A diary of our adventure to Khabarovsk, Russia to adopt our baby girl, Luna. If you are new to blogs: they are like diaries. Start at the bottom of the page, as the latest post is at the top.

 
Time to bring this blog to an end. I may, and probably will, start a new blog about Luna -- following her as she grows up. Probably a private blog, though. But this blog's purpose was to follow our path through the adoption process. So I'll conclude it with a few things.
First, and most importantly, we are done with all of Luna's initial doctor's visits and checkups. There's some great news: she's perfectly healthy! So the reports about her heart condition were completely wrong. After returning to the U.S., we had her examined by our pediatrician and he detected no heart problem at all. But to play it safe, we took her to Children's Hospital and had her examined with an ultrasound machine. The doctors found her heart to be completely healthy. Hurray!
Luna adjusted to life at home with us very quickly. My parents, who live on the East Coast, came out and stayed with us for the first two weeks. Good thing, too. Debby came down with some sort of stomach illness for a week and was in bed. So having my parents there saved the day. I wouldn't have been able to take on this new experience all by myself. But by the time my parents left Deb had recovered and I became a pro at baby care.
Luna is cheerful and active most of the day. She's soaking up knowledge like a sponge. She races around the house, chasing after our dog and cat. She loves to grab the cordless phone, or anything that looks like a cordless phone, put it to her ear, and shout a short version of "hello!." She also eats tons of food. More than I do on a daily basis, in fact. It is something to see her put away a double-helping of oatmeat every morning. And she gets really cranky if you are late with a meal.
We take her for walks around the neighborhood and to the park. She loves the swings. We let her watch TV and she already has favorites: The Wiggles, Mr. Rogers and pretty much anything with music. She loves to sing and dance. Even a little jingle in a TV commercial is enough of a reason for her to get up and start dancing.
So now Luna, Deb and I will settle down to a normal life. Or, as normal as our lives get anyway. We worked out a schedule with a few half-days at work for me, a day off for Deb and a day at her gradparents. Then we'll get her into a Montessori school in a few months.
There will be a few more things to deal with concerning the adoption. In five months we'll re-adopt her in a Colorado court. This will give her all American papers and we can put her Russian papers away. There are also three follow-up reports for the next three years. Then, of course, one day she'll be interested enough to ask us about her adoption and about our experiences during the trips. I hope to hand her a bound version of this blog then. Hope you enjoyed reading it, Luna.

 
The morning started off horribly as we arrived at the airport to find that we didn’t have tickets. Apparently, United Airlines refused to issue our electronic tickets through Expedia.com because of the half-price infant seat. Expedia could not get in touch with us, of course, since we weren’t at home. So we had reservations, but no tickets. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but that was the way it was. Neither the United ticketing agent nor Expedia would do anything for us. Extremely bad customer service from both. We ended up having to by new tickets at enormous prices right there on the spot. We have had horrible experiences with United twice before, but risked using them this time to get a flight at a better time. We won’t make that mistake again.
In the end, we did get on our flight. Luna actually slept for half of this short flight. It arrived on time. Soon we were on the train to the main terminal where Luna’s grandparents were waiting.
Deb’s parents live in Denver, but mine live in Philadelphia. They caught a flight about 4 hours earlier and arrived in Denver about the time we departed New York.
When we came up the elevator to the main terminal, all four were waiting front and center with cameras in hand. Luna was barely awake in her stroller, but in good spirits. The grandparents were very excitied. While we had spent the last week with Luna and had seen her on the first trip, this was their first meeting with their granddaughter.
We got our bags and found the cars. My parents drove our car with Luna’s car seat installed. Luna slept most of the way home. But once we got her there, and gave her some food, she played for the next two hours much to her grandparents’ delight.
Luna is finally home. It took 15 airplane flights, between the two trips, totally more than 80 hours of flying time. I’d estimate we travelled more than 40,000 miles total. There were probably more than 100 documents, most notartized and appostiled. We started on the process about a year and a few weeks ago, when Luna was just a few months old in a hospital in Khabarovsk.
But the hard part is finally over. We’ll still have paperwork and follow-up reports for the next three years. But Luna is home and we are her parents. We are a family.

 
We left the next morning on schedule and got one last look at Moscow’s busy streets on our way to the airport. By the time we got there, the flight was boarding already. But it took us nearly an hour to get through the ticketing line. Luna was very cranky during this wait, as she should have been fed already and on her first nap.
By the time we got to the gate, it was time to board. A Delta attendant spotted us and another adopting couple and brought us to the front so we could board first. The other couple we had met before in the U.S. Embassy. They were from Boston and adopting a little girl about Luna’s age.
On the plane we had a window and aisle seat on one side, along with the seat on the other side of the aisle. In addition, the next seat over, the middle seat in the center rows, seemed to be the only empty seat on the plane. So we had lots of room to stretch out. Luna sat near the window and several times looked out at the clouds and ground.
Despite our best efforts, we could never get Luna to sleep. We tried it in her own chair, and in my lap. She just wanted to stay awake and active the whole flight. The curious thing was that she was very good when it was time for me to eat. She watched me eat my food closely, but didn’t cause any trouble. But Luna did manage to fall asleep for five minutes between landing and docking at the gate!
During the flight we talked with the mother from Boston for a while and exchanged experiences. There was also a PBS documentary film crew on board, following another adopting family, and they took the time to quickly film the other adoptive families as well.
When we left the plane, we went straight to the U.S. Immigration control line. We would have been through quickly, but a family pushed in front of the line and ended up taking 20 minutes to get green cards. By the time we got to the baggage, our three bags were all that was left. Everyone else from our flight was gone. It is a shame that we never got to see the family from Boston again and exchange email addresses.
We took a cab to the hotel at LaGuardia airport. It was a small room and we had no crib this time. Luna slept in between us.

 
Today started off as a bit of an adventure for me. Our agency sent a tour guide at 10 a.m. to take me to the Cosmonautics Museum. It is the counterpart to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum here in Moscow and I was excited to see it. Since Deb was not as interested, and Luna needed rest and food, I went with the guide by myself.
We took the Moscow subway. It was quite impressive. The station near the hotel had beautiful tile artwork. To get down there, you needed to take a fast, long and very steep escalator. Once below, the trains ran every 2 minutes, and even more often during rush hour. There were tons of people at each station and everyone flowed smoothly in connecting tunnels and such. It was very impressive.
The museum was more of a monument with exhibits in the base. Still, it was nice to see some real Soviet space equipment and replicas of satellites. I was reminded that the Soviet moon missions were named “Luna” and many space firsts -- like the first artificial satellite to orbit the sun, the first to land on the moon, and the first to return samples from the moon -- were “Luna” missions.
I got back to the hotel at 1 p.m., and we left at 1:30 to go to the U.S. Embassy. This is where we would get Luna’s travel visa and important immigration documents.
There was a lot of security at the embassy, but once we were in we got to a room that was filled with Americans adopting Russian children. It was almost a party-like atmosphere and parents exchanged travel stories and showed off their children to each other.
The process was supposed to take only 15 minutes, but we waited for more than an hour and a half. They asked a few simple questions and then presented us with her visa and other documents after another wait. We are to present these documents to immigration at the airport in the U.S. At that point Luna will become a full citizen of the U.S.
After the embassy, we took a quick drive to Red Square. Luna was way past her naptime and had missed a meal, so we made it quick. We walked once around the square, passing Lenin’s Tomb, the Cathedral of St. Basil, the Kremlin wall and the other buildings there. We saw the changing of the guard in front of the Kremlin.
Back at the hotel, we fed Luna and put her to sleep. Hopefully, she will end up sleeping through the night.
Tomorrow, we will leave for the airport in the morning. So my next post should be from New York!

 
Today was a nice slow day. Luna and I got up early because of the jet lag. The hotel has a huge breakfast buffet, and Deb and I took turns going down for breakfast.
Then the embassy doctor showed up shortly after 10 a.m. Contrary to what we had been told to expect, he was very friendly and warm. He knew about Luna’s heart condition and was anxious to see if she had any symptoms. But he said she looked very healthy and couldn’t even detect a heart murmur.
Then at about 11 a.m. Natasha from the adoption agency came by with lots of paperwork. She will get an appointment for us at the U.S. Embassy for about 2 or 3 p.m. tomorrow. That is all we need to do while in Moscow. You used to be able to register the same day at the Russian consolate here in Moscow, but as of a month ago they have a new process that takes two full days. So it is better to do it by mail with the San Francisco office once we are back in the U.S.
In the early afternoon we went out for a walk. We went to a large fountain in front of the hotel and then alongside the train station where there are lots of stores. We shopped for supplies at the supermarket and found everything we need for the rest of the trip except for diapers that are the proper size.
Luna loves to be in the stroller. The rougher the sidewalk the better. Sometimes she pushes forward to try to go faster. She loves looking at people.
On the way back a thunderstorm came up suddenly and trapped us in an area where there was a little cover near the train station. Of course tons of other people also took shelter there. Luna didn’t seem to mind being in a crowd at all.
We also took a second walk around the hotel shops after we stopped at the room to dry off.
For dinner, Deb and I decided to order room service. It was pretty reasonable because of the favorable exchange rate. Now we’re relaxing and watching some BBC.

 
Took care of a few last-minute things this morning in Khabarovsk. We got Luna’s Russian passport and Eugene compiled all of the documents we need into one neat folder. We went to the market one last time for supplies, and I picked up an interesting chess set for my collection.
Luna didn’t get her second nap this afternoon. She was too fussy. She could see us packing and she knew something was up.
Getting on the plane was easy. Luna likes being in the stoller, so as long as she was there, no complaints. She also likes riding in a car.
But once on the airplane, she was very restless. She slept the first hour and last two hours of the flight, but the rest of the time she wanted to play. It was way past her bed time, but there was no pleasing her. She never could get comfortable in the seat, or even spread out with several pillows. When she slept at the end of the flight, she slept in my lap. I was also snoozing. Deb stood guard over us and made sure neither of us fell off the seat.
Earlier in the flight I got to experience changing a diaper in an airplane bathroom. There was no changing table at all, so I had to set up our little changing sheet in the toilet. It was miserable and messy. Luna didn’t like it much either.
It was sad saying goodbye to Eugene in Khabarovsk. He worked very hard for us and really knew his stuff.
Now we are in the room at the Radisson hotel in Moscow. It is a nice room, as hotel rooms go, but there’s not much room for Luna. We did get a crib for her, and she is sleeping in it now.

 
Another day learning to take care of Luna. We took her for a walk today around the block. This is a fairly nice neighborhood for Russia, but to American eyes it looks like a bunch of half-abandoned apartment buildings and some vacant lots with trash on them. Sidewalks are either non-existant or just cracked pieces of cement. Streets are all barely wide enough for one car and filled with potholes. But everyone we saw was dressed nice and no one bothered us.
At the end we took her to a small playyard across the street and tried a swing and such. Then it started to rain. But at least the break gave the hotel staff time to clean our room, which was getting quite messy.
Luna is agreeable most of the time, but we had trouble getting her to sleep during one of her naps today. Sometimes it is easy to figure out what she wants when she gets fussy, and other times it is impossible. But we know a few things that always get a smile or laugh out of her: lifting her up in the air, blowing on her face, and walking with her down some stairs. The last one is a puzzle, because it only works if you really do it. Just bouncing her to simulate walking down stairs doesn’t always work. We think it may be because at the baby home she only ever went downstairs to eat or to go outside to play. So going down stairs is always a happy thing.
We did laundry today: a bathtub full of cold water and Woolite. That went well, but drying the clothes is prooving to be difficult. We’re used to the dry climate of Denver, where a soaked towel will dry in a few hours. In the humidity here we’ve still got a lot of wet clothes half a day later. We just hope they are dry by tomorrow morning so we can pack.
We leave on the evening flight tomorrow to Moscow. Because coach was sold out, we had to upgrade to business class to get tickets. It didn’t cost too much, but business class on Aeroflot is only slightly better than coach. I think it 7 seats, 2-3-2, across the plane instead of 9 seats, 3-3-3 in coach. But at least the extra room will be nice to have on Luna’s first flight. We fear that she will be one of the crying babies you see on airplanes all the time.
My next blog post will probably be from Moscow, but it might take me until Tuesday to figure out how to log on from the hotel there.

 
Our first full day taking care of Luna was quite an experience! There are so many things that a parent needs to do. We fed her different meals, and she was very easy to feed. She opens her mouth very wide for each spoonful and picks up anything that drops on to her bib and eats it. She eats buttered bread and children’s cookies by herself. She never complains. So far the only things that didn’t agree with her were some mashed corn, which went right through her, and some peach juice, which she spit back up quickly. But she loves apple juice.
We changed her diaper many times today, the last few I did myself with Deb’s help. I’m learning. We also tried to give her a bath. She didn’t like that at all. But we think it might have been the small dark bathroom that was scaring her, not the water. We washed her quickly.
She plays with us sometimes and at other times she is happy playing by herself. She is also enjoying the Japanese Cartoon Network quite a bit.
When we put her to sleep last night we had some trouble. She was not ready to go to bed and she cried a lot. What finally worked was for me to stay in there with her and talk to her quietly while holding her hand. I took my hand away eventually but kept talking. She sucked her thumb. I sang quietly to her and then eventually just sat there. Her eyes grew heavy and soon she was asleep.

 

At about 4:30 Eugene picked us up to take us to get Luna. We stopped at the baby home and were taken back to the room where she sleeps. There were about 25 cribs with babies in them, all in the middle of their afternoon naps. The baby home worker woke her up and carried her to the changing room. There, she took the clothes we brought for her and changed her into them.
She was very cranky because she only got half her nap. But as soon as we started moving in the car, she grew quiet and observant. She was very interested in everything going on around her.
We took her to a photo studio to have her passport picture taken. She was very confused about what was happening when we placed her in the chair and all the lights were shining on her. But she never complained too much.
Then, Eugene dropped Deb and Luna off at the apartment and I went with him to change our airline tickets to Moscow. Our new flight leaves on Monday night. We also stopped by the store and bought a mattress, pillow and blanket for her. There was a crib waiting for us at the hotel.
When I got home, I found Deb and Luna having a good time. Luna had thoroughly explored the apartment and had befriended a soft doll that we had brought with us. She was also discovering the joys of having a pacifier. At the baby home, they don’t use them and she had to suck her thumb.
At one point, she noticed Deb’s glasses on a table and recognized them from before. She picked them up and brought them over to Deb. She also reached for hugs. When Deb took a glass of water, Luna made it clear that she wanted some too. She stood patiently and waited for Deb to prepare a bottle for her. Then she held the bottle herself while she drank.
When I got home it was past due for her dinner. She started complaining a little, but seemed happy once she saw us making food for her.
We fed her something called “cottage curd” that came in a little package for babies. It smells like sour cream. She opened her mouth wide for the spoon each time and ate it all up. We then gave her some oatmeal, following the same diet schedule as she was used to in the baby home. She ate all of that too. Then she sucked on a bottle of apple juice for a long time.
She didn’t create any mess at all. The only mess, in fact, was due to my inexperience in using one of those baby spoons.
When we changed her into her pajamas and put her into her crib. She complained only a little, but quieted down as soon as we left the room. She explored her crib for a minute, and then settled down and fell asleep.
Deb and I watched her sleeping in our crib and then it all hit us. Our dreams of having a child had come true. There was Luna, our daughter. We cried.
Right now she is sleeping in the next room as I write this. This has been the greatest day of our lives.

 

She’s ours! We just came back from court. Not only was the adoption approved, but they waived the 10-day waiting period. This is very very rare here in Khabarovsk. But Luna has a heart problem that needs to be checked out in the U.S. as soon as possible. She should be fine, but we wanted to get her to the doctor as soon as possible. The judge agreed and waived the 10 days.
We left to go to court at about 10 a.m. Eugene picked us up and then picked up the local area social worker and the baby home’s social worker. We all arrived at court at about 11. There, we met the translator. At 11:15, we all entered the court room where the judge, prosecutor and secretary were waiting. Everyone except for us was dressed very casual. The court room was actually a small room, like a school classroom.
First we both stood and were asked to state our names. Then just I stood and was asked several questions. I was asked by the judge whether I knew about the responsibilities involved in parenting, how an adopted child would have special needs, how we first met Luna and about her health. The prosecutor asked me about our finances.
Deb then stood and was asked about her responsibilities as a parent. She was asked how we got along with her and how we communicated with her. In response, Deb repeated several Russian words.
After about an hour, we were asked to leave the court room and only the judge, prosecutor and secretary remained. We then waited for more than an hour for a verdict. We were told that much of that time was taken up writing up the decision.
During that time, we talked with the translator who is the Dean of foreign languages at the local university. She had been to the U.S. many times and loves to serve at adoption hearings.
The social worker from the baby home handed Deb a small plastic cross in a piece of paper with a date on it. It turns out that all of the children at the baby home get baptized by a Russian Orthodox priest. The cross is given to her then. While neither Deb nor I are Russian Orthodox, it will be the only possession of Luna’s that we will have from before her adoption.
We were called back in and the judge had us stand. She read the verdict. First she said that the court decided in favor of the adoption. Then she said that the court decided to waive the 10 day waiting period.
I don’t remember exactly what the judge said, but part of it proclaimed that our daughter was now officially “Luna Bach Rosenzweig” and that we were now her parents. It was hard not to cry and/or cheer. Deb and I gripped each others’ hand tightly.
We all rushed back into the hallway and all of the women hugged Deb. We went outside of the courthouse and took a group picture of all of us. Then Eugene dropped us off at the apartment so he could deal with some of the paperwork while we rested.

 
Today was spent getting ready for court. We met with Eugene and a lawyer who will be present tomorrow. They talked to us about the kind of things that the judge will ask. It sounds fairly simple, but we are both nervous.
We only got to visit with Luna once today. She was cheerful as usual. Her social worker came to see us during the visit. The social worker will also be in court. Luna acted shy around her. She actually clung to Debby affectionately during her visit. When the social worker asked Luna “where’s papa?” she turned and looked at me! Not just once, but several times.
We got her nap and food schedule and then went shopping. First we bought clothes and toys for her. Then we bought more toys to donate to the baby home. We went food shopping after that and stocked the apartment with food for ourselves and lots of food for her. We’re set for the first half of the 10-day waiting period. We also picked up a small portable stroller that will get us through our stay here and in Moscow.
The rest of the day we spend going over our documents and the home study report. We need to make sure that when the judge asks questions, that any figures and descriptions in our answers match the home study as closely as possible.
Tomorrow is the big day!

 
We moved from our hotel into an apartment today. While the hotel was nice, it was probably too business-oriented for the 10-day stay we mostly likely have in store for us after court on Friday. The apartments, called the Mar-Kuel, is used to housing adopting parents like us. We have a suite that includes a living room, bedroom, foyer, hallway, kitchen and separate rooms for the shower and toilet. The kitchen has a large refrigerator, gas stove, microwave and a full set of dishes, utensils and cookware. The apartment is also a much better environment for Luna to spend the 10 days. We can turn the living room into her play area and give her free reign in there.
We visited with Luna twice today as usual. She was cheerful both times and really wanted to walk as much as possible. She would pick up things and carry them around the room. While she likes this one pink ball the best, she loves this piece of paper that Deb fashioned into a fan. When she really likes something, she’ll hold on to it tightly and won’t let it go even if she is playing with something else. For instance, she was trying hard to turn the pages of her book with one hand, even though she could have let go of her ball and turned them much easier.
We found out her schedule and diet today. Her diet consists of all sorts of freshly-made vegetables, meats and fruit. It seems difficult to keep up with, but we should be able to find most of these things in baby food bottles, even here. She also apparently feeds herself with a spoon and drinks from a normal cup. We’ll have to see that to believe it. But I know they try to teach that early in baby homes here so the children require less attention.
Tomorrow we will be meeting with one of the social workers and some of the people involved in the court proceedings on Friday. We were told that the judge that will hear our case is pro-adoption, which makes things easier.

 
We visited with Luna twice today. She was in good spirits both times, laughing and smiling a lot. She’s not hard to entertain at all. She likes to play with these colored plastic balls in the room, or just about anything she can get her hands on. She giggles and smiles if you bounce her on your knee, tickle her feet or belly, blow on her face or hand her something new to play with.
She also talks a lot. Her favorite word is “na!” We can’t figure out if this is an actual Russian word, or just a common baby-word for Russian babies. She uses it pretty consistently to mean “take this” as she hands us whatever she is holding. She also says “ba!” at various times and tries a few other such words here and there.
She also likes to bang on things with the palm of her hand to hear the sounds they make, sort of like playing the drums. She climbs around on this sofa we all sit on and a few times has reached out to us for hugs.
We got the opportunity to take her outside into the play yard today, but the knats were everywhere and it was hot, so that didn’t last long. She smiles when you hold her in your arms and walk.
For a while I sat with her at the piano. She was interested in my playing, but she was also interested in her reflection in the shiny piano wood.
At the end of the second visit today, she decided she wanted to walk all over the room. She would pick up things and take them to other places in the room. At one point, she picked up a seat cushion that was almost as big as her and walked around with it until she fell when she colided with a table.
Then she became cranky and started crying. But Deb picked her up and calmed her down quickly. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and probably would have fallen asleep soon as it was her nap time. But we took her back to her caretakers so she could nap in her crib.
Between visits we checked out an alternative hotel. It is actually an apartment building that caters to adopting families who need someplace to stay for the 10-day wait. It is a little cheaper, but more importantly, you get a very large suite with a livingroom, kitchen and bedroom. The kitchen included utensils and a microwave. We liked it so much that we hope to move there tomorrow if a vacancy opens up as expected. It will be a much better environment for Luna than the business hotel we are in now. Plus, this hotel is too hot. The air conditioner ran out of water in the middle of the night and it was unbearable. We still can’t figure out how to fill it ourselves, but the maids must have filled it when they made the room. We bought a fan today which will help tonight.
Khabarovsk is much greener and more alive than before. There are tons of pedestrians on on the sidewalks all day long. It is hot in the late afternoon, but nice in the morning. The river is filled with cargo ships and barges. There are a lot of large buildings being refurbished and improved. This is definitely a very active and growing city.

 

It is wonderful to see our little girl again! She’s grown a bit, both physically and mentally. I don’t think she recognized us, but it only took her a few minutes to warm up to us. Deb had her smiling and laughing before I could even grab the camera.
We spent about an hour with her at the baby home, which we wen to right after we arrived at the airport. She walks now, and very gracefully too-- not the stomp, stomp, stomp that I see most babies do.
We grabbed two small plastic balls from the next room and I would give them to her and she would give them back to me. Then I would hide them behind my back and the mystery of where the balls went would make her smile. Then, to my surprise, I gave her the balls and she went ahead and hid them behind her back! In retrospect, that’s probably no big deal for a 15-month old, but it certainly is far ahead of the types of things she was doing just three months ago.
Her hair has grown out a little and there is no sign of those scrapes on her head from three months ago. She has lots of teeth now, but there are still more to come.
Well, we’re tired from the long trip and the excitement. We’re back in the Intourist hotel, in the exact same room as before. So we’ll eat some of the groceries we bought nearby and get to bed early.

 
This trip has gone by so fast! We’re on our last flight, about 2 hours from Khabarovsk, and it has all flashed by. Part of the reason is that everything has gone very smoothly. Every flight has boarded on time and arrived on time. We always got seats together that included an aisle, and sometimes both a window and an aisle. Everything seemed to go just as it did on the first trip, except that this time we knew what we were doing.
The most interesting thing that happened so far was discovering that our New York to Moscow flight had lots of other adopting parents. We found out when we went to look at pictures of Luna on my laptop. Several Americans noticed the pictures right away and asked if we were going to adopt. This brought other parents out of the woodwork. In the passport control line at the Moscow airport we stood and talked with four other adopting couples. Some were on their first trip, and some their second. We exchanged notes and saw firsthand how different the different regions of Russia are in terms of rules and regulations.
The stay at he Novotel hotel went smoothly. Danik picked us up as before and took us to the hotel. But later that day, another Commonwealth driver, Alex, picked us up to take us to the domestic airport. Our plane to Khabarovsk took off as scheduled this time.

 
It's the night before our second trip. We're frantically packing bags and checking and rechecking everything. We're terrified that we'll leave something behind.
In nine hours we'll be taking off on the first leg of our four-flight trip to Khabarovsk. Hopefully, on Monday night, we'll arrive and get to see our little girl again. Eugene reported that he saw her this week and she is well.
So now it is time to sign off from Denver. I'll try to keep the blog going during the trip, even though I won't be able to post entries until we get to our hotel. Hopefully, nothing eventful will happen until we arrive.

 
It has been a busy week getting ready for the trip. We have our plane tickets all the way through to Khabarovsk. Coming back, we have tickets for all three of us to Moscow, normal tickets for Deb and I back to New York, and a special ticket for Luna back to New York. From there, we don't have tickets yet to get back to Denver. I plan on making reservations from Russia for this, since it should be far enough in advance. Otherwise, we'd have to guess at the dates now and then pay a huge change fee when the time comes. As it is, we'll probably need to change our return tickets from Moscow, which will cost us a bundle.
I'm going today to pick up some emergency medicine from our doctor. It is a general-purpose medication just in case Luna is sick before we get back to Denver. I'll only have this weekend to finish getting the house ready for Luna's arrival. So far, the kitchen cabinets have been child-proofed. They are pretty much Gary-proofed as well, as I keep forgetting that the locks are there.

 
The long wait is over! We found out today that our court date is July 4th. So we'll be heading back to Russia late next week. Finally. We miss our little girl so much. It's been hard to look at any of the pictures or the videos. But tonight we will celebrate.
We'll work the next two weeks to get the house ready and to pack for our trip. There's no way of knowing how long we will be in Russia. A typical trip would include a 10-day waiting period after the court date. This would mean that the trip would have to be at least 2 and half weeks long. But we have some hope that they will waive the 10-day waiting period for us. That would get us back much sooner. We won't know until we are in court.
So I'll try to post more often now, since we finally have more good news.

 
This is, by far, the worst part of this whole process. It has now been more than six weeks since we returned home from our first trip. It has been more than six weeks since we have seen our baby girl, since she has seen us.
How can I even compare this to anything else? Can you imagine if hospitals kept babies for six weeks after they were born -- with no visits allowed? What if parents took their child to the zoo and then, when they were going to leave, they were told that their child had to remain behind for six weeks because of paperwork? What sort of parents leave their child on the other side of the planet for this long, with no contact?
The only way to get through it is day by day, letting the time painfully pass by. Every day we hope for a phone call. Twice, we have had false alarms when we were told that it "could be tomorrow." Now we are told that again. Will tomorrow be another false alarm? Or will it be the beginning of the rest of our lives?
In the meantime, we have been working a little to prepare the house for Luna's arrival. We also had a fun baby shower on Saturday night. All of our friends came over for a backyard "Luna Festival." We got lots of great gifts for her. I gave a tour of Luna's room and told some of the stories from our first trip.
We have also spent this time preparing more paperwork. We turned in our final physical exam papers, local police records and some other things. Now back to the waiting...

 
This time we were on our own to get to the airport and find our plane. The airport was across the street from the hotel, so there was no need for a driver to help us. The hotel had a free shuttle every 15 minutes to get us through the parking lots to the departures gates.
We were able to find everything without too much of a problem. The Moscow airport was also far nicer this time around. The departures area was large and had a lot of shops. The boards were in English, and everything was well labelled. The only interesting thing was seeing how tight security was -- everyone’s bags were hand-inspected and we went through three metal detectors before the process was complete.
Now we’re on the plane to New York, somewhere over the North Sea. So the first trip is pretty much over. Now we’ll have some paperwork to do and a baby shower. Then we’ll just wait, as patiently as we can, until we hear about a court date. We’ll then have about 10 days to get back to Khabarovsk for our second trip.

 
Our last day with Luna before returning home was sad for us. How can we leave our daughter behind? But those are the rules. If we want her, we need to play by the rules.
So we went for two more visits. We had just as much fun as before, playing with her, holding her, watching her climb on the small furniture in the room. She’s getting very close to walking on her own. Even though we won’t see her first steps, we at least know we helped her learn to walk.
We’ve learned how to tickle her. I can grab her belly and shake it a bit and she’ll let out a huge laugh, a wide smile and wave her arms up in the air.
She sang some more today. She seems to be feeling her new teeth with her tongue as she does it. She sometimes makes other sounds. We think she may be speaking a few words, in Russian of course, by the time we return.
That should be in about two months, we’re told. So, early June.
We prepared ourselves emotionally for the parting at the end of the last visit, and tried to concentrate on getting home. So we were able to hold ourselves together.
But we had some time before the flight, and Eugene took us to the local museum. It had exhibits on the local wildlife, including stuffed tigers, bears, moose and sea lions. There were even some real mammoth tusks and the bones of a now-extinct manatee from the area. Other floors had exhibits about the local aboriginal people and the Russian colonization of the area.
Then we had coffee/tea in a shop on the main strip downtown and went to the airport. The departures area for the Khabarovsk airport was much nicer than what we saw when arriving. It was a wide, open area with two floors and lots of seating. Going through the boading process was confusing, but at the same time easy because there was only one flight going out at this time. We were on another IL-96 aircraft, so the ride was smooth and pleasant. Lots of empty seats so we could move around.
We arrived back in Moscow later that night, but early in the moring according to our personal clocks. But we got back to the hotel with Dansik’s help very easily.

 

Last night we met a friend, Linda, from Denver for dinner. She just arrived here on her second trip to adopt a three-year-old girl from a city outside of Khabarovsk. It was great to see a familiar face and trade stories. We walked to the hotel, so this was our only excursion anywhere without Eugene.
The next morning we started off with a trip to the orphanage again. In addition to seeing Luna, we met with the social worker and Luna’s doctor. Eugene translated for us. The social worker asked some simple questions, like “Did you want a girl” and “Is this your first child”.
Between visits, we went to see more sights and did some shopping for gifts. We also saw the building where we would go to court on our second trip and got a briefing from Eugene of what that would be like.
While shopping, we saw just about anything we would need on our second trip -- from food, to baby stuff, to toys for the orphanage. There will really be no need to bring anything at all besides our own stuff for the second trip. The prices are even cheaper here, so we’re better off buying things after we arrive. One store we visited was actually nicer than any American supermarket we’ve ever seen -- it was large, very very clean and had a huge international selection. That’s quite the opposite of what we were told to expect over here.
Then we had our second visit with Luna. This time she was very cheerful. For the longest time, she bounced on Deb’s knee and “sang”. She just mumbled baby words in a sing-song way. She did this for about 30 minutes while playing with colorful little toys and Deb’s glasses.
She’s teething right now, and loves to try her new teeth on any toy. She also loves to climb on the small children’s furniture and tries to accomplish this without any help. When she achieves a little goal, she looks so proud.
She also sat and played the piano with me some more. She rocks back and forth and pounds on the keys while sitting on my lap.
One of the things we have noticed is that she definitely likes the caretakers and the director of the orphanage very much. She smiles at them and goes to them easily when it is time to leave. This is a sign that they treat her well -- something we don’t doubt as they are very nice. They also seem happy to see her playing and getting along with us.
After resting at the hotel for a while, we went to dinner at an American-style restaurant that was hardly that. Then went to a Baskin Robbins for ice cream. They didn’t have any flavors that we recognized, but that didn’t matter. It was a highlight of the trip anyway since it was where we signed the official papers accepting Luna!
Back at the room now, we’ll relax and pack a bit. I’ve posted some pictures of Khabarovsk here. We’re very impressed with the city. There are a lot of new buildings and restorations going on, and some new roads. The inside of every building we have been in has been very clean and neat. People are dressed very nicely everywhere. This city has definitely come a long way since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

We got up this morning and tried to have breakfast at our hotel. We ordered by pointing at items on the menu, which has English words next to Russian ones. I got exactly what I ordered, and Deb got almost the opposite of what she ordered. We ate what we could and finished about the time Eugene came to the hotel.
We went straight to the orphanage and Eugene brought Luna to us. We had a great hour playing with her, and then a second session from 1 to 3. She was very active. She played with the toys we brought and also looked at the picture book we made for her. She actually seemed to study the pictures of our house and family, but it may have simply been the feel of the material or pictures.
By the end of the second visit, she showed signs of being over-stimulated. She was yawning, acting cranky and fussy.
Then she decided she wanted to practice walking. We would let her hold one finger with each hand and walk behind her. She would race across the floor to the other side of the room and back. Over and over. We couldn’t believe her energy! My back was killing me for having to bend over so she could hold my fingers as she walked. But if I stopped and picked her up, she would complain until I put her down so she could walk again. Deb thinks that it might be the first time she has been able to do this, as maybe the caretakers don’t have enough time for all the children.
We also sat down at a piano for a while and she watched me play. Then she banged at the keyboard for a bit, even while I played a blues scale with my left hand.
She also likes to clap, something for all we know we taught her yesterday. All we need to do now is clap our hands and she’ll emulate.
By the time we were finished with all the walking, she climbed on to a sofa and sat down between my left arm and my body. Then she sucked her thumb for about five minutes and fell asleep. She slept for about ten minutes like that before our time was up. Perhaps it was the first time she had ever slept in someone’s arms.
I’ve posted more pictures from today here.
In between the two trips Eugene took us on a tour of downtown Khabarovsk. We saw a new Russian Orthodox church that is near the center of town. It was just rebuilt after being torn down during Soviet times. It was odd seeing a shiny new building that had centuries-old architecture.
Then we walked out to the cliff that overlooked the river. You could see China from there. We learned a lot of local history and interesting facts like the local wildlife area was the home of hundreds of Amur Tigers.

 
After landing, we walked down the stairs to a shuttle bus -- which was an old, strange-looking vehicle. The airport was run-down and looked like it had been abandoned. From far away it looked like a nice building, and very up close you could see that it was marble, but from a normal distance it was dirty and run-down.
Inside, Eugene recognized us immediately from our dossier pictures. He is a young man and very cheerful. The only Russian we have met so far who smiles.
Right away we got some good news. He said we could go to the orphanage to meet Luna right away. Our hearts started pounding at the very idea. We grabbed our bags from the baggage claim and raced away in Eugene’s van.
Most of the cars in Khabarovsk have steering wheels on the right side of the car, even though Russians drive on the right like in the U.S. This is because so many used vehicles are imported from nearby Japan.
The airport is located in the older part of town, and we saw a lot of Soviet-era apartment complexes and some shacks/houses. In front of one I actually saw a woman pumping water from a well.
As we got closer to downtown, the buildings and streets got a little nicer. It was in between these two areas where we pulled up to the orphanage. It looked like a small school building or an apartment building of some sort. Definitely run-down by American standards.
Eugene brought us up to a small room on the second floor. Then Deb and I waited for about five minutes. We were so nervous. Would she like us?
Then a woman came in with Luna in her arms. We had watched the video tapes they sent us so many times that we instantly recognized her -- though she was a little older, I could tell.
Deb took her in her arms right away and Luna grabbed her around her neck. Then it was my turn to hold her. Even though we soon learned that she was comfortable with pretty much anyone, it was a great joy that she did not reject us or anything.
Soon the orphanage director came in and invited us to use a much larger play area for our visit. There were also some toys in there for Luna to play with.
She was so beautiful! She kept crawling back and forth between Deb and I. One minute she was in my lap, then she would reach for Deb to pick her up. Then she’d turn in Deb’s arms to face me and reach for me to pick her up, and so on. She was very active. We got her to smile several times.
She definitely seemed very cheerful and not one bit upset at anything that was going on. We played for an hour until she needed to go back with the other kids for dinner.
Eugene had taken my video camera and started filming us even before Luna arrived. So we have video tape of the very moment we met her. What a treasure!
I’m finding it hard to describe more of the visit. We were really on cloud 9 and the time passed so quickly.
It was already tough to leave her, even though we’ll see her the very next morning. How will we do it on our last visit for this trip?
We checked into the hotel. We were on the tenth floor, the top normal floor of the tallest hotel in town. We had a beautiful view of the river below, which was till mostly frozen from winter.
The room looked first-class, but little things like its small size and the fact that there were no English-language channels on the TV betrayed the fact that things would still not be what we were used to.
Eugene met us and a half hour later and we went to dinner -- a new Italian restaurant not far away. It also looked first-class and five-star, but it was funny that they thought it was appropriate to play pop music during dinner.
We learned all about Eugene over dinner. He adopted a son from the very same orphanage several years ago! He also worked as a doctor in the family medicine-style clinic in town for a long time. He had spent a lot of time in the U.S. and loved it, but all his root were here in Khabarovsk.
After dinner we returned to the hotel, bought some bottled water, and then figured out how to log on and check our email. Then we went to sleep dreaming of spending more time with Luna the next day.

 
Once off the plane, things went smoothly. We didn’t complete our immigration form, not sure how to answer some of the questions. But they didn’t even care. They just stamped it and we moved on. Both of our bags arrived very quickly. We went through customs with barely a glance at our forms.
Once outside the customs area, we were shouted at by dozens of taxi drivers, as promised. But we found our driver, Dansig (sp?) holding the sign “Rosenzweig”. He seemed pretty friendly. He drove us to the Hotel in his Pasat. The hotel was just across the street from the airport. But his assistance saved us a lot of time since we didn’t need to figure anything out.
The Novotel hotel at the airport was just like any other nice hotel. We checked in and found a small room with a double bed and a TV. Certainly not as nice a room as you would expect in America, but clean and comfortable.
Deb showered and I caught up with news by watching CNN. We had a bit of trouble setting an alarm as the TV alarm seemed too quiet and there was no clock radio. So I wrote a quick program on my computer to play music at 9 p.m. local time. So we slept from about 3:30 to 9. I actually woke up about a half hour early and caught short naps until 8:50.
Then we showered and headed down to the restaurant for a meal -- breakfast for us, but dinner for everyone else. The food was good, but the waitress spoke only enough English to cause some confusion. The menu was in English, which helped.
I exchanged some money at the hotel and we waited for our driver. Dansig was a few minutes early, which we liked. Someone you need to count on should always be a few minutes early.
The drive back to the airport was longer since we needed to go to the domestic terminal on the other side of the runway. On the way, we learned that Dansig used to be a cowboy at a ranch that used to be near the airport -- that was back in the days of the Soviet Union. We also found out that he likes science fiction novels, the classics, just like I do. We may have to fit a few books for him in our luggage on our next trip.
At the terminal, it was more confusing than ever. Although the monitors seemed to list the flights for the next 24 hours, our flight, set to leave in a hour, was not there at all! Dansig asked and was told that it was delayed an hour. When I asked him why it was not even on the monitors, he replied “This is Russia,” meaning that information here was sporadic and often inaccurate. Surely enough, a few minutes later the flight was listed, and “on time!”
So we walked through security, with both our carry-ons and bags to be checked. Then over to the check-in desk. This was the Russian form of a “line” which resembles an American “mob”. People just gather around the check-in counter and push to the front.
Russians seem to have no sense of personal space. They will stand right up against you and even push and shove a little. But they can take as good as they can give, I found. I was able to push ahead “rudely” without anyone seeming to take it as rudeness.
Once our bags were checked we went upstairs to wait to board the flight. Since there were no more seats, we stood near the gate. Another American, a businessman from Washington D.C., stood with us. He had been on this trip many times and had even lived in Khabarovsk for a while. He knew immediately that we were adopting parents and told us he sees them often.
So much for the flight being on time again, as we had to wait an hour and a half to finally board. The explanation was that there was a delayed connecting flight.
To board the plane, we walked down stairs to a bus with no seats, only hand straps. That took us to a large plane sitting out on the tarmac. As a matter of fact, it was a huge plane! It had two massive engines on either side and the height of the ceiling in the center of the passenger compartment was probably more than eight feet. I found out it was a IL-96, presumably an old Soviet jet.
To get on the plane, you left the bus and crowded around the steps in a mob. It was raining and snowing, which made it more interesting. Then you rushed up the wet stairs, quite a long way, to the plane.
Twice Deb got pushed a little and she later told me that she thought that if she tripped, she would simply be trampled by the people behind her. And we all had assigned seats!
Inside, however, it proved to be the nicest plane we had been on. It was 3-4-3 across, and we ended up with 3 seats on the right side of the plane to ourselves.
We had to fight for them, though, as an old woman and a young boy had printed tickets with our set numbers. The odd thing was that the seat numbers on the plane were on the back of the seats. So you sat facing the number of the row in front of you, which the people behind you saw your seat numbers. We didn’t get this at first, and neither did the woman and boy. While we argued, without a common language, over over who had seats 23H and 23I, they were actually sitting in 24H and 24I. Once I realized this, we just sat in row 23 and a flight attendant later came by and ended up putting them in 22H and 22I.
After a crane came over and deiced the wings, we took off through the clouds for the seven-hour journey that would take us to Luna’s hometown.

 
We left the house at about 6:15 a.m. and drove quickly to the airport. We managed not to forget anything important and checked in at the Delta Airlines gate at about 7 a.m.
When we checked in, we were told that our bags would only be checked through to Moscow. There we would have to pick them up and take them through customs in Moscow, take them to our hotel and check them in again for our Russian domestic flight.
We got through security very quickly and found our gate, C42 at Denver International. We boarded and took off on time, getting seats near the front of the plane.
All this time I was getting over a horrible cold. Deb was a few days ahead of me with the same cold, so she was a little more over it. My head was completely stuffed. With every landing that day, searing pain shot through my head. This lasts for the first ten minutes of the descent, and then continues for the last ten minutes, only not as bad. As far as I can figure, this has to do with my sinuses being blocked and the change in air pressure. Deb had the same problem. But looking around at the rest of the airplane, I could only see a few more people with discomfort. The best way to deal with this pain, I learned, was to simply close my eyes, sit up straight and sort of meditate.
The layover in Cincinnati was short and uneventful. We landed early so we had the chance to get lunch at a small counter area near the gate. The aftereffects of the sinus pain meant that I could hardly hear anything, which made ordering and talking to Deb very difficult.
On the flight to New York, we sat further back in the plane and shared three seats. It was a short flight, a little more than an hour.
We landed in New York’s JFK airport a little early. This left plenty of time to find our next flight and eat again. But as soon as we got off the plane we were immediately confused. It appeared that you had to walk past security to get to the next gates. But after walking around more, it seemed that the security checkpoints here at the top of stairs leading up from the first floor. So you were able to walk around the airport, past all sorts of security checkpoints, gates and such, without going through security.
In Denver, we were told that we only needed to “check in at the gate” when in New York. So we walked past an Aeroflot check-in line, which was packed, and on to gate 10. After waiting for some time for someone to show up at the gate check-in counter, we began to wonder if we needed to go to the long check-in line first. An English-speaking woman stopped someone when he briefly went behind the counter to ask a question. I ran up to ask about where to check-in, and ended up getting an explanation from the woman that we had to go to the previous line. So the Delta employee in Denver was wrong.
We went quickly back to the long line, which was now gone. So while we were late to check in, we at least could walk right up to the counter and get help immediately. A woman checked us in and gave us our boarding pass. Turns out that the plane ran about an hour late boarding, so there was no problem.
We also grabbed some Burger King fries during this time and walked around a bit. There were lots of uniformed Marines walking around in desert uniforms. They were all young guys. They left an hour before we did at the next gate, which read “KWI” -- which I assume is Kuwait International Airport.
Once onboard the Aeroflot jet to Moscow, things went downhill for the rest of the flight. The plane’s seating was 2-4-2 and we got stuck in the middle two! Worse, the two women sitting on either site of us seemed to immediately go to sleep, making it tough to get out and use the bathroom. In fact, I ended up staying seated the entire time.
The only interesting thing that happened was this little old lady that must have had delusions of being a flight attendant. After dinner was served, she started clearing trays -- taking two or three at a time to the real flight attendants at the back. She was determined to help! I thought it might be a cultural thing, but Americans and Russians alike thought the whole thing was rather funny.
We both got about a half hour of sleep during this flight, which left New York at about 8:30 p.m. local time and arrived in Moscow at about noon local time.

 
We'll leave the house at about 6:30a.m. tomorrow in our first long journey across the globe to see Luna. We had a phone briefing with our agency yesterday and they walked us through all of the steps of the trip. People should be picking us up and dropping us off at all of the airports in Russia. We'll have a driver/translator with us every step of the way. Hotel reservations are also set. We'll be staying for 12 hours in Moscow each way. Then three nights in Khabarovsk. We're each taking one carry-on bag and a small suitcase. They have very strict restrictions in Russia about baggage. We'll probably be OK for this trip, but may have to pay extra for the next trip.
My next blog entry should be from Russia!

 

We got a surprise today when a new video arrived. Not sure why they sent a second video, but we're not complaining! This one was taken on March 5, so she has grown a bit. The complete video is 7.5 minutes long. Here is a still from it.

She stands, sits, grabs on to a toy and does a few other things. She seems to be happiest when she is being held. It is going to be so hard to leave her there at the end of the first trip. That may turn out to be the hardest part of this whole process. I don't know how we will make it through the time between trips.

 
The letter of invitation arrived and was sent to the consulate. I just finished making the airline reservations. We'll be leaving on April 5 and returning on April 11. The trip there, with the time difference, will take a full 48 hours. That's only about 31 travel hours for us, though. On April 7th we will get to meet our daughter for the first time!

 

Today is Luna's first birthday! We got a cake and blew out the candle together. We even bought her presents that we'll leave wrapped until she comes home. I wonder what, if anything, they do for birthdays at the orphanage?
In other news, we sent away the visa application today. The letter of invitation didn't arrive yet, but the agency seemed to think it would definitely be here tomorrow. The agency will fax it to the Russian consulate and call them to make sure the visa is completed.
I called the travel agent today as well. It looks likely that we will travel on April 5, arriving in Khabarovsk the morning of April 7. The bad news is that we will have to take four flights to get there: Denver, Cincinnati, New York, Moscow, Khabarovsk. We'll have to check into a hotel for 12 daytime hours in Moscow, and a full night there on the way back. Once we get confirmation from the adoption agency that our travel dates are OK, we'll call the travel agent and buy the tickets.

 
Deb and I spent about an hour on Sunday, a solid three hours on Monday night, and another hour Tuesday night preparing more paperwork. Today I will take 19 (!) pieces of notarized paperwork over to the Secretary of State's office to be appostiled and sent to the adoption agency.
There were supposed to be a first and second dossier in this process, but it seems like this is the fifth or sixth time we've submitted paperwork. And there will be more to come before the second trip. In addition, we are preparing the visa application that goes to the Russian consolate. That will end up costing us $400+. It makes the $50 entrance fee to Disneyworld not seem so bad.
I plan on calling a travel agent today to get an idea of what travel options are available.

 
We heard yesterday, and got a confirmation today, that we should get the Letter of Invitation to Russia on March 27. That's Luna's 1st birthday! Once we get that letter, we can send in our visa application to the Russian consulate and perhaps travel by April 7 or so. The first trip should be a one week affair. We'll take two days to get to Khabarovsk, three days there, and then two days back. This will give us three visits with Luna and time to do the required paperwork.

 
We thought that the waiting would get easier now that we know who are little girl is. But it has gotten harder. We found out yesterday that we may not get teh "letter of invitation" until the end of the month. That would put our first trip in the middle of April, and our second at the end of May! I've got a feeling that the wait between the two trips will be even harder.

 
Looks like we are set for our first trip, but we can't go until we get a "letter of invitation" from Russia. We're told that should take a week or two. In the meantime, we'll get to work on our travel visas. That's about all we can do.

 
Deb and Marj reported that the Doctor's couldn't find any major problems in the video and medical reports. So we've accepted the referral! Our next step is to find out when we travel and make plans. Looks like more paperwork is looming in the near future as well. At least now we can watch the video again every time we get frustrated with paperwork. It makes me feel like I'm floating an inch above the ground.
Here are some pictures from the video:

 
At the end of my session yesterday, I patently waited for people to come to the front of the room and ask questions. I got an email during the last coffee break that the video was ready, and I downloaded it to my computer. Then, when I was finally alone in the room, I watched the video for the first time.
Oh my. She's the sweetest little thing I've ever seen. I'm glad I waited for everyone to leave the room, because I let out a little yelp or some such happy sound when she first looked straight at the camera.
Deb and I have both watched the video countless times and are falling in love. We hope so much that she is the one, and we feel that she is.
Deb will be taking the video to Children's Hospital on Friday morning. I'll still be here at the conference. Our homestudy social worker is going to go with Deb. We're so thankful for her. She's looked at the video. Neither Deb, I or Marj can find any problems with her in the video. She seems happy and healthy. Just a little small, which is the norm for babies in Russian orphanages. She rolls over and gets into a crawling position all by herself. She grabs at toys with both hands and pays attention to things going on around her. She definitely likes it when the caretakers lift her and move her around. She smiles a few times and kicks her legs around a lot. It looks like she is trying to figure out how to crawl.
The video was taken in December or January, so she would have been about 9 months. Accounting for the slower development in an orphanage, this is about right. I wonder if she is crawling yet?
She's go big brown eyes and Deb thinks she can see brown hair. It is hard to tell because they have her wearing a little hat.
Unless the doctors find something we can't handle, we expect to tell our adoption agency that we accept the referral. Then it is just a matter of waiting to hear from them when we can go on our first trip to see her.

 
It's during the lunch break at the Game Developers Conference and I just taked to Deb. She has the video and reports that the baby is beautiful! I'm completely beside myself. I've got no choice but to continue with my presentation. I finish at 6, and it is 1:15 now. My friend and digital video expert Jay stopped by to copy the video tape from Deb. He'll be digitizing it and delivering it to me over the Internet later today. I can't wait to see! I may get to briefly view it during the afternoon break, or just after my presentation ends.

 
This morning Deb dropped me off at the airport for my trip to San Jose. I'm going there to speak at the Game Developers Conference. This is my fifth year in a row speaking there.
At about 12:15, my cel phoene rang. Deb was in tears. Commonwealth had called her to tell her there was a referral! There is a little girl for us in Russia!
I had to board the plane right after that. I'm writing this now on the plane, about 30,000 feet above Colorado. All I know is that she was born on March 27, 2002, and so will be a little more than a year old when we get to take her home. Deb received a full medical report on her via email. I'll get a forwarded copy when I log on tonight. There is also a video tape on its way from Commonwealth, being FedExed overnight. Deb will get to see it tomorrow and then she will take it to our pediatrician's office. We'll let him review it. If there are no serious problems, we'll accept the referral and then start making our travel plans.
I can't believe that I'm isolated on this plane without anyone to talk to about it. Between this great news, having to sleep in a hotel without Deb, and being nervous about my presentation tomorrow, I don't know how I will sleep tonight.

 
So the funny thing is, teenage girls in America can have a baby without even knowing the first thing about raising a child. But if you are married, mature, financially well-off, and have spent years planning a family, you still have to take classes and read books in order to be approved for adoption. Not that Deb and I aren't the sort of people who would want to be prepared anyway, but it just seems ironic.
So we go to a 4-hour class every month and have a reading list of a dozen or so books. Marj, our Homestudy adoption social worker, runs these classes. They vary in topics, sometimes having to do with child development and sometimes addressing issues specific to adoption. The information is invaluable. Marj does a good job of mixing up the teaching styles. Sometimes it is a panel of parents relaying their experiences and sometimes it is Marj and her team. A lot of good information comes from the other parents attending as well. Some of them are just starting in the process, but some have already completed it and have their children already. This makes these days particularly tough for Deb and I as it is frustrating to see these parents showing off their kids when we are still waiting.

 
We own a three bedroom house. It's pretty old, built in 1904. The bedrooms are small, but have unusually large closets. We think they may have been used as dressing rooms originally. We used one of the bedrooms as a guest room and one as our home office. Now the guest room has been converted into a baby's room. You can see it in the picture.


Although the room is the smallest one in the house, it has the largest closet. Right now we have furnished it with a crib, a changing table, a large bookcase and a rocking chair. There's plenty of room for clothes and such in the closet.
We went with a moon and stars theme. No big surprise, since her name will be Luna. But we are amazed at how many things can be found with a cresent moon. The light fixture in the picture is a lamp we found at Ikea. We originally saw it on our trip to Denmark last year. We had a lot of trouble finding it here in the U.S., but my parents in Philadelphia were able to get one at their local Ikea store and ship it to us.
Our parents bought most of the furnishings in the room. All four of our parents are very excited about the adoption and want to help out as much as possible. It will be the first time that any of them are grandparents. It's going to be hard to keep them on the other side of the line at the airport when we return from Russia and go through customs!

 
The first major step you need to go through to adopt is called a homestudy. To do this, you need to find a state-licensed social worker who specializes in adoption homestudies. They give you a ton of paperwork to fill out and meet with you several times. They inspect your house and ask you all sorts of personal questions. The idea is to find out if you are emotionally and financially able to adopt. One of the pieces of paperwork required is a rather lengthy biography. This is done by asking you a series of questions about your life. It takes many hours, spread over many days, to complete. Deb and I found it to be very emotional. You really have to think about everything that brought you to this point in your life.
Then there were other things we needed to do, all required by the state. We both needed comprehensive physical exams. These included multiple blood tests, chest xrays, and so on. Then special papers had to be signed by the doctor and notarized. We also had to have police background checks, an FBI check and three personal references.
One odd thing what we always need to get done is called an apostile. This is when you have a signature notarized and then you take the document to the Colorado secretary of state's office to have the notary's seal and signature checked. They certify that the notarization is correct. The notarization certifies that the signature is real. The signature certifies that the information in the document is correct. The funny thing is that most notaries don't even know what apostile is, or that it exists. As a result, many documents brought in to be apostiled will fail because the notary did not do it correctly. For instance, they may have signed a middle initial whereas their signature on file with the state has their full middle name.
Fortunately, our social worker is a notary and takes care of this for us. She knows all the pitfalls of notarization and apostile, so there haven't been any problems.

 
So, how did we decide on Russia? Why not China, Romania, Guatemala or one of the many other countries? Why not a domestic adoption?
Well, neither Deb nor I considered adoption domestically for very long. We had heard too many horror stories about birth mothers changing their minds at the last minute, or even months after the adoption. While we now know that this happens rarely, the emotional doubt is still there. Plus, many domestic adoptions are through religiously-affiliated agencies and groups. Since Deb and I are of mixed religious backgrounds, it makes it much harder. There was also the factor that in domestic adoptions, the birth mother gets to pick the adopting parents. We both have unusual careers and histories (bookstore owner and computer game developer) that we thought would make us a tough choice. Plus, there's the religion thing again.
When we heard about international adoption, we were very excited. The adoptions are handled by agencies and governments. This means a lot more bureaucracy, but a lot less uncertainty. So we started looking at countries. I knew that some of my roots came from Russia, so Russia seemed like a natural choice. I asked my family about it and it turns out that ALL of my roots are from Russia. So it seemed that Russia was meant to be it. I'd be the first Rosenzweig to return to Russia since emigration. My grandfather left in 1921 and the other three branches of my family even earlier than that.

 
To start this blog off, I want to quickly summarize what my wife and I have been through since June, 2002. That is when we submitted our initial application to our adoption agency.
Since then, it has been a flurry of paperwork. We've both had to have comprehensive medical exams, police background checks, reference letters from friends and family, official documents from the city, state, federal government, our mortgage company, our insurance companies, and so on.
At first, this was for our "Homestudy," a report put together by our social worker and submitted to the government and INS. After we were approved as adoptive parents, a whole new round of paperwork needed to be completed to send over to Russia.
We found out a few months ago that we'd be going to Khabarovsk for our adoption. That's a large city in the far eastern part of Russia, near the Chinese border. It looks pretty modern and we've heard good things from people that we know who have adopted from there.


So we are at the point now when we are just waiting for a phone call. Hopefully that call will be to tell us that there is a little girl waiting for us and we need to get to Russia ASAP. More likely, the call will be just to ask us for more paperwork. Three times now we have thought that they had all the paperwork they needed, and each time the call came for more.
So we could be travelling any week now. In the meantime, I hope to make some entries here that revisit different part of the process so far. So stay tuned.