Our first of many plane rides together

Today is the day we leave Petropavl for Almaty. Our flight out is at 2:30 PM. It's a 4.5-hour flight. To say I'm nervous is like the understatement of the world. This is the old plane that about did me in last time, and now I'm making the flight with World's Screamiest Baby. But at least when we touch down, we'll be that much closer to getting out of here. Yesterday I was given the news that I would need to extend my stay by one day, which actually turned in to four days because there were no available flights out. After calling the US Embassy for the third time, they made arrangements to help me out, and it appears that I will still be leaving on Friday morning, as planned. Oh, you think I didn't have an all-out breakdown when I got that news about extending my trip? I'm so glad it worked out - as long as my coordinating team did their part, I should be taking Eva to the SOS clinic tomorrow morning at 10 AM, and then to our exit interview appointment at the US Consulate tomorrow at 3 PM. Then our plane leaves early Friday morning at 3:20 AM. A couple of quick stops in Frankfurt and Chicago, and we're home in Nashville around 3 PM. I cannot wait.

Yesterday was probably the worst so far since I've been here. Above and beyond my own hysterics, Eva was an absolute pill. She wouldn't nap, for the first time since I got her. She kept standing up in the crib, screaming her face off. So by afternoon she was unbearable. She cried from 3 PM to the minute she feel asleep at just after 7 PM. She even screamed while we were downstairs in the cafe for dinner. She wouldn't eat anything, just screamed while I ate. So I was so very glad to finally have her asleep last night, and I laid down around 8:30 PM myself. I'm scared to do anything in the hotel room after she's asleep, because I couldn't stand to wake her up.

When I get to Almaty tonight, I will be staying with a pastor and his family instead of a hotel. It will be much cheaper, so that's good. But I warned our coordinator that the baby cries all the time, so the pastor should know that before he takes us on! He said they can help me with the baby. I'm all for that, strangers or not. So maybe it will work out. And it's only for a night and a half, anyway, since Friday night we'll be at the airport around 2 AM.

The weather here is unseasonably cool. It's been around 60 degrees, and rainy. So I haven't been able to leave the hotel room in three days. I'm so sick of these four walls, I can't even tell you how bad I want out of here.

Two nights ago in the hotel cafe, I tried to order some entree that, of course, they didn't have. So the waiter suggested "meat of sour cream sauce" and I said sure, that sounds just fine. Screaming baby doesn't leave much time for perusing the menu, you know. So he brings it out, and it's like ground meat pressed into a patty with some gravy and onions on it. I ate it while Eva screamed. So last night I went back down to the cafe, and tonight's menu features LIVER IN SOUR CREAM. I don't know for sure if that's what I ate, but you have to think so. I am now scarred for life. How dare he trick me like that. Dang you, Dennis, dang you!

I should close up the old laptop for now and get the baby some breakfast. We have only a mere 7 hours before our flight leaves, and we have a lot of screaming to get in by then. I probably won't have internet access during my short stay in Almaty, so this may be my last post from Kazakhstan. If I find a connection, I'll update. Say a prayer for the flights, will you?

Don't let me get me.

So far today we have: eaten breakfast, napped, played with our five toys, lunch, another nap, played with our five toys, and now it’s almost 5 PM. My plan for the rest of the evening is: eat dinner, play with our five toys, and go to bed.

The only excitement for today is the delivery of a crib. I asked yesterday at the front desk for a baby bed. Naturally the receptionist only speaks Russian, so I mimed sleeping, and then pointed at the baby. The receptionist of course understood what I needed immediately and sent up a pillow. So, since I didn’t bring my Russian-English dictionary, I had to think of another route. I took pen and paper downstairs and drew my best rendition of a crib. “Ah!” she says, “tomorrow!” And indeed, a crib just arrived at our door. So maybe tonight I can sleep without worries of her rolling out of the bed (which she’s done once, I admit), and she can feel better having the usual confining four walls around her. This is also a positive development on the shower front, as in, I may get one! Finally I have a place to put her where I feel comfortable taking my eyes off her for a second.

Today has been, I would say, 5% better than yesterday. She is playing some on her own now, and I was able to be in the room with her today without holding her. I think a big part of our problem is boredom. These toys are not fun anymore! If she had more to play with and explore, maybe she wouldn’t require my lap so much of the time. Holding her all the time would be less of a problem if I could keep it up when we get home. But I can’t, so she must learn some independence. And if I’m in her eyesight 100% of the time (which I am), then she can be comfortable that I am not leaving.

She is, I’ve discovered, a dancing fiend. She loves Russian MTV, which doesn’t surprise me. Keith and I often saw it turned on in her room at the baby house. Maybe the songs remind her of home, I don’t know. But she dances, the patented baby knee-bend, and also shakes her head back and forth. It’s pretty funny.

I’m working with her on holding her own bottle or sippy cup. For being 12 months old, she isn’t used to doing much on her own. This surprises me, since you’d think at an orphanage they would want them as self-sufficient as possible. But she is a limp rag when I try to dress or undress her, and she has no concept of lifting pieces of food to put into her own mouth. She is starting to grab at the sippy cup, but lifting it high enough to get anything out is still beyond her. At least, though, we have a goal.

I got a phone call today from our original translator. I’ve been working with a different girl this second trip, and she isn’t nearly as good as our original one. He is wonderful at English, and so nice and easy to get along with. And he’s laid back – no issues with letting us go out, walk around, whatever. This other girl (at the ripe old age of 21) wouldn’t take me to the bazaar (where I’ve been many times before) because it wasn’t safe. She eventually relented, but only allowed me to go inside, no outdoor booths (which are my favorites!). Plus she charged me an arm and a leg for spending one hour in my company, whether I needed anything translated or not. So I’m glad to hear from Igor, and he’s taking us back to the bazaar tomorrow – and he doesn’t care which booths I go to. So finally, money will be spent! Souvenirs will be purchased! I promised Owen something good, and I need to deliver.

I was surprised at dinner with a visit from our coordinator. He said that Eva’s passport is done and off to Astana (the capital city) to be registered. He said I will have all original documents on Wednesday, when I fly to Almaty. I also have a 10 AM appointment with the SOS clinic in Almaty on Thursday. So that leaves only one hurdle in the way of my Friday morning flight – my meeting with the US Embassy. I am to call them tomorrow and try my best to get a Thursday appointment. If they are agreeable, then I should be home Friday night. If not, I’ll have to move my flight to Saturday. So, I will present my case the best I can, and if I can’t convince them, maybe hearing Eva screaming in the background will, because she is 100% sure to be screaming.

In which I can't seem to get a grip

Well, Day 2 started off better. She slept most of last night, but restlessly. She was up earlier than yesterday, and the morning was okay. We headed out around 10:30 AM or so to go to the grocery. We really need these outings, because just the two of us stuck in this hotel room all day, that's enough to drive anyone crazy. The weather here is about 65 degrees today, overcast. I love it because the hotel room isn't scorching hot. Of course, I didn't bring jackets for either of us, but I did bundle her up in jeans and hat and a blanket. Oh, the looks I got from people on the street. You would think I had her out in a swimsuit in the snow. On my way out of the hotel, a lady stopped me and told me in her broken English that it was too cold for a child. I just said, "She'll be fine," and off we went. I had at least three more people mime "cold!" for me, like maybe my own skin receptors don't work? I shouldn't be surprised, as these people do believe in roasting their children alive. But it was slightly irritating. I know, I know, when in Rome, right? But after this stifling hotel room, the fresh air and cool breeze feels wonderful. So I left her to it. Of course, when we got back, the maid had shut off our fan and closed all the windows, so the hotel room was hot again. But nothing I can't fix with a little opening action, ha, take that, nosy maids!

She was a pill through lunch, so about halfway through, I cleaned her up and put her down for a nap. She slept about 3 hours. She was happy for a while, then absolutely beside herself for a while, crying and screaming. Then she ate a little bit of dinner, had a big bottle of formula, and is asleep for the night (I hope) now at 7:11 PM. Slightly earlier than her 9 PM bedtime (per the baby house schedule they sent me). But her night time sleep is off, her naps are off, so I'm okay with letting her sleep when she needs to.

So as far as her diet, she is doing really well. She has only spit up once since I got her, as opposed to several times a day when we were visiting her at the baby house, and that was only in the space of 3 hours. She eats baby oatmeal (brought from the States) and either a yogurt or a baby food fruit for breakfast, with milk. She has a formula bottle for nap. Lunch is oatmeal again, with another can of baby food in it, some sort of meat and veggies. Another bottle for second nap. Dinner is mashed potatoes and whatever vegetable I can scrape up in the cafe downstairs, usually peas, maybe some meat. Then a bottle for bed. I haven't really given her much in the way of solids, except some fruit puffs or Cheerios every now and then. I think she's doing well on her new diet of mostly baby foods, instead of solids, lots of acidic vegetables, and lots and lots of meat! She'll have a much better selection of fruits and veggies once we get home.

Ah, home. I am so ready to get home. Her crying jags lead to my own. As much as she is trying to bond to me, I am trying to bond to her. I've read a million and one adoption stories, blogs, books, you name it. I know I am not the only one in the history of adoption to not feel an instant emotional connection with their child. I care about her, and I care for her. But the bond is still forming. Why does no one ever write the truth about things? Wouldn't life be easier if someone was just honest about their feelings, instead of trying to win the Mother of the Year award? I'm reminded of just after I had Ari, and I was feeling so bad, and I was thinking maybe it was PPD, but I couldn't remember anyone (besides a doctor - no one in real life) ever talking about it with me. People love to hide their shortcomings, when they could just be honest about them instead and help so many other people. So: bonds are formed, not made overnight, and that is the truth. I talked to Keith yesterday during some of our (read: her) worst moments, and he is such a reality check for me. This is going to work, but it's going to be work. Once we get home, he and I can work together to get her settled in. This is why God gives us partners, so that we don't lock ourselves in bathrooms and never come out. This is why I love him!

That's enough for today. She's not crying, she's sleeping, so I should decompress a little bit. Maybe drink another liter of grapefruit juice. Maybe finish my last book I brought with me, The Poisonwood Bible. So far I've read: A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve, Firefly Cloak by Sheri Reynolds, and Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. Now I'm on my fourth and final novel I brought! This is no good, I need my reading! Especially since they don't get Big Brother: All Stars in Kazakhstan. Boo!

No glossing over allowed.

Ouch. How exactly was I expecting this to work? This is some tough parenting, let me tell you. I knew there would be adjustments. I expected her to grieve, in some sort of way, for the life she’s leaving behind. I knew it would be hard on her. But I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard to watch her go through it, or to figure out how to help her, or to figure out how to make the change from buddy to parent.

Let me explain, as I sit here drinking the world’s best grapefruit juice. (I love this juice, love it.)(Also, they don’t just have apple juice. The have juice from red apples, yellow apples, or green apples. And the green is tangy, just like you’d expect.) (Back to topic now, but one more set of parentheses for good measure.)

Last night it took about 2 hours to get her to sleep. It was 12:30 AM before she drifted off. And she spent most of those two hours crying. I tried to hold her, lay her on my chest, comfort her in some way, but it wasn’t really me she wanted. Eventually she rolled off my chest and lay in the bed beside me and cried herself to sleep. She slept through the night, and woke up around 8:00 AM (a good 1.5 hours after jetlag woke me up, thanks for that). She was in a decent mood, and ate breakfast, but quickly deteriorated. I think she was missing some sleep from last night, and as we got closer to her naptime (10 AM), she was acting ill. I knew she needed sleep, so back to bed she went. Again, her heart wanted to break. It’s so pitiful to hear her cry; she sounds so sad.

But the part I’m really having trouble with is discipline. She’s 12 months old, so she doesn’t require much. But there are certain things that she does, willfully, purposefully, knowing she shouldn’t. For instance: banging the laptop. The first time she did it, I told her no (in Russian and English). Then the second, third and fourth time, I told her no and moved her hands away. Then the hundredth and millionth time, I said no with some force and moved her hands away. But I can’t be too hard on her because she doesn’t know me, and she cries like all the world is on her shoulders.

On the other hand, she can’t be allowed more craziness just because she is adopted. I have every intention of raising her exactly as we’ve raised the boys. (And their lives are no picnic, let me tell you.) (Just kidding.) She shouldn’t get off any easier for misbehaving. Except for the simple fact that I have no idea how to discipline her. Even telling her no makes me feel like we’ll never bond and she’ll hate me forever. And when I tell her no, with any force at all, her lips stick out and her chin crinkles up, and you can tell her feelings are hurt, and she wants to cry, but darn that orphanage upbringing, she just can’t do it.

I guess it's all about balance. Enough love and cuddles to let her know that she is loved, and that I am now a permanent fixture. And enough boundaries to let her know the same.

She wants to be held absolutely 100% of the time, which I don’t mind, but makes the logistics hard, showering and so forth. These are the time that I really wish Keith and I were both here together.

So far it’s only Day 1 and I am already feeling like a failure! Cripes, it took me at least a couple of weeks to fail with the boys.

I remember when Ari was born, I made the comment to someone that at any given moment you might find all three of us (Owen, newborn Ari and myself) crying on the couch. That’s how it was when Ari came along, me feeling like World’s Worst Mother, Owen feeling weird with a new baby around, and Ari being all jaundiced and whiny. I thought I ruined everyone’s lives forever. I’m not feeling that with Eva, but I can say this: There is a couch in this hotel room. And at any given moment . . . well, you get the point.

Round 2 - Return to Petro

I made it! After flying:

1.5 hours Nashville to Dulles DC
6.5 hour layover in DC
8 hours DC to Frankfurt
6 hours Frankfurt to Astana
1.5 hours Astana to Almaty
4 hours of sleep and a shower in Almaty
5 hours Almaty to Petropavl

And I was at the baby house at 2:35 PM to pick up Eva. She recognized me, I'm sure of it. We've so far had a bath, a nap, dinner (see picture of beautiful baby all dressed up for dinner), and a walk to the grocery and back. She's in bed now, but not going to sleep. It's hard with no crib, and me sitting here on the couch right beside her. So far we're getting along great, having lots of fun. Her first bath wasn't a great hit, but she wasn't scared, so that's good. And finally, a kid with enough hair to make a true shampoo mohawk!

The flights here were long, and I read three of my four books I brought. Probably okay, since I won't be doing much reading on the trip home.

Crap! She's sitting up again looking at me! How is this supposed to work again, with no crib in a hotel room? It's making me feel awful to put her to bed. She keeps trying to cry, but it's like she doesn't know how. Her face scrunches up, and then she buries it, and tries to muffle any noise that might come out. I guess crying didn't do her any good at the baby house. It's heart-breaking to watch.

I'm getting the feeling from our coordinator here that we may be extending our stay a little longer. I hope not, oh I hope not. I'm ready to get this child home.

And in a crib.

Blogging at you from . . .

Nashville, Tennessee! That's right, a full day past when I should have left the ground, I'm still here. I arrived at the airport yesterday and was immediately sent home. My flight to Dulles was several hours late, meaning I would miss my connection to Frankfurt, meaning I would miss my connection to Almaty - the only flight into Almaty. There's only one per day, and missing it puts me back a full 24 hours. So I came home, slept one more night in my own bed, and we're trying again today. I'm taking an earlier flight to Dulles today, to make sure I don't miss my connection again. I now have a 6+ hour layover in DC. But at least I'll make it to Almaty this time - I hope.

So far, and I'm really hoping this holds true, I'm not being asked to extend my stay in Almaty on the other end of this trip.

So, off to the airport for Operation Eva, take 2.

Don't let the door hit you.

My flight out of Nashville is at 5:59 PM. I'm flying into DC, then into Frankfurt, Germany, and arriving in Almaty. I will be in Petro Thursday evening sometime, which will be Thursday morning for you US folks. Finally back with Evey. Looking forward to that. But not so much looking forward to the flights. By the time I get back to Nashville with the baby, I will have taken 10 flights since leaving today. This for the girl who hates the airplanes.

I managed to keep it to three bags this time! In lieu of 7 from last time. I'm proud, not bad packing for two girls for 11 days.

I don't have time to make a decent update, so this is it for now. See you on the other side of the world!

Home again, home again.

Sunday was our last day with Eva. We only had about an hour with her before our flight left Petro. We took her a few gifts for her birthday, and a moonpie for her first birthday cake. She sat quiet as a little mouse and ate little bites of the cake. She loved her rattle we brought her, and I think she liked her squeaky shoes. We said a very sad goodbye to her, then went to the Petro airport for our plane ride to Almaty.

The plane to Almaty is a 70's Soviet plane. I've heard stories about this old plane, but nothing compares to riding it. We wheeled our own luggage on. The seats were old, mostly broken, green shag. They were very small, only reaching about halfway up our backs. It was the scariest plane ride I've ever been on. About 2 hours in, I started hyperventilating and crying. I hate flying anyway, and this plane just put me over the top. The good news is, I get to take it two more times when I fly back to pick her up.

We stayed in Almaty for only one day (saw the Russian Orthodox church pictured below) before we caught a flight back to London. No problems on any of the flights until we got in to Chicago late Tuesday night. We went to the United desk to check in to our last flight into Nashville, and they didn't show us on the flight. Apparently our travel agent forgot to confirm our reservation, so they gave it away, and now the flight was full. This was about 8 PM, after we'd been up for over 28 straight hours. I just started crying in the airport. We had to get a hotel and stay in Chicago Tuesday night. We caught a flight out on Wednedsday morning, and finally made it home. It was a very long journey, and I am very glad to be home. The boys were happy to see us, and Owen told me that he missed me "really bad."

We showed the videos of Eva to my mom and the boys. Owen actually acted interested, which is a good sign. He said we should think up a game that they could all play, since she can't walk yet. Maybe seeing pictures and videos of her is preparing him for the big change that's coming up.

The boys were well-cared for by all parties, and they are doing just fine. Owen is extra-sensitive right now, especially to discipline, but I think he's just trying to get back into the swing of having Mom and Dad home. I sure missed them!

I'll be flying out again either next Sunday or Monday. I need to be back in Petro to pick Eva up on Wednesday the 19th at the latest. I cannot express how much I am dreading flying again, especially the long flights home when it's just me and her. But I also cannot express how excited I am to get back to her and bring her home!

I'll update again on this page when I head back to Petro!