We Met Our Son!!

On May 16, 2011 we finally met our son!!! After about an hours drive from Volgograd we arrived at his orphanage and met with the orphanage social worker first (at least we think that's who we met with...it's all very confusing). She showed us his birth certificate, a picture of him at birth and a couple other documents. We signed a book saying that we were visiting him and then headed to the orphanage doctor.

The absolute coolest thing though happened when they showed us his birth certificate........He was born on our exact due date. How amazing is that?? It gives me chills when I think about the way God has orchestrated every little bit of this process. When she showed me that date on the birth certificate I think my mouth dropped and I know I started to cry. I just can't get over how amazing our Lord is.

When we met with the doctor it was quite confusing. She was talking, our translator was kind of translating...I say kind of because the doctor would talk for like a minute going non stop and then our translator would say something like "he gets a lot of colds" and I'm wondering what else she said because regardless of the language that does not take that long to say. Anyway, we learned a little bit more about him and then they brought him in for us to see. Holy cow this kid is cute! He was wearing a little do-rag, jeans and a little blue shirt. Oh my goodness adorableness. He started crying almost immediately when he saw Barry because they don't see many, if any men. After a brief introduction they left and let us finish our appointment with the doctor.

Then it was time to actually spend time with him! They led us to a room with a couple couches and a mat on the floor to play on (definitely not air conditioned). His caregiver brought him in and he started crying again...we were sitting back trying to let him warm up to us when his caregiver came and sat on the couch next to us and placed him next to her and then walked out. Screaming continued. I am sure she had to get back to other kids but I hate she just left him like that. So then I went and picked him up and poor baby never quite recovered. We were in there for maybe 30 minutes and he cried the whole time. Barry and I both tried to hold him, distract him, sing, rub his head, etc but he was just a very sad and scared little boy.

As sad as it was to see him so upset though that was such a good sign!! It shows that he is attached to his caregivers, which many children from an orphanage do not have. Once a child has attached to a caregiver, the easier it is for them to attach to others...if a child has never learned to trust and attach, the harder it is to learn how to do so.

We took a few pictures but really spent most of the time trying to get him to calm down and trust us. We never knew spending 30 minutes with a crying child could be so fun. :) It really was a surreal experience...I'm not sure it really hit me that the child I was holding was MY son. I will say though that there was a little bit of a "what's wrong with me, why can't I calm my own child" type of feeling. Which I know is completely ridiculous because he doesn't know us from Adam (speaking of...that saying makes no sense...why Adam??). And we wanted to see that separation anxiety! It still made me feel helpless though.

When we left we started praying that the next day he would begin to warm up to us and begin to trust us! More on that to come! The suspense...

And I'll leave you with a few completely unrelated pictures just because I can...

A newspaper in Russian...

And where our hotel is located...