This Date In History 6/24/07 - Our Adoption Story

Sunday, June 24, 2007

After sending our update last night, David and I decided to go back to our room and pop open the bottle of champagne from the hotel. It was a very cool evening so we decided to get some fresh air into our room. We open up the windows. It felt very nice. However, two problems with that. (1) Open windows allow mosquitoes to come in!!! I always kick my feet out of the blankets so the mosquitoes had a field day on my ankles. (2) There was partying outside the hotel along the river literally ALL NIGHT!. It was 4:30 am and they were still partying away! At that time we ended up closing the windows and turning on the A/C to drown them out. I normally sleep through anything but they were LOUD! We found out this morning that the partying was high school graduation celebrations. I guess this will continue for the next few nights. It now explains why the Riverfront was so crowded last night. The outdoor bars were packed, the DJs were doing their thing and the dance floors were full. Although from our perspective, there is not much to do in Astrakhan but I guess it is actually considered a “resort” town here. Mini river cruise ships begin to dock on Fridays and you can definitely see an increase of activity over the weekends!

This morning we had a visit with Madeline. On the way to our visit, we stopped at a local baby/toy store as we had to buy a hat for Madeline. They will not let her go with us without a sun hat. In fact, it seems as though that is the protocol here. All young children are always seen with a hat on. We do have a very pretty hat with us but it does not match the outfit we plan to have the infants home put her in when we pick Madeline up. (She is not even able to keep the clothes on her back) So we got a cream-colored “all-purpose” hat to match any occasion. All I need is for Madeline to say to me when she sees pictures 10 yeas from now..”MMoooommm….couldn’t you even dress me in a *matching* outfit?!?!” New hat – problem solved!

Today’s visits were the most difficult to leave. Although we only have to wait until tomorrow, Madeline is beginning to show that she is torn as to who she should go with, the home care-giver or us. We very much can’t wait to pick her up tomorrow but at the same time we are apprehensive of the loss of freedom ability to be spontaneous. After 9 years of marriage, we’ve been able to go and do whenever we wanted to. It’ll be a big change. We’ll adjust just like every parent does and we know it’ll be worth it.

We ate a larger, later lunch today. Chinese food. We spent our last evening of “freedom” by going on a Volga River cruise with Karen and Hubert and then went out for cheese/fruit platter and beer. We came back to the lobby hotel and had more beers and awaited the arrival of another couple working through our agency

We requested the hotel to put a crib in our room…..We are now ready!