We traveled out of Detroit to Novokuznetsk, Siberia, Russia on Tuesday July 4th and landed in Novo at 6:10 am on Thursday, July 6th. I figured it out today that it was a grand total from the time we left our house until we got to our hotel to sleep was 35 1/2 hours, WOW what a couple of days. I was so extremely emotionally drained that I wasn't sure I was going to make it but I took long deep breaths and focused on V. Jeff was great and kept telling me it had been so long and this was everything that we had worked at for 2 years and I could do it :) he's great. Jeff had a little bit of claustrophobia on our last plane ride to Novo but he pulled through like a champ. The Siberia Airlines Plane was a joke it was like a long skinny tube at least 90 degree's and you were just stuffed in there on top of each-other, not fun.
Our driver and translator in Moscow and Novo are wonderful. Oksana picked us up with our driver Dimitri and took us to a hotel in Moscow to take a shower and stretch out, we had a 7 hours lay-over there before we departed for Novo. It was the best thing in the world to be able to relax before getting on the 3rd plane ride, we had about 2 1/2 hours in the hotel before we had to leave for the next leg. Siberia Airlines was an experience in it's self. The airport in Novo was a small building where I had to pay 5 rubles to use the bathroom, my first Russian souvenir a receipt for the toilet, LOL.
Our Translator Alyona met us at the airport with our driver, Alex. Alex is a crazy driver but we made it, Thanks Alex. Alyona was wonderful and spoke very good English, we did not have any trouble understanding her. Alyona teaches English to adults mostly and some children. They took us to our hotel and then came back for us about 1 1/2 hours later to take us to meet V. When we got to the baby-house we had to wait about 30 minute for Dr. Lubmilla, she is the director of the baby-house and she really cares about these children. In the meantime the lady from the MOE was there and started telling us a little about V so when Lubmilla got there she only had to go over the medical with us. V is just perfect and healthy just typical Orphanage delays. He is like a bud waiting to bloom that will open once we get him home.
Dr Lubmilla got there and started going over V's medical right away, after about 10 minute of going over the medical the office door opened and they placed this little guy down in the middle of the room all by himself. He just stood there staring at all of us so I asked if I could go over and they all said of course. I walked over to V and started talking to him, he got a little upset so I picked him up and then he was fine. It was a moment I will never forget getting to hold OUR SON for the very first time. Jeff and I thought he was adorable in his referral photo but he is sooooooooooo much cuter in person.
They took us into a different room where we got to spend about 2 hours with him. He is so reserved and was scared at first but he did start to play with some of the toys we had brought for him. Alyona finally got him to smile almost at the end of our visit. It made me feel really good that when his care-taker came in for him he didn't want to leave my arms, AHHHHHH what a feeling, he just wants LOVE. Before we left they asked if we wanted to adopt him and we said "yes, of course". There were 2 other families that came while we were there one of them was Tracie and her husband who I have emailed back & forth a few times, it was nice to see her and the translator form Kemerovo. They would be able to take our paper's with them and they would go to the court on Friday so we signed away and sent them, that made us days closer to that court date.
We left the baby-house so excited and couldn't believe that we had just met our son who we decided to name Logan, so V is now Logan. It was all worth it, every last second spent trying to get to him. We were so exhausted so we stopped and got some water and pop, went back to our room and slept from 2:30 to 9 pm. When we got up we decided to go downstairs and take some pictures outside, went into the internet room in our hotel and sent some emails and pictures to our family. We went back to bed at about 12.
That was the end of our first day in Novo. I will write another post about our next visit later, I am still trying to recover from some jet-lag, so off to bed I go.
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