Our first meeting!

Today was the big day, and both my mom and I were up early to get ready for it! At 10 a.m. Svetlana picked us up and we headed over to a Committee of the Ministry of Education to officially receive my referral of RP! I was excited just to have made it because driving around the city literally makes driving downtown Chicago seem like nothing, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that we saw cars parked on the sidewalk! (I would have taken a picture, but that would have been pretty obvious!)

The meeting at the Committee literally lasted all of 10 minutes. They read me the file they had on RP from their database and showed me her picture, then asked me if I was still interested in meeting her and officially accepting their invitation to go and see her - of course I said "yes!" so I signed the paperwork and we headed over to the orphanage to finally meet RP!

At the orphanage we met with the social worker who confirmed that RP is smart, beautiful, and ready for a family! She is walking unassisted, speaking two-word sentences, follows directions, and was moved up to the 18-month age group a tad early because she is so advanced! After chatting with her (through the interpreter!) we headed back downstairs to finally meet her, and what a moment!

They brought her in (she walked in on her own!) in a blue and orange dress and hot pink shoes, and she took one look around at everyone and immediately her guard was up! I picked her up, got two quick pictures of her on my lap before her lips started to tremble and then she started to cry, which quickly erupted into full-fledged screams!

These pictures were snapped immediately before the blood-curdling screams began and never really went away - just got louder and softer depending on who was trying what with her! She definitely has great lungs and is NOT afraid to let you know that she is not happy! While it would have been nice to have her come in with a huge smile and snuggle up, everything I have read and everything they told me today tells me that this was actually a really good sign - she has bonded to her caretakers and is definitely aware of "stranger danger" which hopefully all point to a healthy ability to attach! We only spent about 20 minutes with her as we actually had her while she was supposed to be down napping, but we are headed back at 9:15 tomorrow morning and should get more of a chance to play with her outside, take some more pictures, and help her get to know us more! My mom was in heaven and even got to hold her for about a minute during all this (I think I held her for about 4 minutes total) and while it's hard to leave her there, it is comforting to see her surrounded by people who obviously love her and care about her, and she for them.

On other travel news (the not so nearly important kind) we haven't seen much of the city due to it being so cold, but I found out that I needed to have rubles in hand for my medical exam on Wednesday morning (as in, ready in the lobby for pickup at 7:15 a.m. Wednesday morning - yikes!) so Svetlana gave us directions to the Currency Exchange at the end of the block and we were left to our own devices. We walked the two and a half blocks to the Currency Exchange (my mom was a trooper because her asmatha was kicking her butt during the walk!), then stood in line for 30 minutes while one other person was being helped (makes me appreciate the service we get in the States for sure!) and cashed out American dollars for rubles in about 5 minutes, with only a slight issue in language. Walking back I took a few pictures of the St. Isaac Cathedral and our hotel, and hopefully will have tons more photos tomorrow!