February 5, 2008

Tuesday, Feb. 5^th

They picked us up at 4:00am to take us back to the airport for our 7:20am flight to Aktobe. When we arrived in Aktobe the plane drop us off out on the run way. It was so freezing cold and the wind was just whipping. From the plane we boarded a bus to the terminal. I use the word terminal loosely. Once we got off the bus we had to walk a little ways outside in the freezing cold pulling our carry on bags through several inches of snow all well fighting the freezing cold wind that was blowing like crazy. We then found Aina, our translators. We then went inside to wait for Joel and Gen to make it to the building. Yeah it was somewhat heated in the building so we could unthaw a bit. The airport people brought our luggage to us in a huge pickup type truck and dropped it all off in the snow, in a heap outside. Everyone had to rummage through the pile then wait in a line to show our luggage receipts before being able to leave. Thank goodness we kept our luggage receipts. We did not know we were going to need them. In the states we usually throw them away before we even board the plane. Once we all had our huge amounts of luggage we headed to our car to drive the 4 of us to our lodging. It was very funny watching them load all of our luggage into a tiny little car. One bag ended up not fitting so thankful Aina took that in her car. They dropped Eric and I off first at our hotel and told us we will be back for us in 30 minutes to go to the baby house. So we got checked into our hotel room. Our room is on the third floor. Yeah they have no elevator here. It took all the strength we had left to get our stuff to our room. We then races around to find the few items we knew needed to take with us for this first visit. They picked us back up then drove the four of us to the Department of Education to meet the Head Baby Doctor. We thought the doctor was going to interview us; this is what we had been prepared for. But the only thing that happened was we walked in they introduced us to a few people we sat down they took our passports from us. The doctor looked at our passports than we were escorted out of the room. This all lasted maybe 3 minutes. Then we were off to the baby house to meet with the director and for our child selection process. Once we arrived at the baby house everyone seemed to be running and rushing about. They kept telling us to hurry to walk faster. It was a little strange to say the least. When Eric and I were asked to go in to meet the director, we walked into the room we were introduced to the director. They then brought in a baby and handed it to Eric. They told us the baby had no major illnesses that he was healthy. This is the only thing they were willing to tell us. We were expecting to be told a summary of his medical background. They then ask us do you want to adopt? We ask if there were other children available to see because we were told and prepared to see several children. They then brought in a year and half old that had obvious medical issues. They brought that little one in and stood him on the floor. He looked at us, screamed and ran from the room. It was sort of cute in a way but we felt so bad for him. Then they asked us again if we wanted to adopt the little one Eric was holding. At this point we both realized that this was the only child meeting our criteria we were going to be shown. This was perfectly fine because Eric fell in love as soon as they set him in his arms. I then asked Eric if I could hold the baby he handed him to me and it just felt right. As soon as Eric handed him to me, he whipped his little head around to look to see where Eric went. We both thought that was adorable. The baby was so alert looking around, made no noise what so ever. Then in an instance the nurse was back took the baby from me and left the room. Again we were asked do we want to adopt and we said yes. Then we were escorted out of the room in a rush. This ALL took place within 5 minutes. It was very over whelming and emotional.

After all this we had some paperwork that we needed to start doing. So we worked on that then after we left the baby house they took us to a grocery store to buy bottle water, diapers and a few snacks. We were told to buy what we needed to last us till Sunday. Sunday would be our day each week to go to the grocery store. After this we went to see one of the apartments that Gen and Joel were considering. We eventually made it out to dinner where we had pizza that was so good. Then back to our hotel for the night.