Valentin is a very special boy. If anyone of his age could get adopted localy, he could.
Back to the story.
I awoke with a stomach cramp. I quietly adjourned to the bathroom with its kneeling shower and sandpaper toilet paper for what I hoped was the last time.
This was Friday. It was the day we were to begin heading home.
It was not the day we could take Alexander with us.
To adopt in Russia requires two separate trips, a couple months apart. This means that we would visit with Alexander twice today, and then leave him.
Russian officials would spend time preparing his paperwork, getting his passport in order, and arranging court days in Astrakhan and Moscow. We will return in several weeks and be grilled to prove our worthiness. Then we will take him home.
Today was a day to say good bye.
Fittingly, it was a cloudy, merky day.
We cleanded up and finished our packing. We double checked everything, then took our bags downstairs. We would leave them in Mary Beth and Isabell’s room until we headed to the airport later.
The cheese sandwich still sat untouched in the refrigerator.
Breakfast was called soon. I tried an Omelette and some Fried Potatoes. I wanted to go out with a bang. My stomach was to upset for me to enjoy them much.
Besides, the Omelette looked like scrambled eggs to me.
I ran back upstairs to use the facilities one last time.
Vera and Vika arrived. We gave Vika our essays she had requested. We were still debating whether Einstein was cool when it was time to head to the orphanage.
First we had to make our lunch order. Rice seemed good enough for all of us.
Isabell stayed behind. There wasn’t room for her in the car. We also said farewell to Vera. I think she really will miss us.
We arrived at the orphanage, and the supervisor directed us back to the music room. She answered questions from us. We learned about the accident where Sasha broke his hip (bottom of a pile of falling children). We learned that she is a dog person and that Sasha likes animals.
Suddenly a woman came in. There was some whispering. The orphanage supervisor said that the children would be in soon and left.
We waited.
While waiting we asked Vika to help us fill out of picture book. All the photos of friends needed titles. Vika filled them in.
In a few minutes a woman walked in, and set the keys to the room where they could be found, then closed the door.
We waited.
After about fifteen more minutes the supervisor returned and asked where the kids were. We asked the same thing. Angry, she left. Somebody didn’t do what they were supposed to do, and would pay.
Alexander and Aslon came walking in on the arms of the teachers. Alexander looked tired. He was ready for his nap.
We pulled out the toys, but all he wanted to do was sit in Cindy’s lap and get better. Me he didn’t want to come near. I blew bubbles to him and he barely had the energy to reach out and pop them.
After about an hour of trying to get him to feel better and cool off, he finally manged to show some interest in the games.
Aslan was a big help. Alexander was feeling left out while Aslan was having fun. Vika, a bit bored, worked her way over to the piano and began playing some Russian children’s song. She has a good voice.
Alexander ran over to her and started singing along. Then Alexander and Aslan together began playing on the piano. I have ten minutes of his music on Video Tape at home.
He eventually ended up in the ball pond. Cindy was busy when he wanted out, so he let me pick him up. I held him while Cindy threw a balloon at him. He shreaked in joy. We have some great pictures of this.
There was a social worker who watched us sometime during our visits. My biggest worry was not that Alexander would never come to accept or love me. It was that the social worker would see his reluctance as a sign that he shouldn’t go home with us. These pictures of us having fun will be crucial in court to prove that we can get along.
Soon it was time to go, so we did.
We returned to the hotel for the last time. Here Isabell had been busy helping the cook prepare our food. Everyone was just eating rice, so it wasn’t that hard. It seems my upset stomach was back, but Mary Beth was getting one as well. It made me wonder.
I had the pork chop last night.
I was sick in the morning.
Mary Beth had the pork chop last night.
She was sick.
No one else felt bad.
The restaurant was really really good. It was the best food we had in Astrakhan. If you ever find yourself in Astrakhan I suggest you go there.
But don’t order the pork.
Just to be safe.
Galina and Vera had spent the morning at the court filling in all our papers. Vera then went home, but Galina would be joining us for the rest of the trip to Moscow. We were so thrilled. No really.
They brough the van, since we then loaded all our bags into it. We had one last time to see the kids, then we were leaving.
If I could get Cindy and Mary Beth into the van after the visit.
It began to rain.
We returned to the orphanage one last time. There was another woman there picking up her baby son to take home with her. We all had a good visit with the kids. We told her we were leaving for the airport after this. She was shocked. She couldn’t get a flight out for three more days. The fishing season was coming to an end.
Sasha just wanted to sit quietly. Cindy pulled out the picture book. Vika helped us translate the words describing everything he saw. He seemed happy.
He thought the house looked big.
He did think our 45lb chow Chow was a cat. Considering our chow chow loves to chase cats, I think he would be insulted.
Then we came upon my brother Jim and his family. With out waiting, Sasha turned straight to my sister-in-law and pointed. “Olga!” he said.
“No,” corrected Vika in Russian. “Aunt Karen.”
“No,” corrected Sasha. “Olga!”
Olga was one of his teachers. Apparently there is a simularity in looks.
Either that or my sister-in-law is leading a secret double life in Russia.
After an hour of Sasha not feeling well the nurse came in and took his temp. She claimed he didn’t have one, but gave him some medicine anyway. I don’t know if it was to make Sasha feel better, or to quite Cindy up.
It worked. Soon Sasha was running around, playing and making a general 3 year old’s mess.
He took the container that some blocks came in and wore it as a hat. When that got boring, he used it to make an invisible soup. Cindy and I handed him things to put in the soup—like leggo’s and puzzle pieces, and the singing elephant doll. Cindy took small pieces of the play-do and made peas. These he put in the soup, but if the were not rolled into a ball, he gave them back.
I made a ladel out of the leggos and tried to eat some of his soup. He wouldn’t let me. The soup turned into a bath for the elephant. I turned my ladel into a scrub brush. Imagination is the best magic in the world.
He played Santa Clause. He took the bag we brought the puzzle in and put everything in the music room he could find into it. He then left the main room area, turned around, and came back. He went to Galina and Mary Beth and others giving out invisible toys.
He didn’t give me anything.
In fact, he got quite mad at me. The large leggo’s came in a very thick and sturdy clear plastic bag. He decided to wear this as a hat. I would not let him. He didn’t like me telling him Nyet.
It made me feel so daddy-like.
That is probably why he didn’t give me anything.
It was getting late.
Galina started rounding us all up. It was easy, once they told the kids it was dinner time, they were ready to go. Yet Aslan and Alexander sensed that it would be a long time before we would see them again. They stopped at the door and looked back. Aslan tried to drag Mary Beth with him to dinner.
Vika asked Alexander to give us both a big hug.
He did with a smile.
She then asked him if he would wait for Cindy to come back.
He said yes with a smile.
She then asked him if he would wait for me to come back.
He was not very positive in his answer.
“He’ll bring you a big car.”
That changed his mind. Bribery, works for me. I got another big hug.
Then I helped Cindy and Mary Beth and Isabell out to the van. The rain was just a slow steady drizzle. It hid tears well though.
The ride to the airport was fairly silent. The driver had learned, much to Galina’s apparent chagrin, to pull up close to a curb so Isabell could get in and out easilly. It worked fine.
There we said good-bye to Vika. We learned much about her job and her Egyptian/Russian family and her plans and goals. I like her.
We went through security, insuring that Isabell bypassed the metal detector. Now, with no translator we relied on Galina’s guidance.
We had arrived an hour before our flight. We sat and waited. I tried to get Cindy’s (and my) mind off of leaving Alexander. I talked about the great room we would have in Moscow, and the good food. We could splurge on room service. The bath tub was bigger than ours at home, so a nice hot bath would feel great. Cindy liked the bath idea.
Finally they called us to go into the boarding area, where we waited. Then they had us climb down the stairs to wait for the bus, and we waited.
Then we climbed on the bus and waited. Do you know what is worse than being crammed into a small room with a bunch of people who don’t speak your language? Being crammed into a room with a bunch of people who have spent the last few weeks fishing, and don’t speak your language or know where to find shower facilities.
All this time Cindy carried the beautiful flowers we had received on our anniversary. They were just fantastic. I knew we couldn’t bring them into the states. I was worried that we couldn’t bring them on the plane. They were too big to fit under the seat in front of us. Cindy refused to leave them behind.
Then we saw that many of the fishermen had great big fishing gear they were carrying on board. Compared to some of the poles, Cindy’s flowers looked like buttoneers.
We climbed aboard the airplane. Since we checked in just ahead of Isabell and Mary Beth, we got to sit just in front of them. Isabell rubbed my head for luck.
It was going on 8pm, which isn’t bad for a 7:30 flight on Aeroflot, and we were taking off. Looking out the window we said goodbye to Astrakhan. We did not say goodbye to Alexander. We were taking him home with us in our hearts.
Dinner consisted of some smoked salmon and a coke.
We landed in Moscow with no problems. The crowd on the airplane broke out in applause. They do this on all Aeroflot landings. I am not sure if I like the idea that the pilots need this kind of emotional support.
We waited for Isabell to exit the plane. She was almost last. There were a couple of guys with oversized fishing poles who followed her, then we took the bus to the terminal and collected our luggage.
Anna met us there. She and Galina spoke while Mary Beth and Cindy and I spoke on the other side of the luggage counter. Isabell stood to the side catching her breath. Before long Anna came over to us with Galina following. She was trying to make this a more unified group. She couldn’t, with Galina only speaking Russian and us only speaking English.
It took a long while but our bags finally came. We loaded up the cart and headed to the exit. Here Galina said good bye. We would see her again on our return. I have implied a lot of nasty things about Galina, but she did work hard and I think made our trip more successful than it might have been. We thanked her for the flowers again.
We checked into the hotel.
That’s where we ran into a small problem. Part of our budetary plans to afford the adoption was to get down to just one credit card with a good rate. This we pay off monthly. We handed the hotel our credit card and prepared to get our room.
The credit card was declined.
Cindy was standy halfway across the main floor talking with Isabel. I started signaling to her. She was so tired and upset. She just wanted that bath and to go to sleep.
“What?” she asked.
I explained.
“Not possible” she answered.
It was possible.
Seems our credit card company didn’t understand how we could be charging things in Russia when we had never left the country before. (Never with this credit card). They cancelled and it was too late to call and get it reinstated.
We paid in cash.
We then went to our room, and discovered it was much smaller than the one we had the week before. It still had the big tub and they still offered room service. Still, it wasn’t as nice.
It did have TV in English. I turned it on while Cindy ran down to the computer. It was 11:00. I started debating about the room service. The soft bed in the cool room with the thick comforter were so much better.
Cindy returned shortly. There was a line for the computer. She looked longingly at the tub. “I think bed wins.”
I agreed.
The TV was off and we were asleep in record time.
We both wished Alexander a good night before our eyes closed though.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I'm so pleased for you, Cindy and Alexander. Thanks so much for sharing your story. The decisions you made must have been heart rending but were obviously the right ones (I can tell from your peace of mind which came across in the last few posts). I'm so excited for you - I bet waiting before the trip seems like nothing compared to waiting now to go back and bring him home.
Posts: 394 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I friend of the family adopted a baby girl from Russia a year or two ago, but they got to take her home on the first trip. (They were surprised; they had been expecting to have to come back a second time.) I wonder how that happened?
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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We are leaving STL on 6/4. We will be back, with Alexander, on 6/15 if everything goes well.
I should have my son by Father's day.
Definately before my Birthday, which was my own private goal. (He will turn 4 the same year I turn 40. Man I am to old for this).
I was going to spend my free time today writing the final installment from our first trip. Yeah, like I can calm down now.
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This will be the last segment of the story. It covers the two days of our trip home, but honestly, after all the fun of Alexander, another discussion about the Detroit Airport, or even Greg’s driving will be anti-climatic.
We got up, showered, and prepared for breakfast. We looked longingly at the tub, but didn’t have time for a nice hot relaxing bath. We had promised Mary Beth and Isabell to meet for breakfast at 8:30. That gave us two hours to eat, finish packing, and check out of the hotel in order to catch our ride with Anna and make our plane.
I rushed us.
I should have known better.
We arrived at breakfast at about 8:20. Mary Beth and Isabell were no where to be seen. We got our seats at a central table and waited. I was thirsty. This was a buffet, so the drinks were out of reach unless I started eating without them.
Isabell is retired, living that dream life where clocks are not important. She proved to us many times on this trip that hurrying was not her strong point. In fact, she believed that if people wouldn’t wait for you, they weren’t worth talking to. She believed that whenever she arrived was when God chose for her to arrive, and rushing only added stress.
I know several retired people like that (ahem, parents). It is frustrating for us young’ns who are all rush, rush, rush.
By a quarter till I was getting nervous and shakey. I needed nourishment.
The place was filled with families. It seems that this was ground central for everyone adopting from Russia. A week or so is spent in Moscow whereever in Russia you adopt from, in order to fill out the appropriate forms and go to court. Here is where many of the agencies had you stay.
The room was filled with kids crying, kids making a mess eating, kids finding bottles, or missing bottles, or just being overwhelmingly cute.
None of them were cuter than Alexander.
By 9:00 I couldn’t stand it. I got up and got me a juice and some breakfast. Cindy followed when I got back. Mary Beth and Isabell showed up about 10 minutes later.
Breakfast was good, much better than anything we had in Astrakhan. Yet the famed French Toast we had been repeatedly told was great, wasn’t. The coating had thickened to a crust useable as armor plating by several tank battalions.
We looked at the time, and realized we had to get ready to check out. Up we went to our room. I ran around like a headless chicken. Cindy calmly and slowly packed everything we had removed the previous night, including our clothes, then began clipping her flowers.
The anniversary flowers were beautiful, but we couldn’t bring them home. Transporting flowers into the country would set off too many customs alarms. So Cindy clipped the flowers and stuck them in a small plastic bag. Sure, sneaking this into the country was probably illegal, but these were special flowers.
It was 10:20. I grabbed the bags and headed down to the front desk to head out. Cindy followed.
Mary Beth was checking out when I arrived.
Then there were two other families with problems that had to be answered. It seems that when people return with children they are moved to the fourth floor. There are two reasons. It’s on the bottom of the atrium, so that higher floors had the possibility of children climbing over railings and falling (a second Atrium covered the lower floors as well). Secondly, if you put all the families in one place, they are less likely to complain about other peoples kids.
However, shifting people to the fourth floor could be a bit confusing. Two people were waiting to confirm there reservations, extra beds, and other details with the front desk.
The front desk was having trouble keeping track of reservations apparently. That may be why they triple billed us.
Finally it was our turn. We were paid up from the night before, and had used no services, so all we had to do was turn in our keys and pick up our passports. Simple.
Isabell was bored. She walked over to the gift shop to look for a pocket watch for her husband.
Anna showed up three minutes early. We would be done in time.
Except, there was a problem.
When we arrived in country they gave us a customs form. Cindy did not keep it in the passport. The hotel needed it. So Cindy had to dig through her purse to find it. Ok. Found. Now we need to call it in.
While waiting for a reply another guest with kids is helped.
“We have a problem. Where have you been for the past week?”
What?
Every hotel in Russia must take your passport and mark in them and their records where you are staying. The hotel in Astrakhan did not do this. They didn’t even ask to see our passport.
More purse searches and we come up with our hotel reciept.
There is a whole body of literature about being trapped in the Russian Beaurcracy with no way home. Most of that was from Soviet times, but I still had visions of it in my head. Do they have internet connections in Siberia?
OK. He calls this in. Another family is helped. Anna is nervously looking at her watch. OK. You can go.
We grab our bags and race into the waiting van. While we are sad to be leaving Sasha, we are both looking forward to getting home.
We wait.
Where is Isabell and Mary Beth?
We wait.
I jump out of the van and run to the souvenier shop. There they are checking out, slowly. The woman behind the counter is taking a long time to find change. And here I was going to blame Isabell.
I grab their luggage and load it into the van.
We wait.
Five minutes.
I run back in. There she is still looking for change.
Five minutes later they finally arrive.
I try to relax and calm down. We have plenty of time to our flight. We have plenty of time to get home.
The van races through the streets of Moscow. Again we pass the Ikea and the McDonalds and the great advertising displays that blanket what was once the heart of communism.
Is it a victory to see American Cigarette Ads in Moscow? We arrive at the airport. We clammer out and Anna shows us to the gate. She says Farewell and hopes to see us soon. So do we.
Then through customs and passport control on the way out of the country. Again we help them understand that Isabell must avoid the metal detectors.
Still, we have 90 minutes before our flight when we arrive at the gate. What should we do? What else, shop.
There are duty free stores everywhere. This chunk of territory is considered no longer part of Russia, or any other country. As a result, anything you buy will be free of all taxes.
You just have to pay the Airport Surecharge.
Its still cheaper than many other places, for big expensive things that you can still fit under your plane seat. Jewelery, perfumes, electronics, DVD’s.
And Chocolate.
We found a store filled with a variety of alcohol and Chocolates. In its center was some lovely young lady dressed in a traditional swiss costume passing out free chocolate.
I was in love.
Then I bit into the deepest, darkest, bitterest chocolate I have ever had. I swear that someone forgot to add the sugar. It was heaven. I then knew what love truly was.
We bought some chocolate. Mary Beth bought a couple of things. We headed to the plane.
We lined up and went through security, than sat down and waited. We watched as international passengers arriving walked around the outside of the terminal, as we had a week before. This was definitely an adoption flight as there were new families everywhere. It would be a long flight home.
They called us to board, only 10 minutes late. The line grew extremely long. We all looked at each other in our chairs and sat back. There was no use standing in line for half an hour.
The line slowly worked its way to where we were sitting. We got up and got behind a high school choral group. They had been playing places around the world, and were only using Moscow to change planes. The poor kids did not realize that they were boarding a plane full of babies. They would regret their flight choice.
Mary Beth and Isabell were a few seats in front of us, again. I rubbed Isabell’s head for luck this time.
This flight, unlike the arrival, was set for day time. Since were were flying with the sun, it would be as if we traveled 9 hours with hardly any time moving at all. Really. The clock in my cell phone went really really slow.
Perhaps that was due to the parents in the front row ignoring their screaming child for hours. Daddy was listening to his personal CD player. Mommy had gone to the back of the plane to talk with some friends. The baby was in a small crib/bag on the bulk head, crying for attention. The flight attendants had to come from First Class and ask Daddy to do something.
At one point the child almost climbed out of the crib and would have fallen to the floor if some of the other parents nearby hadn’t yelled for him to save the kid.
Perhaps the problem was that there was no movie. Apparently the in-flight projection system was dead. Of course, if there was any part of the plane that had to fail, that was one of the best. Still, 8 hours sitting down, or walking the cramped ailes, with nothing to do but read or try to talk over the noise of the plane, or sleep.
This all resulted in four grumpy people arriving in JFK airport. As soon as we were off the plane Cindy and I reached for our phones and began calling everyone. My sister-in-law had convinced my mother that we wouldn’t be back anytime soon, so they had gone shopping. I don’t think my mother has yet to forgive Sharon for that mistake.
Isabell and Mary Beth caught up to us. Immigrations and Customs was quick and simple. Before we knew it we were saying goodbye in the terminal. They had two different flights home the following morning. We had a third later in the day. We were staying at two different hotels.
Our farewell was too brief . We all hoped (and it has worked out that way) that we would meet again when we picked up our children. Isabell would not be returning. I will miss that sweet lady, and all of her stories, and all of her good advice.
There is little to tell. We found our way out of JFK easilly. We got to the hotel. Despite internet promises of king size beds and spacious rooms, the Comfort Inn had twin size bed and cramped room. We were too exhausted to care, much. Nasty letters would follow when we were rested. We safely made it through our last two flights. They were on time and pleasant.
There were the two bimbos from St. Louis who didn’t understand why their internet Lebonese aquantences behaved as if they were sluts, just because the boys bought them tickets to Detroit for the week. Not that the girls had anything against sex, just that these guys were a bit pushy. So instead the two of them just got drunk and passed out in the guys beds every night. Yeah, that will teach those guys.
The fact that they had to explain this, out loud, to the poor married man in the seats behind us was the worst part of that last trip.
Well, I found it more amusing than any Russian TV, but Cindy didn’t appreciate it.
Our trip was over. The decisions made. Alexander Matthew Davis would be ours in a month or two. Now all we have to do is wait.
I hate waiting.
Then again, before there is any more of this story to go around, you all get to wait too.
Just put it down to Sympathy Pains.
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I'm imagining the syrup cannon that will be needed to defend us from tank battalions made of Russian French toast crusts. Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Our due date was moved up Yesterday. It is sometime between 6/4 and 6/15. Or you can consider that 9 days of labor to deliver the child home.
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8 weeks to go... If I remember correctly, though, your "due date" is scheduled before mine.
