1st Trip continued

Like I said in the last post, Tuesday's visit went much better. Bryson even seemed to be a different person during this visit. He has really attached to Shane and I admit that made me a little jealous, but I know my time will come. It was actually great to see him attach to Shane since there are no men at this orphanage, so he is not familiar with them. After our visit, we went back to the hotel to meet up with T & H. We then went to dinner and went to the market to get some drinks and snacks. Wednesday morning, we signed the agreement to adopt (or whatever it is called) and gave him his name: Bryson Aleksandr. At 3p, we headed off to the orphanage for our last visit. This visit was the best. We spent 2 hours with him and we had so much fun. He is really not that interested in toys, but we will change that. He is teething and enjoyed chewing on the toy cell phone we brought him. He enjoyed us building things with the blocks so he could knock them over. His favorite color appears to be yellow. He would only grab for the yellow blocks and stacking cups. He is only able to take a few steps while holding our hands. He would hold Shane's hands so tight while he walked that the top of his tiny fingers would turn white. We were able to bring him to his room that night. It was so hard to leave him there. It took me a few days to realize that he was meant to be my son and I fell in love with him all over again. I am a little biased, but he is the most adorable little boy ever. He has the most beautiful big brown eyes and extremely long eyelashes. I can't begin to tell you how many times we looked at his pictures in the hotel room and on the planes. I must say, he is quite the little picture taker. Most times he would look right at the camera when I was taking his picture.

Thursday morning we were to meet in the lobby of the hotel and we headed to the airport. We landed back in Moscow around 9:30a. We originally had a 10a appointment for our 8 doctor medical, but we we met up with one of our coordinators, she said the clinic was closed that day. She was able to get us a 4p appointment at another clinic. By the time we dropped T & H off at the international airport, drove to the Marriott and checked in, it was already noon. We had lunch and laid down for about an hour, then it was off to the doctors. The only thing I can say about the 8 doctor medical: interesting. It took almost 3 hours and we didn't get back till around 8p. We had planned to sight see that day, but because of the later doctor appointment, we didn't get to.

We did get to see snow for the first time. I can't begin to tell you how cold it was in Novo. We have never really been out of the country, so this trip was a little bit of a culture shock. Russia is very different than the US and you have to just embrace it and go with the flo. Trust me though, that is not always easy to do.

We are not really sure how long it will be in between trips. She said she will do her best to try and get us in before Christmas, but we really don't know. We will keep praying and crossing our fingers. That would be the best Christmas gift ever. If I thought waiting for a referral was hard, waiting to see him again will be even harder.