Pre-"GOTCHA-Day" preperations

Well, we are a mere hours away from "GOTCHA Day" which is what the day you finally get your child and walk out of the orphanage is referred to by those who have gone through international adoptions before. From here on out February 24 will be a very special day for me as it signifies the day that RP FINALLY became an official member of our family! I am excited and nervous all at the same time - excited that in 24-hours we will be in Moscow starting the last leg of this very long cycle, but nervous as to how RP is going to react to the coming events. She has only known life in the orphanage for her 22-months of life and this is going to be a huge change for her. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that things go well but am prepared to just weather the storm if they don't and she has tantrums - what else can you do???

We are packed and ready to head to the orphanage tomorrow to pick up my "naked baby" (which is how my coordinator in St. Petersburg put it - in other words, you need to bring everything with you the child is going to need as you will get nothing from the orphanage other than the child - no clothes, shoes, diapers, toys, etc.) and her little Princess suitcase is ready for the flight to Moscow with toys and treats to hopefully keep her occupied for the hour and a half flight, so at this point all we have left to do is get a good night's sleep, a decent breakfast and lunch tomorrow, and pack the final necessities and we will be ready to head out of St. Petersburg once and for all.

Less than five days from now we'll be flying back to the US as a family and thus will start a whole new "chapter" in all of our lives. This process has been ongoing for 13-months and it's hard to believe that it's almost over - woo hoo!!!!!!!! :)

Lazy, lazy Monday

Finally we have been here for one week and are on the countdown to coming home - six days and counting!!! Due to a Russian holiday we have nothing planned for today or tomorrow so we are being very lazy today and just hanging out in the hotel, trying to decide if it's warm enough to venture down to the Cathedral of St. Isaac's to take some pictures and do a bit of sightseeing.

Yesterday I ventured off to Pushkin (not sure if that's spelled correctly) to see the tsar's summer palace with a couple who is adopting a 2 1/2 year old with EAC as well. The guide the agency provided us was magnificent and the trip was definitely worthwhile! Below are a couple of pictures, although the pictures definitely do not do it justice:

I took about 90 pictures yesterday and like I said, they really don't do the place justice (especially because they do not allow flash photography so everything above was taken without using my flash which makes it look darker than it did in person).

Less than 48 hours from now we'll be on our way to the airport to head for Moscow - woo hoo!!! This trip has been long, arduous, but well-worth it, and although the sites are amazing, I can't wait to bring RP back to the US of A! :)

Update from St. Petersburg

It's been quite the whirlwind trip since I last posted. Tuesday was spent running around gathering documents and processing paperwork in order to get RP's international passport in time for us to meet our deadlines. I got to spend about 20 minutes with her on this day while the coordinator was hunting down paperwork at the orphanage, and as usual she cried, but at least was fairly easily calmed down! The good news is that ALL the paperwork went through (apparently I am the first adoption under the new guidelines in this district - lucky me!) and we are going to pick up RP's passport on Saturday.

Wednesday was a pretty quiet day - we spent about 1.5 hours at the orphanage visiting RP which was nice. She was at first fussy as she didn't want to give up her "outside" time for us, but she calmed down and had quite a good time playing with some toys we found in the room. She amazes me with how hard she concentrates and how serious she is - wow. :)

Today (Thursday) was pretty much a lazy day. Mom and I slept in, then I met the coordinator to go and get our airline tickets to Moscow, so we are now officially set! Mom and I then toured the block, ventured to a cafe for a late lunch/early dinner, then browsed the local sweet shop and market for some staples to take back to the room.

Tomorrow we get to visit RP again, which is a bonus since we didn't think we'd get to see her again until Wednesday, but it's also the LAST time we'll get to see her. :( Hopefully it's a good visit and I can get her schedule for when we leave, and get back her new favorite little shoes and book for when we leave on Wednesday. Saturday we pick up RP's new passport, and Sunday the agency has arranged for a site-seeing trip for us and a couple from Houston due to the fact that we have had to sit here due to the holiday for an extended time.

Less than a week from now she'll be out of the orphanage and we'll be in Moscow as a family - I can't wait!!!

Seriously? MORE paperwork?

Nope, that's not a typo and I'm not being sarcastic. My mom and I arrived in St. Petersburg today exhausted but excited by the prospect of what is to be. The driver picked us up and told us in broken English that we had to go to the Baby Home to drop off some paperwork. Cool, I thought - we'll get to see RP! Nope - we literally drove from the airport to the orphanage, waited out in the cold for a half hour, then drove to the hotel where the bombshell hit.

Apparently the region my orphanage is in changed its procedures for granting interational passports... TODAY. My coordinator claims no knowledge that this change was going into effect and this may have the potential to delay my gaining custody of RP and heading to Moscow next Wednesday, and finally home. I pointed out that our visas expire on the 28th and we HAVE to leave the county on that day and the coordinator told me she is doing everything she can to make sure that this all goes as planned, but she stops short of promising us that this will be resolved.

What this now means is that instead of heading to the orphanage tomorrow I get to spend the day chasing down notaries and MORE paperwork in order to beat the deadline and hopefully make the officials happy. I honestly don't know what I will do if they try to tell me I have to leave the country without my little RP, so please keep up those awesome thoughts and prayers that have gotten us this far... :(