Impressions of a first day

Patrick's point of view.... after about 3 hours of sleep we were up and going. Masha ( our life saving interpreter) picked us up for our appointment with the Ministry of Education. After several hours of intense questioning (actually, it took about 10-15 minutes, but my stomach thought it was several hours) we received our invitation to go to the orphanage where we were presented with two possible children in a small room with our interpreter and the orphanage doctor ( a very nice lady). After about and hour we were asked if we would be able to choose. Did I mention the stomach that had issues during the lengthy interview at the ministry was butterfly central during this initial play session? But some how one of the little boys did pull at our hears and will be the one we will continue with (see Karen's comment below about one of the reasons we chose Nurik (spelling uncertain, though this abbreviated version of his name is easier to pronounce than his full name). Nurik will turn 3 years old this month and is extremely cute, quiet (as to be expected) and as we found out can be very persistent. This whole process took about 2 hours so needless to say Karen and I are still very much deer in the headlight right now. We went to lunch with our ever helpful interpreter. She has been and will continue to be a constant help for us strangers in a strange land. We spent the rest of the day shopping for groceries and a hair dryer for Karen (being a slave to fashion that I am, I bet mos of you thought the hair dryer would be for me). We have been working on figuring out a proper name for Nurik, thought we will probably keep his first name as a middle name to keep part of his heritage. We will go back to the orphanage later tomorrow morning to begin the process of becoming a family and I can say that I am excited, stressed, nervous, and very happy (all these emotions working at ever changing levels throughout this day... and I am sure for the days to come)

Karen's point of view..... I will try to be more brief in upcoming blogs but probably not. Lack of sleep and big travel acclimation has left me weary and shell-shocked. When we arrived last night late and Masha told us that we would meet our child today, I was a bit overwhelmed. I just couldn't imagine entering the most important day of this experience as a zombie. I just prayed over and over during the night that God would just give me strength to get thru the day. I have been fighting a huge onslaught of apparently every other kind of allergenic trigger that maybe I just hadn't experienced yet because I didn't live here. New Air and environment, New allergies. I have been fighting valiantly with all of the travel pharmacy but this morning, I just felt like a truck hit me....going in and out of extreme temperatures is not helping. When we got in the taxi to drive to the orphanage to pick up paperwork, I just stared at the building knowing that just inside those doors there was a child whose life we were going to be allowed to change forever. A big responsibility! We headed to what the translator described as their City Hall. We had the short interview and took a short detour to the grocery for water and a little toy. We had forgotten to bring one in the dazed rush of the morning. As we drove to the orphanage, I still couldn't believe that we were going to do this when I could barely spell my name. We met with the Dr. and she asked us a few questions and told us a little about the boys before they brought them in. I was a little shocked that they were not bringing us a baby but only because I had switched back and forth between ages so much and we just thought we would get a little one since we were not getting siblings. It reminds me of the Greater Vision song that I brought with me ....GOD'S got a bigger thing going on than our little bitty eyes can see....So true! Honestly, one of the first coherent thoughts that I can remember thinking when she started with their ages was....but we packed all of that baby stuff! Ugh! But, then, thru the haze, I thought I heard her say one of their birthdays was coming up. And, sister, correct me if I am wrong but didn't you say maybe God will give you a sign or something like they were born on Papa Carmon's birthday. Well, Guess what day Nurik will turn 3... on papa Carmon's birthday, February 22nd. It kind of made me chuckle at first but we didn't have much else to start the process with because all I really felt was numb. I wanted to feel a flood of emotion and know exactly that we had seen our child but with our tired, mental state, I just couldn't feel anything. We played with both of them for a bit and Nurik definitely stepped out of his comfort zone and approached each of us on his on terms and the other child did not seem to want to interact much at all. I will tell you this was one of the weirdest experiences of my life trying to just decide which one fits, which one feels right, but something about Nurik kept my heart interested. He was very intrigued with Pat's water bottle and kept wanting to open it himself and then proceeded to drink it all. The other little one got in on this activity as well which still goes to prove that you can have all the toyrs in the world and they still pick the simple stuff. As they left for the day, they both turned around and said good bye or Paka Paka in Russian. Oh, did I mention that these boys are Kazak and not Russian so they have learned more Kazak than Russian, but they did say the knew short phrases and words in Russian so I guess they will fit right in with us! When they said this experience would have all ranges of emotion they were right on. I felt so scared that I had not had that rush of emotion that I thought I needed but as the day progressed and I felt worse physically at one point, I began to feel at peace with our choice. I will say, in many ways, relieved also that we finally could sit down and look at all of the positives of bringing Nurik home with us. As Pat and I pondered over the day after a long nap and lots of water, I could sense the feelings starting to emerge of excitement and anticipation about seeing him the next day, naming him , playing with him, introducing him to all of his new friends (sorry, Emma Claire, he won't need a pacifier! ) that will be very similar in age, and just the future in general. We both are being patient with ourselves and feel more relaxed not that we know that we will continue to feel better after all of that travel and stress and that a range of emotions is OK and normal. I am sure Nurik will go thru the same things but for now as we go to bed after our first day, I can say that I am thrilled to start this bonding process (scared too) but feel at peace which is a huge answer to our prayers. Oh yeah, and we are going to have to do a lot of shipping and returning as we definitely brought more baby stuff than little boy stuff so stay tuned for our shipping requests. Love you all and thanks for your abundant prayers. I could definitely feel God's presence thru the day. Please pray that our allergies will calm down so we can function without too many meds and enjoy our next 2 weeks of bonding time.