Adoption journey story part #5

It was day nine on our little adventure and my 28th birthday (April 5, 2003).

"This morning I woke up feeling quite crappy. I didn't sleep very well last night. I had cornflake (well, Ukrainian version of them anyway) for breakfast. We went to visit Rachel and Jenny at the baby house around 10:00. Jenny was cute today. She sounded congested so she might be getting a chest cold. She sat on my lap and was content to just hold the board books. Not open them. Just hold them. Mike had brought some cookies- contraband- and he gave her one. She put the whole thing in her mouth at once! After that she let Mike hold her (I think she wanted more of the cookies) for awhile.

Then we went in to Rachel's groupa. So far we have only been allowed to interact with Rachel and her groupa. The other girls are brought to us separately and we don't see any of the other children that they spend their whole time with. Anyway, Mike tried to videotape Rachel running over to us again, but he was too slow. We played puzzles and blocks with her. She is a little smarty and is good at figuring out how things go together. I really don't see any of the "developmental delays" that we were told she had.

We ate at McDonalds again for lunch. I hate McDonalds personally, but thank heavens for food that I feel very comfortable eating. Then we went to the store and bought coats for the girls.

We went at 4:00 to take Meghan to the park to play. She likes riding in the taxi. I videotaped Mike swinging her around. She sure likes to giggle! We took her back around 6:00 for her dinner time. The orphanage smells like fish. I think that must be what they eat for dinner. I can hardly stand the smell. Yuck!

We went to the Internet Cafe to check our emails and for Mike to find out about getting some money wired to us. Apparently we didn't bring enough cash to pay for things that have to be with cash since we are adopting three and not one or two. But we found out that Bernadette sent out an email to everyone already about us adopting the girls. So now our fun secret is out! We had a ton of messages full of everyone already freaking out about us getting three kids! Wait til we get home and tell them I'm pregnant! Ha Ha Our parents emailed and said that they HAVE tried to call us but haven't been able to get through. Stupid phone lines!"

* Bernadette was one of the people in the office here in the U.S. that helped us get our paperwork together and coordinate travel and retained regular contact with the office there in Kiev.