Mama and Papa

We are parents!!! It is Tuesday morning at 8:21. We are at the Sheremetyevo-2 Hotel at the Business Center. Just finished breakfast and will soon be on the shuttle to the airport terminal for our 12:30 flight.

It was an exciting day yesterday. We had the pleasure of sharing the experience with another couple Keir and Nathan from Ft Collins area of Colorado. We had back to back court appearances and both went well. They are now the proud parents of two children from the Klintsy home where our Bethany lives. We visited Bethany on Saturday. When they visited their kids on Sunday, the caretaker brought Bethany in the room with their kids. She knows their boy.

We'll fill you in on court details later when we get home. We are pleased that others here are happy with this adoption. Especially with Olga our facilitator and the orphanage director at Karachev. It is rewarding to receive their good wishes for us and our children.

The update below is what we tried to post from the Bryansk post office (and later form a laptop mobile phone connection) with no luck. (Just to keep things in order!)

Monday 3/5, a.m. -- A lot has happened since the last update. Some leisurely, some whirlwind. We only have a few minutes for this update while our driver helps us at the Bryansk post office, so we'll be brief and give more details later. We are now minutes away from our appearance in court. We expect all will go smoothly, as we believe that Olga has worked very hard ahead of time to insure that. We got a little lost finding the right place at the clinic for our physicals on Friday, but once there it was a very simple process. All the doctors that examined us were together in one room with us and Olga. It lasted only a few minutes, then we waited awhile for the individual psychological exams which were short. We passed!

Going through the same process that morning were three other couples, and a single mom, from the US. We got a chance to talk with most. One couple also working with Olga and our agency are Keir and Nathan and we've had dinner with them a couple of times in Bryansk. It's been great sharing our stories with each other.

We visited Bethany on Saturday afternoon. The ride was almost three hours each way this time due to bad weather conditions. She looked healthy and happy although she had just been woken from her nap, so she was more subdued than the last time. We have yet to hear her speak, so clearly she is not fully comfortable around us at this point. But, she is fascinated with us and knows what the workers are saying to her in Russian.

We saw Andrew on Sunday afternoon. He was running a fever; possibly from a recent vaccination or from teething. The nurse who brought him in did a great job of getting him to play a little and sit near us. We were cautious about holding him, so as not to upset him more, so we just touched from arm's length. Although John danced with him at one point. We are told he loves music. He should be OK again by our next trip when we "snatch" them both and drive off to bring them home!