subtle adjustment period to the feeling of parenthood, one set of little feet at a time. On Thursday, we will then go to get Ruslan, who based on this week, may be a bit of a handful. So perhaps Yana can talk some sense into her little brother and get him to stop crying so much.

PARENTS.

It's not real yet, because the children are not here yet. But it was such a big relief when the judge approved the adoption. Just the sense that the journey was nearly complete and that this whole long process was nearing an end.

It would be a time to celebrate, if I wasn't feeling so under the weather, but at the very least, I think the eliminating the stress associated with worrying about the court hearing should help.

PARENTS.

In this little room, which really was just the judge's office, there was Fran and I, the translator, head doctors from both the baby homes, social workers from both the baby's hometowns, a court reporter, and a prosecuting attorney, After some initial proceedings, I stood up and gave my impromptu speech on our background, and how we would provide a loving home in a great community to these two children. I had practiced three phrases in Russian to try and impress the judge, but I couldn't even get out a simple "Hello and Good Afternoon" in Russian I was so nervous. So I abandoned the show of good international citizenship and stuck with the language I thought I was better at.

The judge preferred I do all the speaking -- at one point I wanted Fran to answer a question that seemed directed at her, but the judge said 'Nyet, nyet' and motioned her down. Fran did get one moment to add a little more, and spoke about our visits and interaction with the children.

The judge had a few questions for us, which included how we would communicate with children who only knew Russian, and how our home was set up for the babies, and how we would manage financially with Fran quitting her job to stay at home with the children ... but we stumbled through our answers enough to receive approval.

I had to laugh when the baby home officials from Ruslan's orphanage told the judge about how he was really receptive to us ... if you don't count the explosion of tears and cries for the first 10 minutes of every visit, yes, I guess he was receptive.

At the end of the proceedings, and everyone int he room encouraged the judge to "give a positive response" to our petition to adopt, she asked us all to leave the room. Normally a judge may leave chambers and come back with a decision, but this was her office, so we were asked to get out. After 3 minutes she called us back into her office and pronounced that the adoption was approved. It may have been a quick decision because all our paperwork was in order and we would make great parents, or it could be because lunch was a 1 p.m. and Russian government officials don't go late for lunch.

No matter. There we stood, in this cramped little office of a Russian judge, beneath the glaring eyes of a photo of Putin and the Russian flag, we were pronounced proud parents of two children.

Wow.

Judgment Day

It's 3:30 a.m. in the morning, and I'm blogging, partly because I've been feeling a little sick the last couple days, and partlyy because today is our court date, and I just found out I'm supposed to have about a 7-minute speech for the judge, and -- oh by the way -- learning a couple of new phrases in Russian would be a good idea.

Now I've always been one to wait until the last minute to cram for a test, but I usually like to know the test is coming a little sooner. I thought I would just have to answer questions from the judge, not deliver an Atticus Finch-type closing argument in a Russian courtroom.

And they want you to memorize what you're going to say, not read it from a script.

I can't memorize 7 minutes. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.

So I'm wide awake on Sudafed, Pepsi, and nerves. Our court hearing is at noon here. Our adoption rep is coming at 10:30 a.m. to prep us on the court hearing for an hour. They keep telling me that the court hearing is not that big of a deal and not to worry about it, but if it wasn't such a big deal, why would we need to prep for an hour? OJ's lawyers only prepped him for 45 minutes.

If you read no more blogs after today, you'll know that I botched my Russian phrases and said something to the judge like "Your mother wears Russian combat boots." And if that's not considered an insult in this country, maybe something like "All your clothing has Made In China labels" or "You finished fourth in the last Summer Olympics medal count. Who's your daddy?"

Fewer tears. We'll call that progress

Day Three consecutively of visiting Ruslan and he still starts crying as soon as he sees us.

The caregivers told us that it's likely he's afraid of me, because children in baby homes have very little exposure to men. Well, Ruslan better start adjusting ... otherwise when he comes to me asking for the car keys, I'm going to start crying. I'll show him.

He is crying less each day, which I guess is a good sign, but he's been pretty inactive each day, unlike our first visit in September when he was a little terror. I think this is a good thing, because it'll save us hundreds of dollars in baby Ridalin, and it means father and son can share some quiet bonding time each day just laying on the couch in front of the TV, watching Michigan football, Survivor, and Family Guy.

Momma thinks he's been a bit of a lump these last few days and wants a bit more action from him. I've told him that if he just lays there and nods his head but then then continues to lay there and look sad and helpless, eventually momma will leave him alone. That works for daddy.

You're either cute or you're not. A bow isn't going to make the difference

So on Monday, the caregivers at the Cherepanov baby home decided to dress up Yana with a bow in her hair. Yana was supposed to be getting her passport photos Monday and we think that's why they did it, but that seems sort of criminal. we all know how bad our driver's license photos are, and we actually have a choice in how we prepare ourselves for the camera at the department of motor vehicles.

This poor child had no choice. She got a big red bow on her head, as if she was some of Red Rider BB Gun all wrapped up and placed under the Christmas tree.

Not to mention that Yana is a little follicle-challenged for a 2-year-old, and so they had very little to work with on top, pulling the few strands on her Homer Simpson head together to use with the bow. They may have been better off just roping it beneath her chin.

This all begs the question: With this bow included in her passport photo, will they recognize her at customs now, or will we have to take that darn baby home bow with us and place it on her head until the immigration officials say "Oh, OK, yeah that's her. Hardly recognized her without the bow."

'Not as big' is all relative

We couldn't post just Ruslan's modeling of the menswear without showing you Monday's session of Yana's runway show entitled "That's not too bad is it?"

Her coat may pass, unlike Ruslan's, and the great thing is she'll be able to wear it to college as well. For now, we'll have her wear it to the grocery store to help us shoplift, because we should be able to hide at least a side of beef under her jacket without the checkout ladies noticing.

Her pants length, pictured above, is well ... pretty bad. But we may have no choice, since clothing over here is so expensive. She'll look like Little Orphan Annie for a few days, but the good news is, she and momma can fit into the same clothes, and that saves poppa some money.

When Ruslan's happy, the whole house is happy

It took a super long telephoto lens, extreme quiet, and hiding amid the weeds and in the tall grass for seven hours, but we were able to catch this rare image of Ruslan smiling this week.

We expect People Magazine, the National Enquirer, and US Weekly to bid very high for the rights to this exclusive phhoto.