First Trip to Baby House

We’ll cut right to the chase. We think we’ve met our son. We had one visit with him this afternoon, and we will meet with the baby house doctor tomorrow to learn more about him. He is 16 months old, and he is adorable. He is very shy and reserved, and he is downright scared to death of Glenn (I think it’s the beard and the Cincinnati Bengals hat – I think the little guy is frightened that we might expect him, too, to become a Bengals fan.) I’m guessing that he is wearing 12-month sized clothing … he’s small for his age, but not tiny. He is toddling around a bit, although he primarily stood frozen in fear when I tried to encourage him to walk.

So many people write about “knowing their child the minute they laid eyes on him.” We aren’t those people. This entire experience is so surreal, and it still feels like one big process to us. Fly through last minute paperwork. Check. Obtain Visas. Check. Survive three flights to reach Almaty. Check. Successfully locate and board domestic flight to Ust. Check. Meet two children. Check. Pick one. Check. Start to bond. Check. We are so thankful that we took great classes at Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital, where we were reminded that “some people hear angels singing, and others do not.” We’ve yet to hear angels singing, although we did a lot of praying when our car was pulled over by the police on the way to the baby house for our first official visit. This is not the “good sign” that we were seeking! We think it was for a traffic violation -- which is ironic since we’ve yet to be able to figure out if there are any traffic rules (even “drive on the correct side of the road” is interpreted loosely), so I’m not sure how you know if you’ve broken a traffic rule. But, since our driver doesn’t speak a lick of English, we still aren’t sure what exactly happened. All we know is that after waiting for 10 minutes while he sat in the police car, he made his way back to our car and we continued our trip. Always the adventure.

We will try to be honest with our thoughts. This child is absolutely adorable, and we know that with love he will come out of his shell, but we also suspect that we could love any child that was placed before us. To steal Suzanne’s observation (the plagiarizing of her work continues), it’s not about whether or not we can love this child, it’s about whether or not we can parent this child. And, we are figuring that out.

So, regarding our new best friends Suzanne and Matthew. Words can’t explain how grateful and blessed we are that they are here and that they are so generous with their time and support. (And, they are BUSY with their two kids!) We have a renewed understanding and an overwhelming respect for anyone who travels to a region alone. Karen & Pat, I am going to re-read every word of your blog with a new perspective. Solely because of Suz and Matt (and Amy’s great map), we are already starting to feel like we are getting the lay of the land. We can walk to most anything that we need, and we think we even found a good path on which to go running along the river. We are craving a routine during which our bodies know when to sleep and when to be awake, and we look forward to the day that our stomachs stop gurgling.

We will go to the baby house twice each day – we believe 10:00 – 11:30 each morning, and 4-5 each afternoon. We are permitted to go outside with the baby, so we hope to be able to do so for some great one-on-one time. We understand that three more families are arriving tomorrow, so we think it will feel pretty crowded in the visiting room.

There is so much more to say, but it’s late, and tomorrow is another day. We’re still trying to sort out the Internet, which is not as readily available as we had hoped it would be. 95% of what we know about this process we learned from blogs and Yahoo groups, and we feel very compelled to continue to share that knowledge forward.

Don’t forget to keep Matt and Suz in your thoughts and prayers as they head to court on Tuesday. We look forward to celebrating with them Tuesday night. BTW, we met their son today, so we can share as objective observers that he is the cutest two year old in Kaz.