Home again...

The final days of the trip were a whirlwind, so I wasn't able to post again until today. Our final day of visiting was by far the mos successful - although RP started to cry when we first came in again, she allowed me to hold her and actually calmed down while she was sitting on my lap. Yay!!!

It was hard to finally start to make some progress, only to have to leave again, but I'm hoping for a court date soon, so we can finalize the process and bring little RP home!

Visiting RP was the highlight, but the last day was chock-full of stuff to do before leaving. I had my 7-doctor physical during which time I met wit 7 different doctors to review stuff like previous health issues (surgeries, infectious diseases, etc), do blood work, and even meet with a psychiatrist! I passed that with flying colors (after 4 hours at the hospital - yikes!), then rushed off to the notary to officially sign the paperwork that I wanted to proceed with adopting RP! Even back at the orphanage I finally got to meet with the doctor who said that outside of her very small stature (at 19 months old she is only 27" tall and weighs a little over 17.5 pounds!) she is relatively healthy.

The travel back to the states was long and arduous - our flight out of St. Petersburg was at 5:40 a.m. so the driver picked us up at 3:20 a.m.! We had to go through security TWICE in Russia, but the flight was pretty empty so we could spread out and doze until we hit Frankfurt.

The airport in Frankfurt was crazy big and spread out - and it took forever to find the gate and get over to where we were supposed to wait. Our flight was PACKED coming back which made it a nightmare to sit on that plane for 9 hours when there was not an empty seat to be had (unlike our flight over which was about 1/3 empty!). I have never been so happy to get off a plane before in my entire life, and am already wondering how I can swing business class upgrades for the next adventure across the pond!

I never dreamed I would be heading over to Russia, but now that I have I can't wait to go back! I continually wonder how my little RP is doing, what she's doing, and if she misses me, and now that I've met her I can't wait for the day she officially becomes part of the family, and gets to come home with me! Fingers crossed for an early court date!!! :)