We Made it Home and the Update from Friday's Visit

We made it home last night at around 9:40pm...we were up 23 hours before going to bed last night, and we are very tired today. We are so thankful to have made it home safely although there is a nagging feeling that we left part of ourselves in Russia. Below is the update from our last day with Emma...it is a long post, but I want to capture all of the details for us to remember.

Friday, June 5th

Thursday night we slept a little better than previous nights (about 6.5 hours straight). We were very tired when we awoke, though. We finished packing our bags and then had breakfast at the hotel. We checked out in time to walk to the metro station and meet Tania at 9:15. We took the metro north to the baby home, and we had about an hour and a half to spend with Emma this morning. Today, she was a little more resistant to us at first, but she warmed up very quickly. We did more of the same…sitting with her and playing with blocks, shapes and a matroyshka doll. It’s amazing how quickly the visit passed by.
We had about 4.5 hours in between visits and we walked to the same nearby mall. JC bought an umbrella since the weather was extremely rainy and windy. The one small umbrella that we brought was just not doing the job. We will know to pack two for the next trip. Today was very chilly with the wind…the wind chill had to be in the 40s. We are hoping that the weather will be dry when we return.
We ate at Pizza Hut again, and we stayed there about three hours. They had free wi-fi so we had internet for a little while. This pizza hut also served lattes and cheesecake so we each had coffee and dessert. It was nice.
I walked back to the baby home with heavy feet and a heavy heart since I knew this would be our last visit for this trip. The weather matched my somber mood. When the nurse brought Emma to us, she kicked and was not too happy about it. We can already see what she does when things aren’t going her way. J As soon as the nurse left the room, she was just fine. She wanted to sit in my lap, but she also really wanted to play with JC. He is so patient with her, and I think she is enthralled with him. He found some building blocks, and he started building a tower. He was able to get about three levels built, and Emma decided that she would knock it over. So he built again, and she knocked it over again. This went on for several minutes. The funny thing was that not only did she want to knock over the tower, but she wanted every single block turned over…even if it was one of the bottom blocks that did not automatically fall at first. It was very funny. Her smile was absolutely priceless when she looked up at JC after accomplishing her goal.
Our visit was only one hour this afternoon. We were hoping to get two hours with her. When the nurse came in, I held her tight and hugged and kissed her sweet little face. Then JC said his goodbyes as well. When I handed Emma to the nurse, this time, she kicked and whimpered and tried to get down so that she could stay with us. That’s all it took…my poor eyes filled with tears as I watched her leave the room. Even Tania was teary-eyed and sniffing. It was a very low moment. One of the lowest of the day.
We left the baby home and took the metro to a different part of the city. We needed three documents notarized so that Alex could petition to have Emma’s name taken off the national registry in Russia. We were met with some resistance at first. It was about 6:30pm Friday night, and the office was very busy. Eventually we were able to get the documents notarized though.

Then we got in the car and headed for the airport since we had a flight to Moscow leaving at 9:51pm. Traffic is unbelievably slow. It took us over an hour to get to the airport. On the way there, Alex asked if I could make a list of some papers that we would need to send back by the end of June. I said ok. Half way through the list, we realized that the list he was giving us was really the most important parts of our dossier. This mound of paperwork that took us four months to complete had never made it to St. Petersburg. I begin to feel relieved because I knew that we had already gotten these documents. Then we found out that the documents could be no older than one year…some needed to be within the past six months. Our hearts sank…Alex needs about 10 documents by the end of June. He needs documents that we’ll need our county government to get for us. He needs documents from the bank and from my employer. These are documents that we’ll have little control over getting prepared quickly. All these need to be notarized and apostilled - AGAIN!!!! All of these documents need to be in St Petersburg translated by the end of June. If we don’t get them there by then, we will have our court date pushed back even farther. He has to have these before the government officials go on holiday in July.
We got this information after saying goodbye to our little dream; after having been stressed at the notary’s office, and after not having dinner, and while racing to the airport to fly in torrential downpours. I thought I was going to be sick!!!! Seriously!!!
What can we do??? I will try my hardest to get all of these documents AGAIN as quickly as possible. It is so frustrating because all of the time and money and stress about doing the dossier the first time was for nothing apparently. I know this is all part of the process, but if we had just known that we would need to redo all this, we could have easily done so in the three months that we were waiting on pins and needles to travel.

We made it to the airport. We checked in, and we waited to board the Russian airline which would carry us away from Emma to Moscow. The flight was relatively calm, but when we disembarked onto a set of stairs on the tarmac I thought there must have been a hurricane. The wind was blowing very harshly, and the rain was beating down on us as we ran down the stairs to the awaiting bus. We made it to the terminal and waited for our luggage. It was midnight before we met up with our driver. He drove us to our hotel, the Marriott Aurora. When we checked in, it was like a dream. The room was extremely nice with black-out curtains. We called the boys, and then we collapsed into bed around 1:00am. We slept until noon Saturday. What a relief to sleep.
If you have made it this far reading this post, I thank you. I also ask for many, many prayers for us to expedite our paperwork, and that there are no problems with it being sent to Moscow for translation and then to St. Petersburg. I feel like that it will take a miracle for us to get this done in the three weeks that we have.